Virtual Reality has been able to get a lot of good PR for a treatment which, at least in some" cases, is "virtually" useless. When VR was tried for treating fear of flying, the research showed that VR was ONLY as good as their so-called control group: a group of people who merely sat on a parked airliner and thought about flying.
If that was not bad enough, the prople promoting VR claimed the research showed VR was equal to a traditional fear of flying program. Not so! A traditional fear of flying program is a lot more than sitting on a parked airplane. It involves learning how flying works, learning and practicing relaxation exercises, and taking an actual flight.
In other words, VR claims were at least misleading and some would say fraudulent. See the research at http://www.apa.org/releases/flyingfear.html
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A Violent Virtual Cure
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The biggest advantage of virtual reality is control. If the exposure proves to be too much for the patient, therapists can simply turn off the simulation. Researchers can more easily determine which stimuli elicit certain responses in the virtual world than in the ambiguity of everyday life. When Dr. Daniel Freeman, author of "Paranoia: The 21st-Century Fear," wanted to determine the level of paranoid thinking in the general population, he looked to virtual reality because it's much easier to design a study when you can control exactly which stimuli a subject is exposed to. He developed a simulated ride on the London Underground, a setting already charged by fear of terrorist attacks, and found that a significant number of people responded to normal behavior, such as someone's making brief eye contact on the train, with mistrust.
The virtual world may also one day help ordinary people kick back and relax. VR applications like those that help burn victims take their minds off pain during excruciating medical treatments could provide a respite from demanding jobs, day-to-day stress or economic turmoil. What that might look like is anybody's guess. Virtual cocktail hour, anyone?
© 2008
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