Using Virtual Reality To Combat Fear

As the season of Halloween approaches, we thought now would be an appropriate time to discuss the very real issue of “Fear.” Phobias, anxieties and paranoia are much more common across America than you may realize and for many, they can have crippling consequences. One of the more encouraging stories on this topic came from The Independent and discussed how technology is being used to help people overcome issues that may be plaguing them.

This latest news concerns Virtual Reality (“VR” for short) and the idea that can people can face their darkest fears in a controlled setting. One example given concerns a phobia of heights, which can impede people from working in tall buildings or boarding airplanes. In this scenario, subjects put on VR glasses and are given “virtual challenges” that put them atop high peaks in the safety of a therapist’s office. Counselors are there to guide them every step of the way and can turn off the experience at a moment’s notice.

“A fear of heights is just the most common type of phobia, and one we know a lot of people do not get treatment for despite it impinging on many people’s lives quite a lot,” University of Oxford professor Daniel Freeman told The Guardian. “What is hugely encouraging here is just the size of the treatment effects; it is really very large. And the results with this are very encouraging.”

Freeman has been part of an ongoing study analyzing VR treatment for phobias. Not only is he using it to combat height issues, he is also exploring ways virtual reality can treat depression and schizophrenia. In regards to the height experiment, he tested 100 adults who claimed to suffer from this type of paranoia. Among them, exactly half were given VR sessions two to three times a week. After a period of months, 68% claimed their fears had lessened.

As he explained to The Independent, there was a strict regimen that accompanies each session. For these experiments, coaches would slowly put subjects on different floors of a VR building and ask them to perform activities (such as picking fruit, which is shown below). Pep talks and surveys would be implemented, slowly building people’s confidence as they stepped into higher and higher scenarios.

These certainly sound like encouraging results to us and we are excited to see how this type of treatment progresses. In the meantime, however, we offer our own support systems for those dealing with daily phobias and are more than happy to make ourselves available.

Using Technology To Identify Depression

 

 

Depression certainly has its symptoms and indicators, but what if there was a more advanced way to identify it? Over as the esteemed Massachusetts college MIT, researchers have been testing an artificial intelligence system that may be able to flag warning signs based on the way that we communicate.

 

This groundbreaking research actually analyzes speech and text messages to see if certain patterns appear that may indicate depression. Incorporating the use of a neural network model; the A.I. listens to (or reads) conversations, then provides a diagnosis. Interestingly, no direct questions or answers are necessary. For this to work, people just need to carry out regular conversations.

 

“We call it ‘context-free’ because you’re not putting any constraints into the types of questions you’re looking for and the type of responses to those questions,” MIT analyst Tuka Alhanai explained. “If you want to deploy [depression-detection] models in a scalable way… you want to minimize the amount of constraints you have on the data you’re using. You want to deploy it in any regular conversation and have the model pick up, from the natural interaction, the state of the individual.”

 

Trigger points that may lead to a depression diagnosis include longer pauses between words or a slower pattern of speech. When it comes to texting, words like “low,” “sad” or “down” raise the red flags. Patterns are sought out as well, indicating that these types of behaviors happen regularly when a particular person is having a long dialogue.

 

“The model sees sequences of words or speaking style, and determines that these patterns are more likely to be seen in people who are depressed or not depressed,” Alhanai added. “Then, if it sees the same sequences in new subjects, it can predict if they’re depressed too.”

 

Though it’s still in the testing phase, Alhanai has high hopes for making these A.I. programs more available. He did not rule out the possibility of turning this tool into a Smartphone app that can be used for voice recordings and alerts. He also foresees doctors and counselors using it for their own professional assessments.

 

One other interesting stat mentioned in the article was the fact that 37 percent of people suffering from depression in the U.S. continue to go undiagnosed. And as we all know, these types of dark feelings can be a gateway to addiction, self-harm or even suicide. Let’s hope this future tech can decrease that number.