VR Communication: Emotion and Psychotherapy

By Andrew Chen

Introduction

By far, the most criticized feature of virtual reality technology is its inability to replicate what we consider "proper" communication. Developments in terms of virtual social interaction have been largely lackluster, due to the intricacies needed to perfectly mimic human communication. In this article, I will explain the important factors that make up social interaction as well as the current areas of improvement needed for virtual reality to replicate “perfect” social interaction, including the technological capabilities of to create real-life emotion, facial expressions and gestures. While communication through VR technology is currently unable to fully mirror real-life communication, I believe that virtual reality technology has already reached the point where it can be useful in the field of psychotherapy.

Most of this article will be centered around the psychotherapeutic aspects of VR communication. With virtual reality, the creation of virtual environments and situations can be used to elicit positive emotions such as happiness. In addition, complexed feelings such as confidence, empathy and kindness are shown in various studies able to be elicited through VR-simulated social interactions, which would be of great use to assisting and supporting individuals with difficulty with social skills. On the other hand, research has also shown that virtual reality can be used to nullifying or modifying negative emotions, specifically fear. With the capabilities to eliminate fear, virtual reality can be used to address anxiety disorders such as PTSD or any phobias and can be modeled around the patient’s specific disorder and the severity of the issue.

Towards the end of the article, I will also address the topic of future implications for the psychological field through the use of VR communication. With virtual reality, the field of psychotherapy and the field of psychology as a whole will be completely changed, with a new medium of conducting psychological research and providing new forms of psychotherapy.

Communication

Communication is much more complex than most would assume. In most situations, the word "communication" is used interchangeably with speech and language. However, communication should be considered any exchange of information between two or more individuals, and therefore includes much more than basic dialogue. These different features of social interactions can be grouped into two main qualities: implicit and explicit feedback. Explicit feedback consists of the content of the communication, which is often used and conveyed through language. On the other hand, implicit feedback is made up of indirect expressions of information such as body movements, facial expressions, specific speech patterns and non-verbal cues. True communication is formed through a mixture of these two qualities; explicit feedback provides the basic information, while the implicit feedback tweaks the presentation of the message. As social creatures, humans need a mixture of these two forms of feedback to properly convey the message behind what we say and do. Since communication requires so many complex factors, we need VR to be more or less a perfect replica of real-life social interactions, or else the virtual experience would continue to feel slightly strange and unnatural.

With so many aspects needed to build natural communication, it shouldn't be surprising that VR technology has not been to create virtual worlds able to fully replicate real-life social interaction. While video games have began to present many realistic character facial features, there are still much to improve on to reach perfection. However, I will proceed to argue that emotion can transcend the current flaws within VR communication technology.

Emotion

Emotions play a key role in communication, but is also one of the main reasons that we communicate all together. Much of the information that species within the animal kingdom pass to each other is rooted in our expression of emotion. For instance, dogs wagging their tails to present excitement, and cats raise theirs to symbolize aggression. Humans are no different. A person that is slouched over, with their head down is likely to be sad or depressed. Human connections and relationships are made and continuously shaped by emotion, whether it is through happiness, sadness or hatred.

In the current virtual world, the way we convey emotions is diluted by the flaws of the virtual technology capabilities. The specific details needed to present the body movements, specific cultural cues and facial expressions are extremely hard to design. Virtual reality, at its current state, is unable to properly convey the scrunched-up face, projected voice and erratic arm movements of a frustrated individual through a virtual avatar.

However, we do not need perfect communication to facilitate emotions. Emotion is so deeply tied to how we think and act, that even when virtual reality is faulty in terms of proving true communication, we will still project our emotions onto our decision-making in the virtual world, whether it is consciously or sub-consciously. Studies mentioned within my paper bring up multiple research based around fostering emotions through social virtual settings. With how intertwined our minds are with emotion, even while imperfect, VR presents a great platform for psychotherapy in terms of building, fostering and eliminating emotions.

Psychotherapy

Psychotherapy is the form of treatment used to address and overcome psychological conflicts. Often, it includes talking to a therapist, and is centered around better understanding one's own feelings, emotions and thoughts. Through this process, a patient is able to better interpret their thoughts and learn how to address the psychological issues at hand. Goals behind psychotherapy can vary widely, from solving relationship problems to overcoming psychological disorders.

With the specific capabilities of VR, psychotherapy in a virtual setting can provide new and innovative ways of addressing psychological issues. The nature of VR allows therapists to form treatment programs specifically to deal with the unique problems of each patient.

In the following section, I will address how emotions can be changed through VR in two ways: building positive/helpful emotions and removing negative/unwanted emotions. With the implementation of VR psychotherapy, we will have a new source of treatment to address psychological conflict and improve human psychological well-being.

Positive Emotions

A big part of psychotherapy is associating positive emotions to psychological conflicts, and slowing relieving the psychological burden of the issue. In " The Proteus Effect" by Yee and Bailenson, they highlight how a user's self-perception in the virtual world can influence their behavior and actions. This discovery symbolizes potential benefits of using VR to illicit positive emotions such as kindness and happiness. More recently, research regarding the use of virtual reality in fostering more complex feelings such as gratitude and empathy have been conducted successfully, demonstrating many promising uses of this technology in the field of psychotherapy. Even outside of psychotherapy, the power to create positive emotions can be used work on improving the culturally and socially divided world that exists today.

Confidence

In many forms of psychotherapy, confidence is the first step needed in the long progress towards recovery. One study mentioned in my paper was centered around the successful use of VR social simulations, such as interacting with virtual avatar classmates, and how it helped increase sociable behavior with children with high-functioning autism.

Kindness

Studies have shown that kindness can be fostered through virtual experiences. For instance, a study of a superhero VR simulation revealed that participating in a virtual world and acting within a hero's persona can change the way they behave when the simulation ended and the participant exited the virtual setting (my paper goes over the details of this study).

Empathy

Virtual Reality provides a new way of building empathy between different people. Currently, empathy can only interpreted based on one's own perspective on someone else's life. However, VR allows its users to embody the virtual representation of the person that they want to empathize with, creating even deeper levels of empathy.

Negative emotions

Just like positive emotions, negative emotions can be altered through virtual reality as well. If horror games such as Five Nights at Freddy's are centered around generating fear, we should similarly be able to remove fear through a virtual environment. This is called exposure therapy, a form of psychotherapeutic treatment centered around using repeated fear inducing stimuli to nullify the fear associated with a specific object or concept. Exposure therapy can be used to treat a wide range of disorders such as social anxiety disorders, PTSD and other general phobias.

PTSD

Victims suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder can utilize VR simulations created to address their specific forms of trauma. Since trauma often stems from horrific acts of terror and violence, VR simulations can provide a safe platform for the victims to work on eliminating their fear response without exposing them to real forms of danger or harm.

Social anxiety

Emotions underlying social anxiety such as fear can be worked on through the use of VR. There are already VR games that are used to help individuals that have a hard time with public speaking through a virtual simulation of an avatar crowd. While not a perfect representation of a real world audience, it still provides the stimuli for the individual to address their anxiety.

Beyond Psychotherapy

Besides shaping the world of psychotherapy, the future of virtual reality will change the field of psychology as a whole.

Conducting social psychology experiments will be completely different with the introduction of virtual reality. For instance, the ability to shape the virtual worlds and virtual simulations gives researchers more experimental control over their studies, which will lead to more accurate data. Furthermore, the use of virtual reality would make repeating experiments a lot more easier. With the addition of AI technology as a tool to assist therapists and scientists, many possibilities await in the field of both psychotherapy and psychology.

Conclusion

Communication through virtual reality is undeniably still missing many features needed to perfectly mimic real-life human interaction. However, the importance of emotion in the human psyche allows our minds to work around the flaws of virtual reality communication to foster positive emotions and nullify negative emotions through a virtual setting. We should not ignore VR as a potential asset to the field of psychotherapy, and should continue conducting research studies into better understanding the role of VR in altering emotions.

If you would like to learn more about VR communication and its current/future impact on the world of psychotherapy, please check out my research paper on the topic!

Picture References:

https://theconversation.com/inspired-magical-connected-how-virtual-reality-can-make-you-well-87665

https://www.dardiscommunications.com/2019/07/boost-your-confidence/

https://experiencelife.lifetime.life/article/the-power-of-kindness/

https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/neuroscience-empathy

https://www.nami.org/Blogs/NAMI-Blog/October-2020/7-Tools-for-Managing-Traumatic-Stress

https://goop.com/wellness/health/how-to-manage-social-anxiety/

https://www.therapycts.com/blog/2020/8/21/common-phobias-and-phobia-treatment-optionsnbsp

https://uxdesign.cc/emotive-design-6a5b78b56527

https://www.vectorstock.com/royalty-free-vector/psychotherapy-concept-with-female-patient-vector-22709780

https://www.freepik.com/premium-vector/think-positive-design_3834683.htm

https://www.theweek.in/news/health/2019/03/29/Virtual-reality-therapy-may-be-effective-in-treating-autism-Parkinsons.html