Virtual reality presents answer to driving phobias

November 30, 2009 - 3:26 am | 26 views

Technology.am (Nov 30, 2009) — Nervous drivers are being helped and assisted to conquer their road phobias by donning Cyclops-style goggles that conveys them to a three-dimensional virtual world.

menchester Researchers at The University of Manchester have recruited volunteers with a diversity of driving phobias to analysis whether virtual reality can be used along with usual psychological therapies to assist tackle their fears.

The Virtual Reality Exposure Treatment (VRET) will let participants to drive on virtual roads and face up to their fears, whether they may be driving over bridges, overtaking slow-moving traffic or taking to the motorway or dual-carriageway.

“Phobias can develop from a real-life affair but the levels of nervousness and evasion that results becomes completely unequal to the event that led to the fear and can become a main disturbance to the manner people lead their lives,” said Caroline Williams, who will be carrying out the research in Manchester’s School of Psychological Sciences.

“A fear of driving, whether it has developed subsequent to a road traffic accident or for other reasons, can rise into a condition where individuals are too frightened to drive at all.

“The benefit of using VRET is that it can be carried out in a secure environment rather than on real roads, which in severe cases, could position the volunteers, therapists and perhaps other road-users at danger through the taking up of defensive driving behaviors, for example braking harder or going slow on motorways, by the phobic matter. It too helps the individual with a phobia to endure the level of experience to the fear as it is strongly restricted.”

The volunteers will put on the hi-tech goggles, which look like those worn by the X-Men character Cyclops, to move them into a virtual driving world, while sensors positioned on their fingertips and chest region will gauge anxiety levels.

Some of the volunteers taking part in the study have developed their fear subsequent to an accident but others have no apparent cause. Amongst the phobias are fears of driving over bridges and fears of motorways: even the view of blue motorway signs can be a set off for some people.

“Future studies could use the virtual cure to undertake other phobias which could signify a main advance in this kind of therapy; the potential could be never-ending.”

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