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Interactive Highly Realistic Virtual Reality for Analysis and Management of Paranoid Thinking
PI

Prof Alan Chalmers

Prof Swaran Singh                           
Co-I

Dr Matthew Broome

Dr Silvester Czanner

Project Goal: To investigate the potential for using Virtual Reality - Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (VR-CBT) for the diagnosis, assessment and treatment of schizophrenia.

Relevance of the Research:  Schizophrenia is a devastating lifelong psychotic disorder with a poor prognosis. In 2004-5 the estimated total societal cost of schizophrenia was £6.7 billion. National guidelines recommend the provision of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) to all those suffering with psychotic disorders, but there is a lack of trained therapists in the UK.

Previous VR based solutions have typically been developed for experimental purposes and used avatars and scenes which cannot be manipulated interactively.  The level of realism of the virtual environment has to be carefully considered if the virtual scenes and the avatars are to be able to induce a feeling of presence and thus the same emotional response as in reality.   In addition there needs to be an ability to introduce a variety of relevant contexts used in CBT for schizophrenia.

VR-CBT systems potentially offer many advantages over traditional methods of treatment for a range of behavioural disorders.  They have been shown to substantially reduce the length of treatment and reduce relapse rates. Developing automated technologies that can serve as an adjunct to conventional CBT will enhance the provision of such therapy, possibly enabling patients to become experts in, and providers of, their own treatment and decreasing the number of sessions needed to be led by a trained CBT therapist.

The Approach: The project combined the disciplines of visualisation and cognitive psychology to provide insights into new ways to diagnose and treat schizophrenia using a VR-CBT system.  The objectives were to -

Select a suitable urban location to be captured and recreated in a virtual environment

Implement the virtual scenario on a VR system and add realistic figures exhibiting potentially threatening behaviour.

Recruit volunteer subjects to be assessed in the virtual environment.

Run detailed psychophysical experiments on the volunteer subjects.

Assess experimental outputs and disseminate findings.

Partners: There were no industrial partners in the projects.  Prof Max Birchwood (University of Birmingham) and Dr Dan Freeman (Kings College London) provided academic input to the work.

Research Outputs:

A highly realistic multi-modal (graphics and audio) virtual urban setting was developed based on an actual street in the deprived area of Handsworth, Birmingham, including both the environment and virtual people (avatars). In the scenario considered, the user of the system (see Figure 1) sits at a bus stop waiting for a bus. The subject's exposure lasts for 4 minutes -

  1. 0:00 - 1:30mins: nothing happens, just the background with people and cars
  2. 1:30 - 1:40mins: aggressive looking young men arrive (see Figure 2)
  3. 1:40 - 3:30mins: aggressive looking young men stand around
  4. 3:30 – 4.00mins: bus arrives and at the same time aggressive looking young men leave
  5. 4:00mins: end of experiment

32 non-clinical individuals took part in the experiment. These were students recruited from the Campus of the University of Warwick.

Conclusive proof was obtained that high-quality virtual environments can indeed trigger paranoid experiences and thus may be used to investigate (and later help treat) environmental triggers for psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia.

 The results of the experiment also showed that normal people (non-clinical population) have no concerns or hesitation in using VR technology but on the contrary, a very positive attitude towards it, and that the technology used seems to be appropriate.

Publications: The research has been disseminated in 1 journal paper and 1 conference paper.  A further journal paper is in preparation (September 2011).

What Difference Will the Project Make?   The project partners from Warwick and Birmingham Universities are now seeking funding to support a Virtual Psychosis Research Centre (VPRC) to run collaborative projects on VR and psychosis (including schizophrenia and paranoia).

Interested?  For more information and to discuss possible future collaboration please contact Professor Alan Chalmers, WMG, or Professor Swaran Singh, Warwick Medical School, University of Warwick, CV4 7AL.

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