Imma Perfetto
Cosmos science journalist
This summer while many people will be heading to the beach and pool in droves, for some a fear of water will prevent them from reaping the mental and physical benefits of water-based recreation.
It’s been estimated that 2 to 3% of all people suffer a debilitating aversion to water, a problem which affects children more than adults.
Researchers in Melbourne from Monash University’s Exertion Games Lab think that extended reality (XR) could help people overcome their aquaphobia by bringing them closer to water in fun and accessible ways.
The XR experience involves lying in a floatation tank while wearing a virtual reality headset, which delivers an interactive visual and auditory journey through 3 water-based worlds.
“Similar to virtual reality exposure therapy, which progressively engages people to face fearful situations, the extended reality (XR) system we developed offers rewards with playful experiences through an entertaining interactive story to encourage participants to be in the floatation tank for increasingly longer periods of time,” says Maria Montoya, a PhD researcher in human-computer interaction at Monash.
Participants are guided through the water worlds by a virtual character, the “water spirit”, which provides reassurance and encouragement throughout the XR experience. They interact with the virtual worlds with their breath, heartbeat, and minor head movements through the headset’s sensors and microphone.
In a small study, 12 participants who had a self-reported fear of being in water, had their heartbeats recorded 4 times: while laying on a yoga mat; floating in the tank without technology; floating during the XR experience; and floating again without technology. Their perceived anxiety and fear of water were also gauged through questionnaires and semi-structured interviews.
The results revealed 8 participants reported experiencing less anxiety about water while using the XR system. However, while the heart rate variability index did reveal a tendency towards less anxiety in participants when floating using the VR environment, they did not find a significant difference.
The researchers encourage future studies with a larger number of participants to expand on their results.
“We hope that our research and findings might help psychologists, mental health professionals, healthcare workers and other human-computer interaction researchers to explore extended reality as a viable means to develop interventions to manage aquaphobia and possibly other phobias.”
The study was presented at the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) in Honolulu, USA, earlier this year.
