Mobile-based virtual reality application for experiencing and detecting claustrophobia

Abstract

Phobias may cause anxiety disorder, which imposes the pupils with phobias to overreact compared to the normal situation level. Undergoing therapy is an expensive and time-consuming process. Virtual reality (VR) can help users fully experience and overcome the things they fear without being put in dangerous situations in the real world. However, there is a limited number of VR applications to identify claustrophobic symptoms. In this paper, the Virtual Claustrophobia Room (VCR) is specifically designed for the users to experience Claustrophobia and to detect the symptoms of this kind of phobia while giving information about it. To develop VCR, the framework of VR has been referred which contains VR Application, VR Contents, and VR Evaluation. By developing VCR using the proposed framework, it is ready to test its usability in the real environment. It is believed that this application can early detect the claustrophobic symptoms and at the same time improve the health level of the users with this kind of phobia by exposing them to VR-based applications.