Category Archives: Virtual Reality

Virtual reality is a concept that has been highly talked about for the past few years now. There has also been a debate on the use of virtual reality in recruitment and training. The world is moving towards a time when sophisticated technology wont be something to argue about. Many professionals regard virtual reality and a real money casino as a must-have concept for companies. It would help boost organizational efficiencies to survive in the present day competitive business environment.

According to the research, virtual reality technology has been of great benefit to employees in numerous ways. Some of the ways how virtual reality can help employees include allowing employees to experience a real feeling of an actual day at work. The use of virtual reality also helps boost employees confidence as it allows them to practice real-life scenarios. It also improves their performances and engagement.

Is the word virtual reality new to you, or are you clueless about its use in recruiting and training? Then take your time to go through this article as it provides you with vital information about virtual reality and how it has been applied in recruitment and training.

Virtual reality is a concept used to explain a three-dimensional technology generated environment that can be interacted with or explored by an individual. As the person gains access to the virtual environment, they can perform a series of actions or manipulate objects.

Though virtual reality might be likened to games and fun over a couple of years, it has made a name for itself, and it is fast becoming a must-have concept as it is widely used in career fairs and recruiting events. As a result, the number of employers and individuals who can interact with or explore technology-generated virtual reality is rapidly increasing. They use it to pinpoint suitable candidates with the perfect skills sets for the job.

Although recruitment of new workers relies majorly on interviews and resumes, some organizations or companies are somewhat concerned about recruiting employees with the right skills. For this reason, they make use of technology to help them solve this problem.

Virtual reality makes it possible to immerse employees into their future work environment to allow them to have more exposure to the job and showcase their ability or skills needed to fill the position. In addition, virtual reality is a technology that can also be used to train technicians to complete service tasks.

Virtual reality has dramatically impacted the hiring process by different companies and organizations in the COVID and Post-COVID eras.

There are different ways in which you can use virtual reality in recruitment and training presented below.

Virtual Reality in Training

With virtual reality, you would be able to create artificial scenarios that you would not recreate on the floor. Moreover, merging sound and movement with visual elements can be the best method to retain novel information and recall it to use in practical life situations.

Some companies use virtual reality to increase happiness in the workplace in cases when job stress builds up. With virtual reality, you would be able to partake in different training modules, for example, new technologies, new processes and new project launches. In addition, multiple scenarios that are specific to different positions can be created in training using virtual reality.

This training includes; training for the customer service agents, sales agents, staff, and managers and so on. Another exciting feature of virtual reality in training is that scenes can be rerun as many times as possible to enable trainees to manage the situation better.

Virtual Reality in Recruitment

Employers or recruiters can combine skill assessment and virtual reality in their recruitment methods. For example, employees resumes might sometimes be misleading as they wont show the immersive skills in that person. Virtual reality helps to highlight the skills or knowledge necessary to fill a particular position.

Virtual reality is a great tool that helps you test job candidates real-life decision-making skills rather than engaging them in cumbersome behavioural interviews. Virtual reality in recruitment helps to provide candidates with an in-depth understanding of the position they are to fit and their responsibilities. With this tool, candidates are exposed in a way to the company culture before joining.

There are several reasons to implement this innovation in recruitment. They are:

It is essential to employ suitable candidates for your work. However, interviews are not perfect means of measuring how well a candidate can perform in a particular position, as some are shy. Virtual reality helps to break this barrier of uneven judgement as it provides a level ground for all candidates through technology to show their skills.

Although actualizing virtual reality for your workplace might be expensive, when you think about all involved, like hiring programmers, graphic designers and others to help create a virtual reality scenario. There are cheaper reality devices like Daydream virtual reality or Google cardboard that would help satisfy your needs for the time being.

Job candidates can feel more relaxed in a comfortable environment with virtual reality. It is because they feel less scrutinized when going through the interviewing process, which can generally reduce stress levels substantially.

There are some reasons to use VR in recruitment as well; you can read about them below.

Virtual Reality is a Hands-On Practice Concept

Virtual reality offers you the opportunity to learn by doing rather than learning by just observing. Thus, this technology helps to make learning enjoyable and more fun when compared to undergoing tedious conferences.

Virtual Reality is Very Safe

VR allows trainees to complete tedious and dangerous tasks in a completely safe environment comprising all the variables, unlike real-life training, which is controlled.

Virtual Reality is Genuine

Virtual reality helps create the exact environment or scenarios that trainees would go through to handle the job. Furthermore, the scenarios can be built entirely from scratch with complete control of every single variable.

Virtual Reality is Measurable

VR can set benchmarks on how well the trainees or staff should perform and can also show how a persons performance improves or decreases over time.

Virtual Reality is Cost-Effective

Educating or training a large workforce using virtual reality proves cost-effective as staff can be trained remotely using virtual reality headsets.

The use of virtual reality in the present business world cannot be overemphasized, as many companies have been adopting this concept more and more. Moreover, it provides a ground for job seekers to showcase what they can do rather than depending only on their resumes which can be misleading.

Virtual reality also provides a comfortable environment for the training of staff in organizations and companies.

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Virtual Reality is on Duty in Recruiting and Training - The Game Haus

Posted on October 17, 2021 | 11:55 a.m.

Pilot study held at Maravilla senior living facility in Santa Barbara

Residents at a senior living community on the East Coast engage with virtual reality devices. (Rendever)

COVID-19 life has taken a toll on us all, but its hit older adults particularly hard. Separated from family and friends, and less able to travel than before, many seniors have become lonely and depressed.

The pandemic struck just as UC Santa Barbara professors Tamara Afifi and Nancy Collins were conducting a pilot study to determine whether virtual reality (VR) experiences could improve quality of life for seniors and their adult children.

After conducting a phase I pilot study at Maravilla, a senior living community in Santa Barbara, the team has now received $2 million from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to begin a two-year clinical trial.

The question here is basically, what does it mean to age successfully? said Afifi, chair of the Department of Communication. To me it means being able to thrive despite cognitive and physical challenges. Even someone whos bedridden should still be able to thrive, should still be able to challenge themselves, try new things and be innovative.

To that end, Afifi and Collins conducted a small study in 2020 with 21 pairs of Maravilla residents and remote family members usually adult children.

The goal of the project is to test the impact of VR technology on social connection and quality of life for older adults in senior living communities as well as out-of-town family members, said Collins, a professor in the Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences.

The long-term goal is to find ways to use innovative technologies to reduce social isolation, strengthen family bonds and improve quality of life for older adults with varying levels of cognitive impairment, she said.

The results showed that joint VR sessions reduced the older adults loneliness, while improving both their mood and their overall quality of life, the researchers said. On the family members side, the activity enhanced mood and also reduced caregiver guilt.

A family is a system, so when you help one person, youre helping the whole family, Afifi said. This is especially true for caregivers, who can bear a particularly heavy burden in terms of stress and guilt.

In the pilot study, the researchers recorded seniors using the VR, capturing their body movements and expressions. They used these data classified and annotated by humans and algorithms in an effort to see how different stages of memory decline correlated with peoples engagement when they were using the VR.

They found older adults with mild cognitive impairment were more kinesthetically engaged in the experience: They moved their bodies more. However, participants with mild to moderate dementia self-reported being more immersed in the experience.

Sometimes, when youre with someone who has dementia, you might think theyre not interested in the thing that theyre doing because their bodies might not be able to express it, Afifi said. But inside, theyre really excited about it; they just might not be able to show it in the way that you expect them to show it.

Based on the pilot studys success, the NIH granted the team funding for a two-year clinical trial. The goal is to rigorously test the social and psychological benefits of VR activities compared with standard video communication to determine if the shared, immersive experiences provide added benefits for older adults and their family members, Collins explained.

The trial will include 200 participant pairs across 12 senior living communities, six in and around Santa Barbara and six in Boston, where their VR partner Rendever is located. The companys CEO, Kyle Rand, is the projects third principal investigator. The east and west coast teams will each collect data from one community at a time.

Each pair of participants will be given a baseline survey and then randomly assigned to either a number of video calls or a series of shared VR experiences once a week for one month. The VR experiences will be similar to those in the pilot study.

For instance, one session will involve reminiscence therapy. The participant will use the VR to revisit their favorite places from the past like childhood neighborhoods or holiday spots alongside their out-of-town family member. The researchers will conduct follow-up interviews with participants first after one month and again after three months.

The pandemic has only highlighted the importance of interpersonal connections to mental health, the researchers noted. Even before the pandemic, loneliness and social isolation among older adults had been a national crisis, Collins said. Conditions over the past year and a half have amplified this crisis and broadened the issue to people of all ages and backgrounds.

Collins hopes the increased exposure and urgency created by the pandemic will compel further research and action on this issue. Now, more than ever, we need to develop creative solutions through technology as well as other pathways to foster social connection even when families and friends must be apart, she said.

Communities like Maravilla were busy, social places before the pandemic, Afifi said, with all sorts of visitors and events. Theres a feeling among many of the residents that theyre still waiting for that energy to return. The participants are really excited about doing this study, she added. They want their lives back.

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Clinical Trial to Examine How Virtual Reality Can Help Older Adults and Their Families - Noozhawk

Virtual reality has moved beyond gaming and is an emerging technology in the treatment of schizophrenia and potentially in shaping the portrayal of this mental health condition for younger generations.

Host Rachel Star Withers, a person living with schizophrenia, and cohost Gabe Howard explore how virtual reality technologies are used to help people with schizophrenia.

Deepak Gopalakrishna, the founder and CEO of virtual reality therapy platform Rey, joins to share how Rey is revolutionizing exposure therapy for people with anxiety, PTSD, depression, and schizophrenia.

And later in the show, Barry Gene Murphy and May Abdalla, the producers of Goliath: Playing with Reality, share the inspiration behind their new award-winning virtual reality movie. Goliath: Playing with Reality is the true story of a mans experience with schizophrenia, and is narrated by Academy Award winner Tilda Swinton.

Deepak Gopalakrishna

Deepak Gopalakrishna, the founder and CEO of Rey, is a highly accomplished customer-centric innovator. A seasoned entrepreneur with deep expertise in healthcare, AI, blockchain and digital innovation, he has founded and led the growth of seven companies.

With an MBA and a doctorate in genetics and Molecular biology, Deepak has the unique ability to merge the rigor of a scientist with the creativity of an entrepreneur. The vision for Rey was born: Take the best mental health clinicians in the world and transfer their methodologies into user-friendly automated digital treatments. You can find out more at http://www.getrey.com.

May Abdalla

May Abdalla, the co-director, writer, and executive producer of Goliath: Playing with Reality, is an experimental documentary filmmaker who has won numerous awards for her work in the immersive and interactive arts. She founded the production company Anagram in 2013 to explore immersive technologies, especially in the documentary genre.

Barry Gene Murphy, the director and writer of Goliath: Playing with Reality, is an award-winning filmmaker and artist with over 15 years experience in animation, 3D and special effects, and more recently in mixed-reality works.

Barry Gene Murphy

Goliath: Playing with Reality is Available to download for FREE on Oculus now:

Oculus: https://www.oculus.com/experiences/quest/3432432656819712/ Website: https://goliathvr.io/ Discord: https://discord.com/channels/864490434927788072/874057550654472213

Gabe Howard

Gabe Howard is an award-winning writer and speaker who lives with bipolar disorder. He is the author of the popular book, Mental Illness is an Asshole and other Observations, available from Amazon; signed copies are also available directly from the author.

Gabe makes his home in the suburbs of Columbus, Ohio. He lives with his supportive wife, Kendall, and a Miniature Schnauzer dog that he never wanted, but now cant imagine life without. To learn more about Gabe, please visit his website, gabehoward.com.

Producers Note: Please be mindful that this transcript has been computer generated and therefore may contain inaccuracies and grammar errors. Thank you.

Announcer: Youre listening to Inside Schizophrenia. Hosted by Rachel Star Withers, an advocate who lives openly with Schizophrenia. Were talking to experts about all aspects of life with this condition. Welcome to the show!

Rachel Star Withers: Welcome to Inside Schizophrenia, a Healthline Media podcast, Im your host, Rachel Star Withers here with my incredible co-host Gabe Howard, and this episode of Inside Schizophrenia is sponsored by Intra-Cellular Therapies.

Gabe Howard: Rachel, its always great to be here. Thank you, as always, for having me.

Rachel Star Withers: And, Gabe, last episode, we talked about technology. Our wonderful tech world, and this isnt really a part two, but maybe a little bit were going to get a little bit deeper into a certain type of tech. Let me tell you, Gabe, we are living in the future. Its time to upgrade. So Im pretty excited because today were talking about virtual reality.

Gabe Howard: Rachel, I was not a fan of this topic. First off, virtual reality, I just I have this very 1990s version of virtual reality where it just wasnt very good. And number two, I really struggled to see the application for the treatment of schizophrenia. We have two guests coming up, two incredible guests, that really did an excellent job of showing me not only the treatment applications as it pertains to schizophrenia, but also people who live with schizophrenia have desires and hobbies and need to fill their time just like the rest of us. And I really failed to connect that this is a way for people who are maybe struggling to leave home or maybe dont have a big social group or may be isolated to connect with other people in a very meaningful way. Just right up front, I want to say Gabe was wrong. Rachel was right. This is a common occurrence in our meetings.

Rachel Star Withers: Yes, absolutely, Rachel is always right. Just kidding. Whats amazing is that virtual reality has actually been used in a lot of different ways the past, lets say, going on 30 years now to treat mental disorders, whether its fears, anxiety, depression, PTSD and, of course, schizophrenia. But up until now, its been confined to different labs and trials, stuff that the normal everyday people like you and me, Gabe, we wouldnt have access to. But this has been going on kind of behind the scenes for a while and now were starting to have access to it. So we have these incredible guests coming on here in just a little bit. Our first one is Deepak Gopalakrishna, who is the founder and CEO of Rey, R E Y, and that is a virtual reality therapy system. Our second guest coming on a little later in the show are actually the directors and producers of a movie called Goliath: Playing with Reality, and its the true story of a man with schizophrenia and its incredible and were going to hit all of these guests here in just a little bit. But first of all, lets establish what is virtual reality? Because like you said, Gabe, I think some of us are stuck in the 90s. Were not really sure what exactly that even means. Like, are we talking about Tron, the movie? What are we imagining here? Today what were talking about virtual reality is the immersive experiences and usually for the normal consumers, you buy a headset and then you have like two controllers that you, you know, hold in your hands and they have buttons, but they also kind of track your hand motions.

Gabe Howard: And whats important is that the outside world is largely locked out. Right, so think of it like goggles. In fact, I believe theyre called virtual reality goggles, but there are computer generated environment that you see through your headset and what the user sees and hears is only presented through that headset. So its not like playing a video game where you can talk to your buddies. Its largely immersive. Obviously, if somebody taps you on the shoulder, thats from the outside world, but its just a much more immersive experience than your typical console video game that you would play on your television.

Rachel Star Withers: Yes, completely different than just kind of looking at a screen. With the head set, it is like three sixty. So when you turn your head like youre looking around in the environment, if you were to look downwards at your feet, youre going to see whatever it is they want you to see. So you usually see the floor of the environment, you look up, you see the sky of that environment thats been created. And its much more, I guess, in depth. As far as like the visual field, when I tried it out, well get into, it didnt look like I was just looking at a screen. It definitely was like you could reach out into the environment and feel like you could interact with it.

Gabe Howard: Rachel, would you say another good example would be similar to the 3- D experience at like our local cinema?

Rachel Star Withers: I wish I could say it was like that, but its so much better.

Gabe Howard: Ok.

Rachel Star Withers: Its technology has come so far. That is honestly what I thought it would be like was kind of like that little 3-D like, Oh, no stuff popping out at you. But where were at now, as far as like what me and you can buy on the market for virtual reality, is incredibly impressive.

Gabe Howard: And just to make sure that were on the same page with what were talking about, the headset that Rachel used cost approximately $350. It stands alone. You obviously need content for it, but the hardware is approximately $350. Its not a $10,000 headset running on a $10,000 computer connected to a $10,000 mainframe. Its relatively inexpensive considering everything that you get and its so immersive that it can actually provide exposure therapy. I know Ive stolen the lead from you, Rachel, but what does virtual reality used to treat right now?

Rachel Star Withers: Theres three different ways that VR is being used currently to treat different mental disorders, one of them is exposure therapy, like you said, and thats where it puts you into the situation. Its really great for people who have social anxiety, phobias, fears because they can, like, put you in a bus, they can put you in a subway terminal. Different things like that. Another thing that theyre using it for is cognitive therapy, which we know and love. If youve been to any sort of therapist, youve done some sort of cognitive therapy exercises. Theyre finding new ways to implement pretty much that into the video game atmosphere. But that 360 and I honestly, I do get a little annoyed when I go to the therapist, you know, and they hand me like a journal to fill out. Like it gets kind of old, you know, the fiftieth time you filled out a journal exercise for cognitive therapy. So some of these ones for the virtual reality are like nothing Ive ever experienced. Im hoping more therapists look into this area because I would love the next time I go to a therapy session them to hand me like a video game to do instead of a journal with a little cartoon person on it. Anyway, the other way virtual reality is being used is social skills, and they have seen some amazing areas as far as helping people with autism, adults and children, learning how to function in social situations. And theyre just starting to use the social skill areas for people with schizophrenia, especially if youre coming out of an extended stay in a mental hospital or something. You know, a lot of us have to, kind of, readjust to society. If youre coming off your first major psychotic episode, its scary because you lose a lot of that confidence you had previously. So very interesting ways theyre finding that people of all different backgrounds can use VR.

Gabe Howard: And remember, this is science, this is being studied, it is being looked at, somebody didnt just take a VR headset, plop it on somebody and say, Oh, were accomplishing things. Like everything, it may work for you. It may not work for you. It may work on some issues. It may not work on other issues. Its emerging science, its emerging technology. And as Im very fond of saying in the real world, your mileage may vary, but its exciting to think that new things are coming out because, as Rachel said, if somebody hands her a pencil and paper and tells her to keep a journal one more time, shes going to scream. And largely we have found this in the schizophrenia community that theyre just being asked to do the same things over and over and over again. And while nobody can guarantee that this can work, at least its something new. And for many people who are experiencing, you know that hitting the wall or they want to move past it or whatever, its exciting. And I wanted to point all that out because the guest that you interviewed, Rachel, has been studying this and implementing this for a long time. Hes an expert, and you talked to him. Set him up.

Rachel Star Withers: Yes, so Deepak Gopalakrishna, he is the founder of Rey, and this is pretty much the first platform available to lay folks like us, Gabe, to do VR therapy. Rey is also connected with the Oxford VR and really incredible the stuff that Oxford, the university, has been doing in this area, focusing on trying to help people with different mental disorders, especially schizophrenia, find new ways to treat it using virtual reality.

Gabe Howard: Awesome. All right, well, here we go.

Rachel Star Withers: Joining us now is Deepak Gopalakrishna, who is the CEO and founder of a brand new system called Rey. Thank you so much for being with us, Deepak. Now, right away, I need to ask what is Rey? Tell our listeners what exactly this platform is.

Deepak Gopalakrishna: Sure, but also, thank you for having me on, Rachel. Its really a pleasure to be here. So, Rey is essentially what we term as Mental Health 3.0, where we want to give everyone access to high quality care.

Rachel Star Withers: And what is unique about Rey?

Deepak Gopalakrishna: Theres a couple of things that we have done and that we are built on top of that is very, very unique. When you think about sort of the first iteration of mental health care that was I drive to a doctors office, I park in the parking lot, I walk into the room and I sit down on their chair or on the couch, right? And I talk to someone and maybe we unpack a few problems, etc. Where we are today, for the most part, is I do almost the same thing, except I dont leave my house. I sit here on a Zoom call like we are today and sit in a Zoom room, essentially recapturing the same room, except Im sitting on my own couch. But its still the same thing, and its still you dont know whether youre seeing the right person, whether that person is actually going to get you better. And theres also the next component of that, which is you see that person in the environment within which you need to see that person. So for example, if you want to build up confidence around other people, you dont want to do that just in a one on one setting in a Zoom room. You want to do that on a crowded bus, right? You want to do that in a doctors office. And thats what we do. We would take that person, we download them into a virtual environment and we create the virtual environment that allows people to do everything from sort of, make eye contact, be more confident, challenge things like persecutory beliefs, for example, right? Because it isnt just exposure that solves the thing that you need to solve. You have to practice the skills. You have to be able to be coached to practice those skills in those environments. And thats fundamentally what separates us; access to the high quality clinician in a scalable way, and the ability to do that in the environment within which you need to do it in. And thats actually what gets people better because, and you probably know this, is you can spend years in therapy in a room and never actually be able to translate that into real life.

Rachel Star Withers: To put us in that situation, whats really innovative is that youre using virtual reality, the headsets and everything. Now, tell us, how does that part work?

Deepak Gopalakrishna: Yes, to sort of give people those tools, we create virtual reality environments that actually just demoing our fear of heights product yesterday to someone and we put them on a suspension bridge,

Rachel Star Withers: Wow.

Deepak Gopalakrishna: Right? And let them sort of move across the suspension bridge to the coach and the coach is sort of giving them instructions from the other side. We create the programs, Daniel Freeman, our scientific founder, one of the foremost thought leaders in psychosis, for example, he starts with a clinical brief. We have the artist. We have the engineers. We have other clinicians who all collaborate to build this. We test that in a clinical setting to make sure that it is actually delivering the right kind of outcomes. For example, our fear of heights, it decreases peoples fear of heights by 70% almost in about four weeks, and its just better than pretty much anything else out there, right? Our persecutory delusions that allows people to challenge those persecutory delusions that decreases it by 40% within several sessions. Our social avoidance for psychosis or social avoidance for social anxiety, were dropping it by 50% within six weeks. I mean, these types of things just dont happen in any other way. So we build those things. We test that in clinical settings and then we put those into VR headsets and people who join our clinic, we actually send them headsets and itll show up at your house. Youll have a coach who guides you into sort of actually putting on the headset. I mean, these things are relatively new technology, right? So we help people sort of get into it. And then we have coaching sessions and therapy sessions that are combined with the sessions that you do with the best in the world at what youre trying to get better at.

Rachel Star Withers: Well, what made my ears perk up just now when you were saying that the way youre dealing with delusions. Here at Inside Schizophrenia, a lot of people with schizophrenia, obviously, we deal with delusions, hallucinations. Can you tell us a little bit more about the delusions application?

Deepak Gopalakrishna: And we actually get people to challenge their persecutory delusion beliefs, the belief systems. You have a therapist there with you and you have other people around, youre sort of encouraged and motivated to get closer to that person, make eye contact. So it allows you to challenge those beliefs that these things are actually dangerous for you. And by doing that and sort of doing that in multiple different scenarios, whether thats in a train or in a lift or in a variety of other areas, what we found is that within several sessions we were able to decrease the PSYRATS scores and the outcome score is by about 40%, almost half. It is by challenging those beliefs rather than encouraging the safety behaviors which people often exhibit. Lets get you out of sort of exhibiting those safety behaviors. Lets get you out of sort of exhibiting those safety behaviors, lets highly challenge those beliefs. Lets help you do that in an environment where those quote unquote threats might exist so that when you actually come out of that, you have essentially rewired the brain. The brain is an amazing sort of place. The plasticity of the human brain is exceptional, right? It can learn a lot of new things. Same thing with social avoidance is this building confidence, building of self-assurance, being able to make that eye contact, interacting with other human beings and getting over those fears through a lot of different activities that we might do that essentially take the trigger that elicits that response and reprogram the brain to actually build a new memory.

Rachel Star Withers: Very interesting, I feel some of this its almost a little scary when you think about like what youre saying, like reprograming, pretty much the brain. But I also think that most of us who have schizophrenia or very serious mental disorder, especially ones that deal with psychosis, thats our every day. Were constantly, our reality is already kind of distorted. So I think thats one of the most interesting things when it comes to the idea of treating people who struggle with what is reality and then treating it with virtual reality. Its almost like kind of meeting us where were already at.

Deepak Gopalakrishna: And youre absolutely right, and the brain does perceive. Its the perception of reality, right? Its amazing how it perceives it as real, even though you know that it is not real. But its that its the training and the practice and the cognitive behavioral therapy that happens within these environments that allow us to decrease those types of physiological responses and sort of get the brain back into perceiving things as they should be perceived or as you want to perceive them so as to live more of a normal life. I mean, thats the end goal.

Rachel Star Withers: Rey does seem like another level. And it seems like youre able to actually do these exercises.

Deepak Gopalakrishna: Absolutely. We lets think of it in terms of modalities. You have talk therapy, which is what you do in the Zoom room. You have medication management because I think there is a role for medication. And then what we have is a third modality, which is the ability to practice the skills in the environment that you need to practice that skills. So we offer those first two, but we actually bring an entirely sort of new modality to the table that just fundamentally changes the game and gives people the ability to translate those skills into real life.

Rachel Star Withers: How do you see using Rey for the treatment of schizophrenia?

Deepak Gopalakrishna: It isnt necessarily for a diagnosis per say, but every diagnosis has symptoms and processes that are impacted, right? So you might have social avoidance. You might not want to go meet other people. You might have persecutory delusions or beliefs. You might have other threat factors. You might also have other phobias or you might have attention issues, worry issues, right? So we build programs that actually address those inherent things that people are feeling. So its for prosecutorial delusions, its for worry, its for rumination, its for attention deficit to address those threat beliefs. The social avoidant behaviors also

Rachel Star Withers: Oh, yes.

Deepak Gopalakrishna: Is relatively prevalent in schizophrenia, so thats also something thats really well tested. We had like a 500 person clinical trial. This really, really nice stories that were going to be able to tell pretty soon. Thats sort of how we think for psychosis and schizophrenia that we actually do have tools that no one else has.

Rachel Star Withers: How can our listeners learn more about Rey if theyre interested in getting part of the program, if theyre interested in talking to their doctor about maybe using Rey somehow? Tell them what to do.

Deepak Gopalakrishna: Talk to your doctor. Give them the information, its at GetRey.com, so G E T R E Y .com. So you can either access it directly through our clinicians or, you know, see if your doctor can reach out to us. And were always super happy to work with clinicians around the world. Were happy to work directly with individuals. So theres lots of different avenues to reach out to us. We have our own clinicians in-house, so we have therapists, highly qualified therapists who know the space. Our scientific co-founder is one of the foremost thought leaders in the space as well, so its built very specifically for folks who are who are dealing with this in their lives. So either through our website or even having your doctor call us or drop us a note, have them drop me a note, Im happy to talk to them directly, right? Its Deepak@OxfordVR.org, and we can get a get a headset out to you.

Rachel Star Withers: Well, thank you so much for joining us, Deepak. Its wonderful speaking with you.

Gabe Howard: Great interview, Rachel, now you talked a lot about therapy, but what did you gain as far as in therapy, in the schizophrenia space from that interview?

Rachel Star Withers: I was absolutely enamored when he talked about the use of Rey and VR for delusions and thats something that I know many of us with schizophrenia struggle with. And its something thats very hard to deal with. You know, outside of medication, it is. Its hard to find like any sort of therapy to help you with the delusion other than like writing about it. You know, its like, OK. I want to try that out. When he mentioned that right away, I want to be like, sign me up. I would love a new type of therapy to try something to help me with, like delusional thoughts. Another area would be the paranoia. Many of us who have the, outdated, terms for schizophrenia, but I originally was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. I dont even know how they would begin to acknowledge, you know, my personal symptom with the paranoia, but I would love to find out.

Gabe Howard: One of the things that I think is important to reiterate is this is virtual reality therapy. Its not something that you just grab on your own and you do without guidance. So people with schizophrenia that are doing this are doing it in conjunction with a therapist, medical personnel. Theyre not just downloading weird apps and declaring that theyre going through therapy because theyve taken a virtual reality program. Thats something that I took away from this interview. Just its just another therapy just happens to use virtual reality. But a question that came up that I wanted to ask you, Rachel, is if somebody with schizophrenia is having trouble distinguishing from reality or delusions or hallucinations, is virtual reality OK for them? Because I know that you struggle with different types of hallucinations and delusions, and you have spoken very highly of virtual reality. But wasnt that difficult for you? What was your experience with virtual reality?

Rachel Star Withers: Whats fascinating to me is that so many times people have brought this up to me in the past and I really couldnt answer because I had never tried it myself, but people would be like, Oh well, do you even think youd be able to tell the difference? Or what if you got stuck in the virtual reality? Because I have gotten kind of stuck for periods of times in a psychotic episode. You know, and in my mind, I was kind of like, that probably wouldnt happen, but I never tried it for myself. Now that I have, and I was incredibly impressed with where tech is nowadays. No. No, I dont think anyone with schizophrenia is going to get stuck in the virtual reality, no more than I would get stuck playing, you know, my super NES Mario Game. Um, you know, growing up when I would play video games, I would never turn off the Nintendo and think, OK, Im Mario, lets go plumb. You know? I mean, that just wasnt a thing. It was the exact same way. When I took the headset off, its over. I feel personally that people with schizophrenia really would not have a problem telling the difference between virtual reality and the world around them. Our issue is that the world around us is what gets confusing. I liken it to watching a movie that Im really, really into. Once the movie is over, though, I dont still think Im in the movie. I dont still think Im watching it. I understand that its over. Now, of course, these are my experiences. Yes, if Im in the middle of a psychotic episode where I keep thinking that my arm is crawling away from me and my mom is trying to get me to stay in the bed because Im not making sense, no one should put a VR headset on me. So, yeah, I do think there needs to be a line. But at the same time, if Im in that state, you probably shouldnt turn on The Exorcist and put it in front of me playing on the TV.

Gabe Howard: Theres safety concerns with everything,

Rachel Star Withers: Yes, yes.

Gabe Howard: Whether its VR therapy, whether its cognitive behavioral therapy, whether its group therapy. That makes perfect sense. People with any sort of illness are not always capable of doing the things when theyre symptomatic that theyre not able to do. You know, if I have the flu and I have 103 degree temperature, you probably shouldnt put a virtual reality headset on me, either.

Rachel Star Withers: Something that you should also take into account for my people with schizophrenia out there. It probably isnt the best idea to run out and like buy a headset and try and do all this on your own. You do need a therapist kind of helping you, to debrief you. The other thing is that even just playing certain games could trigger some troubling thoughts. If youre prone to suicidal ideation and tendencies, it very well could trigger some of those in you. So I do stress that if you have schizophrenia, be careful. Dont try and just go out and buy a headset and download a bunch of content that, yeah, it could cause some problems. And I say all this, Gabe, because what do you think one of the first games I downloaded was when I bought the headset?

Gabe Howard: Oh, Rachel.

Rachel Star Withers: It was a horror game, and of course, I like scrolled

Gabe Howard: [Sigh]

Rachel Star Withers: Through and I was like, you know, Im like reading the ratings. Theyre like made for teens, teen. Im like, Whatever, Im an adult. Oh, this ones very mature. Let me buy it. That was some money down the drain. I jumped so hard that the headset flew off and landed on the floor and I was like, I cant play that again. That was a little too intense for me. The graphic, even though I knew it was fake, it was a little too much because and I want to say this, I do think its important for people out there who are running out to try a VR headset, you cant look away. And thats what struck me and actually made the game very unnerving for me was that it wasnt like watching a scary movie. You know, where I can look to the side is because Im wearing the headset, there is no looking away. And I do think that is something very important to stress to people out there who do have problems with visual hallucinations like I do. They love to just kind of be like right around the corner. So the game? Yeah, it played on that a little. So I do want to let people know that it can be a little jarring. Please be careful what you download. Yeah, and, dont do what Rachel did.

Gabe Howard: Rachel, I always knew that you would become a cautionary tale. Dont try this at home.

Rachel Star Withers: And now, a word from our sponsors.

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Rachel Star Withers: And were back talking about virtual reality in the treatment of schizophrenia.

Gabe Howard: Our next guest is super cool and, full disclosure, we met them when they contacted Inside Schizophrenia because they had questions about schizophrenia, and Rachels voice actually appears in the virtual reality experience. Now its narrated by Tilda Swinton, who is several levels above Rachel Star Withers. But you still shared space with Ms. Swinton, so I think that is super cool. Rachel, can you tell us about our next guest?

Rachel Star Withers: So actually, they were in contact with me over a year ago, and they found us through the podcast, Inside Schizophrenia. And the director, writer, producers listened to the podcast to kind of help them understand schizophrenia. Actually there is a clip inside of the movie. I dont really know what I am. Maybe a brain stem? If you are playing the movie, my voice does pop up a little bit, just a small snippet. And at the time, I had no clue how big this was going to get. You know, Gabe, youre very popular, and I know so many people message us asking, Hey, Im writing a movie, Im writing a book, I want to understand schizophrenia, bipolar. People from all walks of life, students. So when they reached out to me, I honestly, I mean, I didnt know its was just like a student film? What it was? But I treat everyone the same. So its been very exciting for me to see this turned into something big because most of the time I never even hear back from the people who ask for my help. This has been really incredible, and they were very respectful when they talked to me, the questions that they asked. I was just very impressed. And to see what the movie actually was, that it didnt exploit people with schizophrenia has been just absolutely wonderful.

Gabe Howard: Well, Rachel, you sat down with the creators and had a very cool conversation, lets go ahead and play that interview and see what they discussed.

Rachel Star Withers: Excited right now to be speaking with Barry Gene Murphy and May Abdalla, who are the directors and producers of Goliath: Playing with Reality. Thank you both so much for being here.

Barry Gene Murphy: Thanks for having us.

Rachel Star Withers: Before we even get into the movie / game / virtual reality experience, you guys just won something really big. Tell us about that.

May Abdalla: We won the Grand Jury Prize for VR at the Venice International Film Festival last week.

Rachel Star Withers: I was stalking the Instagrams, and I think I saw a picture there of maybe was it you with Penelope Cruz?

Barry Gene Murphy: Thats in the press room, that was kind of crazy. She just walked in and sat down next to me. Yeah.

Rachel Star Withers: Im actually like a huge fan of hers, so like a minute like that little picture popped up, I was like, Oh wow, no, this is legit.

Barry Gene Murphy: It was great.

May Abdalla: Yeah, it was. It was mad, it was like the proper paparazzi red carpet experience.

Barry Gene Murphy: Yeah.

Rachel Star Withers: Well, that is incredible, and that was pretty much Goliaths, thats its first big showing? Or second or third?

May Abdalla: No, that was the premiere, the premiere was at Venice, and now its live on the Oculus Store. It will continue to tour, but that was the beginning of its journey.

Rachel Star Withers: Well, first, tell us what exactly is Goliath?

May Abdalla: So Goliath is a 25 minute virtual reality experience that tells the story of a man called John, who is Goliath, who is diagnosed with schizophrenia, spends seven years in an institution and when he comes out, is pretty isolated, but then discovers the world of online gaming. So its an exploration both of kind of his story of this management of this unreal world of psychosis and the kind of non-reality of games, but also it uses VR to explore kind of how we create our perceptions of reality and like, how do we piece our stories together?

Rachel Star Withers: Why this story? Why did you decide that we want to bring Johns story to life?

Barry Gene Murphy: Like John is a friends brother, and I heard this story from him like about 10 years ago when he was fresh out of hospital and my friend didnt recognize his brother and his slurred speech, his gait, his just his countenance was just it was such a change in the way, even though hed been visiting like, you know, out in the real world, is like a fish out of water. And what happened was when he noticed he was playing online games, he was his old self again. He was in the world and he was witty. He was like the old, the old John. That story kind of like just caught on to me, and I just I thought I wanted to make like an animated documentary about it because VR hadnt really been out in the world. And then me and May worked together on a couple of VR projects. And I kind of convinced May that this would be a good idea, the story, because it just kept coming back. And then the more we kind of wrote the idea out and planned it and thought about it, the more active for VR it became, you know, it started to write itself.

May Abdalla: And I think for me, the question was like, Well, you know, you dont really want to use VR for a story where it felt like really critical, really meaningful. And many people know somebody whos experienced something like psychosis. And I think the idea of trying to tell that story, kind of an ordinary story, meant to give it the justice of the form or just really trying to get inside of something which, you know, when its in cinema, its like super dramatized and really extreme. And then people actually who are experiencing it kind of get ignored and have to kind of get through really difficult experiences kind of alone. And we started.

Barry Gene Murphy: The more we dug into it, the more we realized that actually in the media, the representation of conditions like this is really terrible, you know what I mean? And people have quite a bad in-built bias to it. And we wanted to tell an everyday story we wanted to like, just put people in. This is how it is with this person, and its largely positive. You know what I mean? Were not trying to make you pity anybody. Were not trying to victimize the person. Were just trying to show how they live, whats good for them. How gaming is good for them. And, you know, and then also ask you like, how sure are you of your reality?

Rachel Star Withers: One of the things I love about, and Im going to say experience, because like, movie and game dont really justify it, so well go with experience, is that it has nothing to do with horror. I think most of the time, if you were to hear, Hey, do you want to play a game about a schizophrenic person in a psych ward? Youre expecting it to be a horror or a horror type game. Im expecting like mental patients like coming out of the walls and, you know?

Barry Gene Murphy: OK. Yeah. Bedlam.

Rachel Star Withers: Yeah, and if you watch or experience Goliath, it avoids all of that stuff. And I loved that being someone with schizophrenia. I just got to ask though, like, were you tempted to kind of add some horror to it? Or like, how did that go?

Barry Gene Murphy: Actually, at the beginning, we were never tempted to because its so uncomfortable anyway, that like to make someone uncomfortable in that space is just a step too far. Were not ready for it in a way. Its like we even have Tilda in the intro as Echo saying, its a cheap trick. Because we do a split second of horror and then we go, but thats just a cheap trick, you know? So we were definitely not in any way interested in scaring people. If anything, we wanted them to feel the sublime like horror. But like, you know, from an eternal perspective, you know, like because the fear of your mental illness is forever, you know what I mean? That there is a kind of terminal kind of fear. We were kind of more interested in portraying that kind of idea, but not scaring people out of their wits.

May Abdalla: I also think that when people are scared and Im often scared in VR because Im such a scaredy cat. At some point when we were testing playing back your voice and I had recorded my own voice saying my own name to me and putting it in the mix. And actually, I jumped out of my skin when I heard it again because I was so easily scared, I thought somebody was in the room talking to me. I think the problem with introducing fear into something like this is we really wanted people to feel like they could listen and engage and think and kind of enter the kind of compassionate space. And when youre scared, you really cant listen.

Rachel Star Withers: And just for our listeners out there, when I was doing the experience, I have to say, I was at no point ever scared or fearful of anything, really. The word that comes to me was wonder. I was very impressed with how you guys presented the experience, and it was almost just like, Wow, there is so much going on here because you pretty much take us inside of a persons brain, you know, the best we can. And I really, though, that was the word that came to me was, Wow, this is incredible. This is like just wonder all around me.

May Abdalla: Thats, thank you, thats amazing.

Barry Gene Murphy: Yeah.

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Podcast: Virtual Reality for the Treatment of Schizophrenia - PsychCentral.com

The secondImmersive Storytelling Residency in the Media and Emerging Technology Lab (METL) at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts (UNCSA) School of Filmmaking has culminated in two virtual reality experiences that will be showcased for free to the public at the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art (SECCA) in Winston-Salem on Wednesday, Oct. 27, from 5-8 p.m. in the Auditorium Lobby.

Experiences are available on a first-come, first-served basis. Each experience lasts approximately 15 minutes. Beverages will be available via a cash bar.

The Immersive Storytelling Residency brings together screenwriters, game developers and 3D technical artists, providing them access to advanced technologies and mentoring from award-winning faculty and industry leaders to create fully realized virtual reality (VR) experiences forming a new paradigm for art and storytelling in the 21st century. Filmmaking in virtual reality continues to push beyond the boundaries of traditional cinematic storytelling, said Ryan Schmaltz, who conceived of the Storytelling Residency and has directed METL since its beginning. This years residency more than doubled in size and spawned two interactive and immersive films. I am thrilled with the quality, creativity and passion that has emerged out of this years residency.

The two projects from the 2021 residency are Black Ice and System: The Contribution. Black Ice is set in the cyberpunk future, as a young woman visits a memory editor to suppress a dark memory of a murder she committed. However, the more the editor alters the memory, the more she finds herself wanting to kill again. Black Ice is a single-player cinematic VR experience that explores the dangerous power of memories and how much they make up who we are for better or worse.

Black Ice is a single-player cinematic VR experience.

In System: The Contribution, you and your beloved family live at the mercy of System, an all-controlling entity. When its whims change, you must journey toward its core to confront it and yourself. Utilizing generative avatars and live projections, System: The Contribution is a cross-platform sci-fi story for one VR adventurer and up to three smartphone operatives.

System: The Contribution is a cross-platform sci-fi story for one VR adventurer and up to three smartphone operatives.

METLs 2021 residents including two alumni of the UNCSA School of Filmmaking have experience with Meow Wolf, Facebooks Oculus, the Kennedy Center, South by Southwest, and more. They are writers Mikaela Y. Byrd (M.F.A. 21), Arif Khan and Drew Paryzer; programmers and designers Daniel Sabio and Darren Woodland Jr.; extended reality (XR) developer Lawrence Yip; and animator John Curran (B.F.A. 21). Byrd, Paryzer, Sabio and Curran created System: The Contribution, and Khan, Yip and Woodland created Black Ice.

Byrd, who is one of the screenwriters and the producer for System: The Contribution, said she wanted to be a screenwriter since she was 11 years old, though not narrative storytelling. I was largely influenced by science fiction and I love animation and cartoons, she said. The BBCs Doctor Who was a favorite, and she has fond memories of watching Saturday morning cartoons and animated series on Nickelodeon with her brothers.

Byrd said her focus has always been on animated science fiction, and she likes writing for the pre-teen audience. To get this residency right out of school was the best thing that could ever have happened, she said. Hopefully my next step is to continue creating stories for younger audiences. I want people to be able to enjoy the stories that I create and be able to connect with their inner child.

Woodland, who served as technical artist on Black Ice, has a masters degree in experimental media arts from North Carolina State University and plans to pursue a doctorate in digital media. He said his work in the Storytelling Residency provided him a unique opportunity to get real-world experience in his field of study.

To me, experimental media arts is about creating a dialogue with places we inhabit and the beings we inhabit those spaces with through creative, innovative and experimental works, he said.

On the future of digital media, Woodland said, First and foremost, what I hope we will see is more inclusive and diverse people in digital media, and more inclusive and diverse applications of digital media technologies. Media and tech that is less biased. I would love to see an explosion of public-facing digital media art, both visual and sonic, that explores individuality and humanity while being mindful and respectful of the spaces we inhabit. As examples, he cited revitalization of historic places and underprivileged communities using pop-up installations and exhibits and sustainably focused digital media practices.

The Immersive Storytelling Residency began May 1 and will conclude with the launch of the two projects. Unlike most programs that charge a fee for training and professional development opportunities, METL provided each participant with a monthly stipend of $3,500.

Mentors this year included nationally recognized podcaster Kent Bye of Voices of VR; filmmaker Navid Khonsari, founder of iNK Stories, a digital storytelling studio in New York; accomplished UNCSA faculty members Joy Goodwin and Bob Keen; and Danny Oakley, animation director at Out of Our Minds Studios in Winston-Salem, among others.

Established in 2017 by the top-ranked UNCSA School of Filmmaking (No. 11 in the U.S. by The Hollywood Reporter), METL is dedicated to defining and shaping the evolution of how immersive story content will be created, consumed and told. As one of the few immersive labs in the country to be housed in a professional arts conservatory,METL is uniquely situated to train and serve as a resource for the next generation of creative innovators.

Sponsors of METLs Immersive Storytelling Residency include the National Endowment for the Arts, Epic Games, the Small Business & Technology Development Center, and SECCA, among others.

Im grateful to our national and local sponsors that our lab has the ability to incubate immersive films to entertain, educate and inspire audiences worldwide, Schmaltz said.

The Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art (SECCA), an affiliate of the North Carolina Museum of Art, offers a front row seat to the art of our time through exhibitions, experiences, and education programs with a focus on regional working artists. Founded in 1956 and located on the scenic James G. Hanes estate in Winston-Salem, SECCA offers unique large-scale indoor and outdoor settings for exploring the intersections of contemporary art and culture. Learn more atSECCA.org.

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METL Immersive Storytelling Residency culminates in two VR projects to be showcased at SECCA on Oct. 27 - UNCSA

Picture this: youre floating in space and looking at the Earth. On your right, you can see the International Space Station - currently home to French astronaut Thomas Pesquet and his colleagues - in orbit.

On your left, the moon and the vast immensity of the universe extends into the distance.

No, its not a dream. This is the beginning of a journey into outer space, thanks to a programme developed by researchers at one of Switzerlands top universities: the VIRUP software.

The Virtual Reality Universe Project (VIRUP) is open-source beta software that allows for virtual visits through the cosmos.

Its the result of several types of research, conducted by software engineers, astrophysicists and experimental museology experts at the cole Polytechnique Fdrale de Lausanne (EPFL), in Switzerland.

They have pulled together what they call the largest data set of the universe to create three-dimensional, panoramic visualisations of space.

In short, their 3D model is a sort of Google Earth but for the universe.

So what we see here is a representation of the universe that has been obtained thanks to gigantic numerical consignation, astrophysicist Yves Revaz explained.

In fact, thanks to computers, we are able to reproduce the evolution over a long period of time of a portion of the universe that lets us understand how the matter is distributed all around the universe.

The virtual map can be viewed through individual VR gear, immersion systems like panoramic cinemas with 3D glasses, dome screens, or just on a PC for two-dimensional viewing.

The images produced by the algorithms can appear as close as 1 m, or almost infinitely far away.

The multi-sensorial experiment project has two stated goals: to be able to visualise the universe at different scales and to draw in a broad array of visitors, from scientists to amateurs.

Astronomers and astrophysicists have been collecting data on billions of celestial objects for decades with telescopes on Earth and in space.

In order to get visual representations of tens of terabytes of data sets, Revaz and software engineer Florian Cabot rendered the data at 90 frames per second, like a movie.

Visualisation of astrophysical data is much more accessible than showing graphs and figures, it helps to develop an intuition of complex phenomena, Revaz said.

VIRUP is precisely a way of making all of our astrophysical data accessible to everyone, and this will become even more important as we build bigger telescopes like the Square Kilometer Array that will generate tremendous amounts of data.

The project can visualise data from eight databases bundled together, among which is the Sloan Digital Sky survey, which consists of over 50 million galaxies and 300 million objects in general.

It also based its research on data from the Open Exoplanet Catalog, which aggregates various sources of exoplanet data.

The biggest challenge VIRUP has to overcome is linked to its storage capacity: still a work in progress for now, the beta version can't be run on a Mac and it needs a lot of internal storage to work on a PC.

According to Jean-Paul Kneib, director of the Laboratory of Astrophysics of EPFL, this educational visualisation model could be applied to other industries.

"If we want to look inside our brain, if we want to go and look at what is happening in the Tokamaks for fusion. We have developed a 3D visualisation tool that can really be beneficial to many scientific fields," said Kneib.

Even though VR games and universe representations already exist, the EPFL team says VIRUP goes much further and wider since it brings together these vast data sets containing hundreds of millions of space objects in a one-stop-shop solution.

In fact, we actually started this project because I was working on a three-dimensional mapping project of the universe and was always a little frustrated with the 2D visualisation on my screen, which wasn't very meaningful, Kneib told AFP.

And the idea is to say no, it's not just 2D, we'll make a map in 3D - let's see it in 3D, we're not going to simplify complex things. It's true that by showing the universe in 3D, by showing these filaments, by showing these clusters of galaxies which are large concentrations of matter, you really realise what the universe is, he added.

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Is this virtual reality programme the new Google Earth for the universe? - Euronews

How can museums and galleries reach younger, digital-native audiences? How can they breathe new life into age-old masterpieces and think beyond the traditional white-cube format?

he answer, as curators around the world are beginning to discover, is in immersive art experiences.

From today until Christmas Eve, the Hunt Museum in Limerick will be hosting Ride a Flying Fish. The VR experience explores The Garden of Earthly Delights, a 500-year-old painting by Hieronymus Bosch.

Its a cutting-edge collision of art and technology and it will undoubtedly draw large and curious crowds.

Boschs triptych masterpiece resides in the Prado Museum in Madrid, Spain, but the Hunt Museum is inviting a different perspective.

The idea of moving around inside an artwork and feeling it to be a living thing gives new insights and joy, explains the museums Director and CEO, Jill Cousins.

The Garden of Earthly Delights is such a complex painting, but with VR technology, you get to dive deep into it, focussing on every little detail and almost becoming part of the painting.

The Hunt Museum isnt the only cultural institution evolving in the digital age. Immersive art has soared in popularity in recent years as museums and galleries curate mesmerising experiences that are designed to be shared both with fellow attendees and Instagram followers.

These exhibitions offer a new way of engaging with seminal masterpieces and, across the world, they are drawing in younger, and wider, audiences.

Take the Van Gogh Alive experience, which has been seen by seven million visitors worldwide. The 35-minute, 360-degree experience features 200 of the impressionist painters works and includes digital animation, music and an optional VR experience during which visitors walk through the French town of Arles.

In musical terms, you could liken seeing Sunflowers in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam to an intimate, acoustic performance, whereas Van Gogh Alive is more like a show-stopping stadium tour.

As well as offering a unique participatory experience for a generation accustomed to constant stimuli, immersive art solves one of the biggest issues facing leading museums and galleries queues.

Anyone who has tried to catch a glimpse of the Mona Lisa in the Louvre will know the crowds can be overwhelming at best, and discombobulating at worst.

This is partly why the museum launched their first-ever VR project, Mona Lisa: Beyond the Glass, in 2019. Instead of taking their place in a queue to see the original painting, visitors could don a VR headset and embark on a seven-minute immersive journey.

It offers visitors [a chance] to go inside the painting, not only to look at it from outside, but to try to be within the universe of the painting, explained the museums general curator Dominique de Font-Raulx at the time of its launch.

The immersive art experience was arguably spearheaded by Japanese contemporary artist Yayoi Kusama, whose walk-through Infinity Mirror Room installations have drawn sell-out crowds over the last decade. The exhibit is currently at the Tate Modern in London, but its sold out until March 2022. More tickets for dates in May and June will be made available later in the year.

If youre travelling farther afield, the futuristic Superblue Miami experience features a mirrored labyrinth by Es Devlin and a light-based Ganzfeld installation by James Turrell. If you want to travel deep into the metaverse, you can explore digital art collections (NFTs) on virtual reality platforms like Decentraland and Cryptovoxels.

Immersive art experiences arent designed as a replacement for traditional art theyre meant to complement it.

Its a bridge between the old and the new and its bringing art to a whole new audience.

To book Ride a Flying Fish, visit huntmuseum.com.

Originally posted here:

Virtual reality paintings: A new audience is literally diving into the art in Limerick's Hunt Museum - Independent.ie

It was 2016, and Jordan Belamire was excited to experience QuiVr, a new fantastical virtual reality game, for the first time. With her husband and brother-in-law looking on, she put on a VR headset and became immersed in a snowy landscape. Represented by a disembodied set of floating hands along with a quiver, bow, and hood, Belamire was now tasked with taking up her weapons to fight mesmerizing hordes of glowing monsters.

But her excitement quickly turned sour. Upon entering online multiplayer mode and using voice chat, another player in the virtual world began to make rubbing, grabbing, and pinching gestures at her avatar. Despite her protests, this behavior continued until Belamire took the headset off and quit the game.

Right now, one of the most common forms of governance in virtual worlds is a reactive and punitive form of moderation.

My colleagues and I analyzed responses to Belamires subsequent account of her first virtual reality groping and observed a clear lack of consensus around harmful behavior in virtual spaces. Though many expressed disgust at this players actions and empathized with Belamires description of her experience as real and violating, other respondents were less sympatheticafter all, they argued, no physical contact occurred, and she always had the option to exit the game.

Incidents of unwanted sexual interactions are by no means rare in existing social VR spaces and other virtual worlds, and plenty of other troubling virtual behaviors (like the theft of virtual items) have become all too common. All these incidents leave us uncertain about where virtual ends and reality begins, challenging us to figure out how to avoid importing real-world problems into the virtual world and how to govern when injustice happens in the digital realm.

Now, with Facebook predicting the coming metaverse and the proposal to move our work and social interactions into VR, the importance of dealing with harmful behaviors in these spaces is drawn even more sharply into focus. Researchers and designers of virtual worlds are increasingly setting their sights on more proactive methods of virtual governance that not only deal with acts like virtual groping once they occur, but discourage such acts in the first place while encouraging more positive behaviors too.

These designers are not starting entirely from scratch. Multiplayer digital gamingwhich has a long history of managing large and sometimes toxic communitiesoffers a wealth of ideas that are key to understanding what it means to cultivate responsible and thriving VR spaces through proactive means. By showing us how we can harness the power of virtual communities and implement inclusive design practices, multiplayer games help pave the way for a better future in VR.

The laws of the real worldat least in their current stateare not well-placed to solve the real wrongs that occur in fast-paced digital environments. My own research on ethics and multiplayer games revealed that players can be resistant to outside interference in virtual affairs. And there are practical problems, too: In fluid, globalized online communities, its difficult to know how to adequately identify suspects and determine jurisdiction.

And certainly, technology cant solve all of our problems. As researchers, designers and critics pointed out at the 2021 Game Developers Conference, combatting harassment in virtual worlds requires deeper structural changes across both our physical and digital lives. But if doing nothing is not an option, and if existing real-world laws can be inappropriate or ineffective, in the meantime we must turn to technology-based tools to proactively manage VR communities.

Right now, one of the most common forms of governance in virtual worlds is a reactive and punitive form of moderation based on reporting users who may then be warned, suspended, or banned. Given the sheer size of virtual communities, these processes are often automated: for instance, an AI might process reports and implement the removal of users or content, or removals may occur after a certain number of reports against a particular user are received.

See the article here:

Games Can Show Us How to Enact Justice in the Metaverse - WIRED

"We're excited to work with Johns Hopkins HealthCare Solutions to offer innovative, proven technology to assist patients

People suffering from substance use disorders (SUD) are twice as likely to suffer from mood and anxiety disorders. Recent researchalso indicates that nearly half of those who experience a mental health disorder also experience SUD and vice versa.

Johns Hopkins HealthCare Solutions, in conjunction with BehaVR, developed the program to address stress reduction through mindfulness practice. As an immersive, interactive therapeutic tool, it is used to teach patients how to decrease an anxious response and promote healthy ways they can ease their anxiety, such as meditation, breath work, and other evidence-based strategies.

Patients who are admitted for drug and alcohol treatment and also experience anxiety at RCA at Bracebridge Hall, located in the northern part of the state, and RCA Capital Region, located nearWashington D.C., will be recommended for the program.

"We're excited to work with Johns Hopkins HealthCare Solutionsand offer an innovative, proven technology to assist our patients and provide them with the best, personalized care," said Kerry King, Psy.D., MBA, Vice President of Clinical Services, RCA. "Introducing this program during a patient's inpatient care, while also utilizing immersive mindfulness techniques, can help diminish the overwhelming and sometimes debilitating stress or anxiety many experience when beginning treatment. It also supports relapse prevention for lasting recovery."

Over the course of six virtual reality mindfulness sessions, the patient's individual specialists will identify the form and level of their anxiety through a series of questions. Responses establish an initial level of experienced anxiety. The VR software will then create a simulated visual and auditory environment where patients can select a setting that is most comforting to them. They are then guided through a meditative/mindfulness activity while immersed in the virtual setting. This increases the experience and benefits of mindfulness and stress reduction.

For participants, program benefits may include:

"The goal is not for our patients to disassociate when experiencing virtual reality but to reduce anxiety and increase mindfulness," said Corey Richey, interim CEO, RCA at Bracebridge Hall. "Our team is dedicated to providing effective tools that build the necessary skills patients can use to decrease stress, experience calm and cope with day-to-day living outside of our facility, which can ultimately be lifesaving."

While RCA is using VR sessions to target SUD and anxiety, patients can receive therapy with any of the specialized inpatient programs available at either location, including programs for young adults, older adults, relapse, trauma, and members of the LGBTQIA+ populations.

RCA at Bracebridge Hall and RCA Capital Region are accredited by the Joint Commission and the National Association of Addiction Treatment Providers. Both RCA at Bracebridge Hall and RCA Capital Region have been named a "Best U.S. Addiction Treatment Facility inMaryland"by Newsweek. In addition to providing evidence-based inpatient treatment for substance use disorder, outpatient treatmentis also available at RCA Capital Region and most other RCA locations as well as an extensive alumni support network and programming after graduation from treatment.

RCA has also pioneered a new digital health platform called Shoutout to make treatment even more accessible and provide constant support and education to everyone no matter where they are in their recovery journey.

To learn more about the VR enhancement treatmentprogram atRCA at Bracebridge Hall and RCA Capital Region, click here.

EDITOR'S NOTE:A media demo of the VR treatment will be available during the RCA at Bracebridge Hall open house on Tuesday, October 26 at 2 p.m. Journalists can also arrange a visit to RCA at Bracebridge Hall to demo the VR if they're unable to attend the open house.

ABOUT RECOVERY CENTERS OF AMERICARecovery Centers of Americais dedicated to helping patients achieve a life of recovery through evidence-based alcohol and drug addiction treatment. RCA has ten inpatient facilities in the United States in Earleville and Waldorf, Maryland, Danvers and Westminster, Massachusetts; Devon (near Philadelphia), and Monroeville (near Pittsburgh), Pennsylvania; South Amboy and Mays Landing, NJ; St. Charles, Illinois (outside of Chicago), and Indianapolis, Indiana. A full spectrum of outpatient treatment is also provided at many of these facilities and in Voorhees, NJ. RCA also provides Medication-Assisted-Treatment (MAT) at its treatment centers and at standalone facilities in Trenton, Woodbridge, and Somerdale, NJ and in Lansdowne, PA. Patients can obtain immediate substance use disorder care by calling 1-800-Recovery with complimentary transportation provided in most cases.

PRESS CONTACTS:Lisa TrapaniRoseComm for Recovery Centers of America410-245-0094[emailprotected]

Terri Malenfant Recovery Centers of America[emailprotected]

SOURCE Recovery Centers of America

recoverycentersofamerica.com

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Recovery Centers Of America Collaborates With Johns Hopkins Healthcare Solutions To Introduce Virtual Reality Treatment Enhancement At Two Maryland...

HTC is responsible for one of the most important virtual reality glasses on the market. So much so that with the Vive they are the official VR device of Steam, the most important game store that exists on PC. So the company that once released some of the best Android smartphones knows what its doing when it comes to immersive worlds.

And although the territory of PCs is already quite colonized by VR devices, the next frontier has to do with mobile phones and the possibility of connecting glasses with which to travel to other realities and evade ourselves for a few minutes. So These HTC Vive Flow seem specifically designed for those same tasks.

One of the first details that stand out is its design, which avoids that mazacote aspect that is so characteristic of virtual reality helmets, and goes on to adopt the same shapes of sunglasses but that, in reality, they are capable of housing two screens of 1.6K resolution each and that boast of reaching a field of view of 100 and 75Hz refresh rate. It is not very spectacular data if we compare it with the competition of Oculus, and even some models of HTC itself, but they are not bad at all as an entry device in this segment.

Parallel to what we can see and hear inside, these glasses have two cameras on the front that serve to track all our movements, and that use the power of the Qualcomm XR1 chip. The set also offers 64GB of storage capacity and will not have the possibility of expansion through a microSD that allows us to install more games or immersive experiences.

These HTC Vive Flow they are not too heavy if we compare it with other models, like the Oculus Quest 2 that reach half a kilo: this model is only 189 grams and, yes, it is a good fault of that detail the fact that the internal battery only gives to handle the glasses for a few minutes . That is so because all the energy must be supplied through an external powerbank or another battery that we buy and connect thanks to its external USB.

They will officially arrive in November, with reservations already open, now a estimated price of $ 499 (about 430 euros to change). We can use these HTC Vive Flow with Android phones so it seems that iOS, for now, is out of the equation.

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HTC Vive Flow, so are the new virtual reality glasses that you can use with your mobile - InTallaght

The Latest Released Virtual Reality in Education Sector Market study has evaluated the future growth potential of Virtual Reality in Education Sector market and provides information and useful stats on market structure and size. The report is intended to provide market intelligence and strategic insights to help decision makers take sound investment decisions and identify potential gaps and growth opportunities. Additionally, the report also identifies and analyses changing dynamics, emerging trends along with essential drivers, challenges, opportunities and restraints in Virtual Reality in Education Sector market.

If you are a Virtual Reality in Education Sector manufacturer and would like to check or understand policy and regulatory proposal, designing clear explanations of the stakes, potential winners and losers, and options for improvement then this article will help you understand the pattern with Impacting Trends.

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Major Highlights of the Virtual Reality in Education Sector Market report released by Adroit Market Research

Revenue and Sales Estimation Historical Revenue and sales volume is presented and further data is triangulated with top-down and bottom-up approaches to forecast complete market size and to estimate forecast numbers for key regions covered in the report along with classified and well recognized Types and end-use industry.

SWOT Analysis on Virtual Reality in Education Sector Players

In additional Market Share analysis of players, in-depth profiling, product/service and business overview, the study also concentrates on BCG matrix, heat map analysis, FPNV positioning along with SWOT analysis to better correlate market competitiveness.

Demand from top notch companies and government agencies are expected to rise as they seek more information on latest scenario. Check Demand Determinants section for more information.

Heat map Analysis, 3-Year Financial and Detailed Company Profiles of Key & Emerging Players:

Atheer, Inc.,Apple Inc.,Facebook Inc.,Blipper,Gravity Jack,Google Inc.,Holition,Layer (Blipper Group),Improbable,Meta Inc.,Marxent Lab LLC,Microsoft Corporation,Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.,Nintendo Co.,Ltd,Sony Corporation,Sphero,Others

Read complete report @ https://www.adroitmarketresearch.com/industry-reports/virtual-reality-in-education-sector-market?utm_source=prp

Regulation Analysis

Local System and Other Regulation: Regional variations in Laws for the use of Virtual Reality in Education Sector Regulation and its Implications Other Compliances

FIVE FORCES & PESTLE ANALYSIS:

In order to better understand Market condition five forces analysis is conducted that includes Bargaining power of buyers, Bargaining power of suppliers, Threat of new entrants, Threat of substitutes, Threat of rivalry.

Political (Political policy and stability as well as trade, fiscal and taxation policies) Economical (Interest rates, employment or unemployment rates, raw material costs and foreign exchange rates) Social (Changing family demographics, education levels, cultural trends, attitude changes and changes in lifestyles) Technological (Changes in digital or mobile technology, automation, research and development) Legal (Employment legislation, consumer law, health and safety, international as well as trade regulation and restrictions) Environmental (Climate, recycling procedures, carbon footprint, waste disposal and sustainability)

Market Breakdown by Types:

By Product Type, (VR content,VR hardware), By end-users, (K-12 sector,Higher education sector), By Distribution Channel, (Distributer,Direct Sales)

Market Breakdown by Applications:

NA

Geographically, the following regions together with the listed national/local markets are fully investigated:

APAC (Japan, China, South Korea, Australia, India, and Rest of APAC; Rest of APAC is further segmented into Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, New Zealand, Vietnam, and Sri Lanka) Europe (Germany, UK, France, Spain, Italy, Russia, Rest of Europe; Rest of Europe is further segmented into Belgium, Denmark, Austria, Norway, Sweden, The Netherlands, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania) North America (U.S., Canada, and Mexico) South America (Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Rest of South America) MEA (Saudi Arabia, UAE, South Africa)

Some Extracts from Virtual Reality in Education Sector Market Study Table of Content

Virtual Reality in Education Sector Market Size (Sales) Market Share by Type (Product Category) [, Medical Evacuation & Casualty Evacuation] in 2020Virtual Reality in Education Sector Market by Application/End Users [Embassies and Governments, Hospitals, Insurance Companies, Others]Global Virtual Reality in Education Sector Sales and Growth Rate (2015-2025)Virtual Reality in Education Sector Competition by Players/Suppliers, Region, Type and ApplicationVirtual Reality in Education Sector (Volume, Value and Sales Price) table defined for each geographic region defined.Supply Chain, Sourcing Strategy and Downstream Buyers, Industrial Chain Analysis..and view more in complete table of Contents

Do you have any query or specific requirement? Ask to our industry expert @ https://www.adroitmarketresearch.com/contacts/enquiry-before-buying/582?utm_source=prp

About Us :

Adroit Market Research is an India-based business analytics and consulting company incorporated in 2018. Our target audience is a wide range of corporations, manufacturing companies, product/technology development institutions and industry associations that require understanding of a markets size, key trends, participants and future outlook of an industry. We intend to become our clients knowledge partner and provide them with valuable market insights to help create opportunities that increase their revenues. We follow a code Explore, Learn and Transform. At our core, we are curious people who love to identify and understand industry patterns, create an insightful study around our findings and churn out money-making roadmaps.

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Virtual Reality in Education Sector Market Outlook 2021: Big Things are Happening with Atheer, Inc.,Apple Inc.,Facebook Inc.,Blipper Puck77 - Puck77