Publications / 2020

eTher – An Assistive Virtual Agent for Acrophobia Therapy in Virtual Reality

Oana Cristina Balan, Ștefania Cristea, Gabriela Moise, Livia Petrescu, Silviu Ivașcu, Alin Dragos Bogdan Moldoveanu, Florica Moldoveanu, Marius Leordeanu

Proceedings of the International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (HCII), 2020

Paper

Abstract

Summary (the publisher’s abstract is not openly available): eTher is an assistive virtual agent for acrophobia therapy in a VR mountain landscape with a cable-car ride. The agent talks to the user, adapts its voice pitch, tempo and volume to the patient’s emotional state estimated from biophysical signals relative to a resting baseline, and automatically lowers the exposure level when relaxation techniques do not work. A pilot study with 10 users showed faster task completion and significantly improved relaxation when assisted by the agent.

Cite

@inproceedings{balan2020ether,
  title = {eTher – An Assistive Virtual Agent for Acrophobia Therapy in Virtual Reality},
  author = {Oana Cristina Balan and Ștefania Cristea and Gabriela Moise and Livia Petrescu and Silviu Ivașcu and Alin Dragos Bogdan Moldoveanu and Florica Moldoveanu and Marius Leordeanu},
  year = {2020},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (HCII)},
}