A large number of studies have demonstrated the benefits of natural environments on people’s health and well-being. For people who have limited access to nature (e.g., elderly in nursing homes, hospital patients, or jail inmates), virtual representations may provide an alternative to benefit from the illusion of a natural environment. For this purpose and in most previous studies, conventional photos of nature have been used. Immersive virtual reality (VR) environments, however, can induce a higher sense of presence compared to conventional photos. Whether this higher sense of presence leads to increased positive impacts of virtual nature exposure is the main research question of this study. Therefore, we compared exposure to a forest and an urban virtual environment in terms of their respective impact on mood, stress, physiological reactions, and cognition. The environments were presented via a head-mounted display as (1) conventional photo slideshows or (2) 360$$^{\circ }$$
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videos. The results show that the forest environment had a positive effect on cognition and the urban environment disturbed mood regardless of the mode of presentation. In addition, photos of either urban or forest environment were both more effective in reducing physiological arousal compared to immersive 360$$^{\circ }$$
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videos.
A platform offering web technologies and interoperable components is proposed, allowing integration of different technologies into a robust system. Key modules are provided in home, to support integration of IoT devices, and in the cloud, offering centralised services and storage. Communication between the two is performed using the open FIWARE-Orion protocol. Data are not tied to methods and resources, so the platform can handle multiple types of requests and data formats. The platform is deployed in HOLOBALANCE, a telerehabilitation system for balance disorders, providing surrogate holographic physiotherapists, real time evaluations of task performance and cloud-based data analytics for personalised coaching.
Individuals with paranoia often experience a high level of self-criticism and negative emotions. Guided compassionfocused (CF) imagery has shown to be successful in reducing these negative emotions and paranoid thoughts. However, some individuals have difficulties with CF imagery. By enabling a sense of presence, immersive virtual environments can overcome these limitations and induce specific emotional responses to support the development of self-compassionate feelings. In our study, we compared an immersive CF (CF-VR) with a controlled VR condition in a student sample of N = 21 participants with slightly elevated symptoms of paranoia. A virtual mission on the moon was designed and implemented to induce self-compassionate feelings with the help of interacting with a space nebula that represented the power of compassion. Our results show that the CF-VR intervention was well accepted and effective in reducing state paranoid thoughts. Worry decreased significantly within the CF-VR group, while self-compassion increased.
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