Monitoring Brain Activity During Use of Stereoscopic Virtual Environments

Abstract

Performance in virtual environments (VEs) is strongly modulated by attention-related factorssuch as the preattentive state of the brain. Because this state changes over time and might also be influenced by the VE, itself, we propose an implementation of an electrophysiological brain monitoring system focussing on event-related potentials (ERPs) and conventional EEG signals. ERPs provide information related to the respective cognitive functional state as a reliable method for assessing the underlying brain activity. Mismatch negativity (MMN) and P300 are cognitive event-related potentials that reflect preattentive (MMN) and attentiondependent (P300) information processing. The conventional EEG is capable of detecting the degree of the subjects drowsiness or alertness, such as the involvement of specific cortical areas during the task at hand. The goal of the present work was to establish a neurophysiological monitoring in VE. 407 FIG. 4. Spectral arrays of one EEG recording (26 minutes, all trials). The task (Tower of Hanoi) runs from minute 16 to minute 17 eliciting a valley in the alpha-power (m V 2 ) with an increase in the theta-power (m V 2 ). Power (m V 2 )

The role of psychophysiology in forensic assessments: Deception detection, ERPs, and virtual reality mock crime scenarios

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Physiological Monitoring as an Objective Tool in Virtual Reality Therapy

“…9 A few researchers, therefore, have tried to objectively measure anxiety and stress responses in real time by using physiological response such as heart rate, respiration rate, skin resistance, skin temperature, and peripheral brain wave EEG activity in virtual environments. [10][11][12][13] Wiederhold et al found differences between the phobic's physiological responses and nonphobics' responses when placed in a virtual flying environment related to their phobia. 10 Meehan found a high and significant correlation between presence and skin conductance level with 10 nonphobic participants in virtual room environments.…”

“…10 Meehan found a high and significant correlation between presence and skin conductance level with 10 nonphobic participants in virtual room environments. 11 Stoermer et al showed heart rate variability was a powerful and easy-to-use instrument for monitoring the user's stress level. 12 While these studies all showed the necessity of monitoring user's psychophysiological states in VR psychotherapy, they did not find a systematic relationship between nonphobics' and phobics' physiological response to virtual environments.…”

The Physiological Assessment of VE Training System Fidelity

“…A number of physiological measures have been used to assess emotional reaction and engagement, two constructs which are vital parts of psychological validity. Heart rate (Meehan et al, 2002) and galvanic skin response (Wiederhold & Wiederhold, 2000;Meehan et al, 2002;Jang et al, 2002) have both been shown to be good correlates with engagement or emotional arousal, as has electroencephalography (Mager et al, 2000;Pugnetti, Meehan, and Mendozzi, 2001).…”