How the physical similarity of avatars can influence the learning of emotion regulation strategies in teenagers

The aim of this study is to evaluate the influence of the physical similarity of avatars with the user on emotion regulation strategy training. In this study twenty-four teenagers observed an avatar (either physically similar to the participant or neutral) that gets frustrated with his/her computer, after which he/she applies an emotion regulation strategy (slow breathing). The intensity of the emotional induction and regulation processes was measured using questionnaires and electroencephalogram data. The results show that observing an avatar that is physically similar to the participant has a significantly greater impact on emotional valence and arousal in participants and also induces emotional states that are significantly more intense than when observing a neutral avatar. The results seem to indicate significantly greater activation of specific brain regions that are related to these processes and greater identification with the avatar in terms of both subjective and objective measures in participants that observed an avatar that was physically similar to them. However, there were no significant differences in the sense of presence or the appeal (i.e., satisfaction) to participants regarding the virtual environment. The use of avatars in mental health applications is relatively new and its specific influence is still unknown. We consider this study to be a first step forward in better understanding the use of avatars in mental health applications for youth. This research brings new guidelines to the design of different types of applications in this field in order to achieve greater behavioral changes in youth.Wrzesien, M.; Rodriguez Ortega, A.; Rey, B.; Alcañiz Raya, ML.; Banos, R.; Vara, M. (2015). How the physical similarity of avatars can influence the learning of emotion regulation strategies in teenagers. Computers in Human Behavior. 43:101-111. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2014.09.024S1011114

Too many lemons to make lemonade? Disentangling mental health during the third wave of COVID-19 infections in Spain

The study aimed to analyze the longitudinal change in mental health during the third wave of COVID-19 infections in Spain. Negative (e.g., emotional distress) and positive (e.g., positive functioning variables) outcomes were analyzed. Protective factors (e.g., resilience) as predictors of psychological adjustment (i.e., positive mental health, openness to the future, and low burden due to COVID-19) after ten months of the pandemic were also examined. The sample consisted of 164 participants, and self-reported questionnaires were administered at the beginning of the lockdown (March 2020), at the end of the lockdown (June 2020), and during the third wave (January 2021). Linear mixed models showed that individuals’ emotional distress increased, and positive functioning variables (i.e., meaning in life, gratitude, resilience, and life satisfaction) decreased over time, but an increase was observed in some dimensions of posttraumatic growth. Regression analyses showed that resilience scores at all three data collection time points were significant predictors of positive mental health, openness to the future, and burden during the third wave. Mediation analyses showed that positive mental health and openness to the future were mediators of the effect of resilience on burden. The prolonged situation of the COVID-19 crisis had an important impact on positive and negative mental health. However, resilience may help to build up resources that can act as a buffer against adverse psychological effects

A VR-Based Serious Game for Studying Emotional Regulation in Adolescents

[EN] We all use more or less adapted strategies to confront adverse emotional situations in our lives without being psychologically affected. Emotional Regulation (ER) strategies that we use determine the way in which we feel, express and behave. Moreover, ER strategies are particularly important in adolescents, a population in the age when the deficits of ER strategies can be linked to the appearance of numerous mental health disorders such as depression or anxiety, or disruptive behaviors. Thus, the early detection of dysfunctional ER strategies and the training in adaptive ER strategies will help us to prevent the future occurrence of possible behavioral and psychosocial disorders. In this paper, we present the GAMETEEN SYSTEM (GT-System), a novel instrument based on Virtual Reality and serious games for the assessment and training of ER strategies in adolescent population. The results of our preliminary evaluation suggest that this system is effective in training and evaluating emotional regulation strategies in the adolescent population.Rodriguez Ortega, A.; Rey, B.; Vara, MD.; Wrzesien, M.; Alcañiz Raya, ML.; Baños, RM.; Pérez Lopez, DC. (2015). A VR-Based Serious Game for Studying Emotional Regulation in Adolescents. IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications. 35(1):65-73. doi:10.1109/MCG.2015.8S657335

GameTeen: new tools for evaluating and training emotional regulation strategies

The aim of this paper is to describe GameTeen, a novel instrument for the assessment and training of Emotional Regulation (ER) strategies in adolescent population. These new tools are based on the use of 3D serious games that can be played under different settings. The evolution of ER strategies will be monitored in two ways depending on the setting where the tool is presented. Firstly, in the laboratory, physiological signals and facial expressions of participants will be recorded. Secondly, in real life settings, ecological momentary assessment tools will be used to obtain answers from the subjects using their mobile phone. The goal is to obtain more attractive and reliable tools to evaluate and train ER strategies.This study was funded by Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia Spain, Project Game Teen (TIN2010-20187) and partially by projects Consolider-C (SEJ2006-14301/PSIC), “CIBER of Physiopathology of Obesity and Nutrition, an initiative of ISCIII” and Excellence Research Program PROMETEO (Generalitat Valenciana. Consellería de Educación, 2008-157). The work of A. Rodríguez was supported by the Spanish MEC under an FPI Grant BES-2011-043316.Rodríguez Ortega, A.; Rey, B.; Alcañiz Raya, ML.; Baños, R.; Guixeres Provinciale, J.; Wrzesien, M.; Gómez Martínez, M.... (2012). GameTeen: new tools for evaluating and training emotional regulation strategies. En Annual Review of Cybertherapy and Telemedicine 2012. IOS Press. 334-338. https://doi.org/10.3233/978-1-61499-121-2-334S33433

How Technology Influences the Therapeutic Process: Evaluation of the Patient-Therapist Relationship in Augmented Reality Exposure Therapy and In Vivo Exposure Therapy

New technologies have slowly become a part of psychologists’ therapeutic office. However, many therapists still have doubts about the possibility of creating a good therapeutic relationship with patients in the presence of technology. Aims: This study evaluates the development of the therapeutic alliance in individuals with small animal phobia disorder who were treated with Augmented Reality Exposure Therapy or In Vivo Exposure Therapy. Method: Twenty-two participants received an intensive session of cognitive behavioural therapy in either a technology-mediated therapeutic context or in a traditional therapeutic context. Results: The results show no significant difference for the therapeutic alliance between two conditions. Conclusions: The results seem to show that technologies such as Augmented Reality do not represent a danger to negatively influence the therapeutic allianceWrzesien, M.; Bretón-López, J.; Botella, C.; Burkhardt, J.; Alcañiz Raya, ML.; Pérez-Ara, MÁ.; Riera Del Amo, A. (2013). How Technology Influences the Therapeutic Process: Evaluation of the Patient-Therapist Relationship in Augmented Reality Exposure Therapy and In Vivo Exposure Therapy. Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy. 41(4):505-509. doi:10.1017/S1352465813000088S505509414Sucala, M., Schnur, J. B., Constantino, M. J., Miller, S. J., Brackman, E. H., & Montgomery, G. H. (2012). The Therapeutic Relationship in E-Therapy for Mental Health: A Systematic Review. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 14(4), e110. doi:10.2196/jmir.2084Germain, V., Marchand, A., Bouchard, S., Guay, S., & Drouin, M.-S. (2010). Assessment of the Therapeutic Alliance in Face-to-Face or Videoconference Treatment for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 13(1), 29-35. doi:10.1089/cyber.2009.0139Tracey, T. J., & Kokotovic, A. M. (1989). Factor structure of the Working Alliance Inventory. Psychological Assessment: A Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 1(3), 207-210. doi:10.1037/1040-3590.1.3.207Elvins, R., & Green, J. (2008). The conceptualization and measurement of therapeutic alliance: An empirical review. Clinical Psychology Review, 28(7), 1167-1187. doi:10.1016/j.cpr.2008.04.002Juan, M. C., Alcaniz, M., Monserrat, C., Botella, C., Banos, R. M., & Guerrero, B. (2005). Using Augmented Reality to Treat Phobias. IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, 25(6), 31-37. doi:10.1109/mcg.2005.14

Assessing brain activations associated with emotional regulation during virtual reality mood induction procedures

Emotional regulation strategies are used by people to influence their emotional responses to external or internal emotional stimuli. The aim of this study is to evaluate the brain activations that are associated with the application of two different emotional regulation strategies (cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression) during virtual reality mood induction procedures. We used Emotiv EPOC to measure the brain electrical activity of participants while sadness is induced using a virtual reality environment. We monitored 24 participants, who were distributed among three experimental groups: a control group, a cognitive reappraisal group and an expressive suppression group. In the control group, we found significant activations in several right frontal regions that are related to the induction of negative emotions . We also found significant activations in the limbic, occipital, and parietal regions in the emotional regulation groups. These regions are related to the application of emotional regulation strategies. The results are consistent with those shown in the literature, which were obtained through clinical neuroimaging systems.The work of A. Rodriguez was funded by the Spanish MEC under an FPI Grant BES-2011-043316. The work of Miriam Clemente was funded by the Generalitat Valenciana under a VALi+d Grant.Rodríguez Ortega, A.; Rey, B.; Clemente Bellido, M.; Wrzesien, M.; Alcañiz Raya, ML. (2015). Assessing brain activations associated with emotional regulation during virtual reality mood induction procedures. Expert Systems with Applications. 42(3):1699-1709. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2014.10.006S1699170942

Assessment of the quality of multiple-choice exams through the Item Response Theory: implementation in the subject of “Psychological Assessment”

[EN] Multiple Choice testing (MCT) is one of the most popular approaches to the assessment of knowledge acquisition. Preparing a MCT is complex; however, its metric quality (in terms of difficulty, discrimination capacity, or distractors effectiveness) is not usually assessed. “Item Response Theory" (IRT) is a statistical approach that may assist when evaluating the quality of a MCT. IRT lets to estimate indices that may be used later as a way to improve the quality of the assessment. The aim of this work was to present the results of a teaching innovation project in which the IRT was employed to analyze the MCT used during the last 3 courses in the subject «Psychological Evaluation» (Degree in Speech Therapy). Results suggested that a significant proportion of the questions analyzed presented certain limitations, such as the excessive prevalence of easy items (between 45%-67.5%) or ineffective distractors (between 17.5%-26.6%). Yet, these issues did not impact the discrimination capacity of the MCT. These results serve as a basis for proposing initiatives to improve evaluations through MCT, which ultimately will result in a fairer and more balanced evaluation of the students of the subject.[ES] Los Exámenes de Alternativa Múltiple (EAM) son la forma más popular de evaluar la adquisición de conocimiento. Elaborar un EAM entraña cierta complejidad; sin embargo, rara vez se analiza en qué grado los EAM cumplen los criterios de calidad exigibles a estas pruebas (p.e., en términos de dificultad, capacidad de discriminación o eficacia de los distractores). La «Teoría de Respuesta al Ítem (TRI)» es una aproximación estadística que puede ayudar a la hora de evaluar la calidad de un EAM a través de la obtención de índices objetivos que, en una fase posterior, se pueden usar para mejorar la evaluación. El objetivo de este trabajo es presentar los resultados de un Proyecto de Innovación Docente en el que se analizó, mediante TRI, los EAM usados durante los últimos tres cursos en la asignatura «Evaluación Psicológica» (Grado en Logopedia). Los resultados sugieren que una proporción importante de preguntas analizadas presentaban limitaciones relacionadas con la excesiva presencia de ítems fáciles (entre el 45%-67.5%) o distractores ineficaces (entre el 17.5%-26.6%), si bien esto no afectó sobre su capacidad de discriminación. Estos resultados sirven de base para proponer iniciativas que permitan mejorar las evaluaciones a través de EAM.Castro-Calvo, J.; Pons-Cañaveras, D.; Beltrán-Martínez, P.; Atienza-González, F.; Bellver-Pérez, A.; De La Barrera-Marzal, U.; Díaz-Martínez, A.... (2022). Análisis de la calidad de exámenes de alternativa múltiple a través de la teoría de respuesta al item: aplicación en la asignatura de “Evaluación Psicològica”. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 379-391. https://doi.org/10.4995/INRED2022.2022.1590537939

Input Devices in Mental Health Applications: Steering Performance in a Virtual Reality Paths with WiiMote

Part 1: Long and Short PapersInternational audienceRecent studies present Virtual Reality (VR) as potentially effective technology in the Mental Health (MH) field. The objective of this paper is to evaluate two interaction techniques (traditional vs novel) using a popular and low-cost input device (WiiMote) within a theoretical framework of the Steering Law. The results show that the WiiMote responds to the requirements for the MH technologies, and that the law of Steering continues to be valid on all of three paths. This opens up a new range of possible research studies for the design and evaluation of interaction techniques in MH field

Towards a Virtual Reality- and Augmented Reality-Mediated Therapeutic Process model: a theoretical revision of clinical issues and HCI issues

A substantial body of empirical research now supports the importance of client and therapist characteristics as well as the therapeutic relationship between them in predicting therapeutic change. Recent studies have increasingly recognised Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) as potentially effective technologies in the treatment of specific phobias. Despite these results, there is little theoretical and empirical understanding of how technologies actually support the users (i.e., client and therapist) in their respective but closely related activities; how they are actually used; and how they modify the therapeutic process. This article reviews the state of the art related to both the Human?Computer Interactions issues and the clinical aspects of the therapeutic process in both technology-mediated and non-mediated contexts, and proposes the theoretical model of the VR/AR-Mediated Therapeutic Process, which integrates the concepts from both fields. The applications and relevancy of this model are also discussed