Increasing resilience and preventing suicide | Proceedings of the 22nd ACM International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents (2024)

research-article

Authors: Tal Nakash, Tom Haller, Maya Shekel, Dan Pollak, + 3, Moti Lewenchuse, Anat Brunstein Klomek, and Doron Friedman (Less)

IVA '22: Proceedings of the 22nd ACM International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents

September 2022

Article No.: 12, Pages 1 - 8

Published: 06 September 2022 Publication History

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    Abstract

    Virtual agents have been used as virtual patients for medical training, as well as for mental health training. When the training takes place inside VR the experience is more immersive, which allows for illusions of presence: the illusion that you are co-present with the virtual agent in the same space, and the illusion that the virtual agent is a real human. We have developed 'Daniel', a VR framework, based on a semi-automated virtual agent, which can be used for training for increasing resilience and for suicide prevention, and has the potential of being used as an intervention. Here we report on two different studies aimed at evaluating the framework and the psychological protocols involved. In the first study we trained participants from the general population to develop a resilience plan intervention (RPI) with a distressed virtual agent, and in the second study we trained therapists to use the safety plan intervention (SPI) with a suicidal virtual agent. In both cases we compare the VR sessions with role-playing by human actors. We report that all interventions resulted in an increase in participant self-efficacy in helping others, and we also report results on the possible importance of presence and social presence.

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    Cited By

    View all

    • Vázquez-de Sebastián JAnastasiadou DCano Porras DFriedman DCastellano-Tejedor CLusilla-Palacios P(2023)Editorial: Can virtual reality be a solution for assessing and treating psychological symptoms caused by eating and weight disorders?Frontiers in Psychology10.3389/fpsyg.2023.122545414Online publication date: 13-Jun-2023
    • Pollak DGiron JFriedman D(2023)Inceptor: An Open Source Tool for Automated Creation of 3D Social Scenarios2023 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces Abstracts and Workshops (VRW)10.1109/VRW58643.2023.00102(474-476)Online publication date: Mar-2023

    Index Terms

    1. Increasing resilience and preventing suicide: training and interventions with a distressed virtual human in virtual reality

      1. Applied computing

        1. Law, social and behavioral sciences

        2. Human-centered computing

          1. Human computer interaction (HCI)

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        Information & Contributors

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        Published In

        Increasing resilience and preventing suicide | Proceedings of the 22nd ACM International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents (8)

        IVA '22: Proceedings of the 22nd ACM International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents

        September 2022

        234 pages

        ISBN:9781450392488

        DOI:10.1145/3514197

        • General Chairs:
        • Carlos Martinho

          Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa & INESC-ID

          ,
        • João Dias

          Universidade do Algarve

          ,
        • Program Chairs:
        • Joana Campos

          Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa & INESC-ID

          ,
        • Dirk Heylen

          University of Twente

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        Publication History

        Published: 06 September 2022

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        Author Tags

        1. presence
        2. psychological counseling
        3. resilience
        4. social presence
        5. suicide
        6. virtual patient
        7. virtual reality

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        IVA '22 Paper Acceptance Rate 21 of 51 submissions, 41%;

        Overall Acceptance Rate 53 of 196 submissions, 27%

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        ACM International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents

        September 16 - 19, 2024

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        Increasing resilience and preventing suicide | Proceedings of the 22nd ACM International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents (13)

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        • Vázquez-de Sebastián JAnastasiadou DCano Porras DFriedman DCastellano-Tejedor CLusilla-Palacios P(2023)Editorial: Can virtual reality be a solution for assessing and treating psychological symptoms caused by eating and weight disorders?Frontiers in Psychology10.3389/fpsyg.2023.122545414Online publication date: 13-Jun-2023
        • Pollak DGiron JFriedman D(2023)Inceptor: An Open Source Tool for Automated Creation of 3D Social Scenarios2023 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces Abstracts and Workshops (VRW)10.1109/VRW58643.2023.00102(474-476)Online publication date: Mar-2023

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