IVRSandplay: An Immersive Virtual Reality Sandplay System Coupled with Hand Motion Capture and Eye Tracking

Sandplay therapy is a novel psychological consultation and treatment method for people suffering from mental stress and psychological issues. It is popular among the masses owing to its interest and curative effect. However, traditional sandplay games face several problems, such as the requirement of large space, low accessibility, difficulty in keeping treatment records, and lack of engagement. To solve these problems, we put forward a sandplay system based on virtual reality technology. This system provides a virtual scenario of the sandplay room, allowing users to place various sandplay miniatures naturally and smoothly into the sandbox with multiple themes by using motion capture gloves. What is more, users can switch to the first-person perspective to experience the world they have built. Additionally, the system could collect users’ eye-tracking data and analyze it by a machine learning algorithm to estimate individuals’ emotions which could assist in further treatment. Finally, twelve participants were invited to experience the system. They were asked to evaluate this system as well as their emotional status before and after using it. The experimental results indicate that the participants are satisfied with this system, while their emotions can be improved to a certain extent.