Visualising Physiological Cues in Individualised Virtual Reality for Mental Health

Mental health conditions pose a major challenge for individuals, healthcare systems and society. Virtual Reality (VR) in mental health is an innovative field. Recent studies support the use of VR technology in the treatment of anxiety, phobia, and pain management. However, there is little research on using VR for supporting, treating and preventing depression. There is also very little work done in offering an individualised VR experience to improve mental health. In our earlier work, we presented iVR, a novel individualised VR experience for enhancing peoples’ self-compassion, and described its design, architecture and the findings of a preliminary evaluation study. Most participants believed introducing elements of choice within iVR enhanced their user experience and that iVR was shown to enhance people’s self-compassion. In this paper, we describe the design of a customised heart rate visualisation tool for iVR, in an attempt to incorporate physiological data in an individualised VR-based mental health intervention. Four heart rate visualizations were explored, namely Plain Heart Rate Values, Pulsing Heart, Vignette, and Heartbeat Sounds. Plans for future work are also described..