A Reference Architecture to Support the Collaborative Development of Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy Software

With the proliferation of affordable mass-market Virtual Reality (VR) technology, the interest in designing novel metaverse-related applications has increased rapidly. Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy (VRET) has gained attention as a complement to traditional approaches for treating phobias by offering an immersive experience under the control of a trained specialist. However, these treatments are pretty specific to the aversive stimulus that is being addressed (e.g., spiders), and the design of this kind of software requires addressing multiple viewpoints and concerns from different domains collaboratively. In this paper, we present the initial formalization of a reference architecture to support the development of VRET software, explicitly highlighting component reuse and system maintainability. We show the applicability of our proposal through a worked example illustrating the development of a specific VRET product for treating arachnophobia (i.e., intense fear of spiders) and how it can be modified to address other kinds of aversive stimuli. The proposed reference architecture was evaluated in a design workshop with a panel of experienced VR software designers and developers, exploring its pertinence, correctness, and completeness. Our results show that the proposed architecture is easy to follow and captures the critical domain-specific components (both psychology- and software-related) to produce potentially effective solutions, easing the collaborative effort in developing and maintaining VRET software.