Mixed reality for cross-cultural integration: using positive technology to share experiences and promote communication

Parental Attitudes toward Videogames at School

Despite research having highlighted the positive outcomes of the use of videogames to learn, their integration into school contexts remains rare. Literature recognizes the importance of user’s technology acceptance to predict the intention to use and the adoption of new technology in several settings. So far, investigations have primarily focused on students’ and teachers’ opinions, while only a few studies have considered the role of parents. This study aimed to investigate the role of the dimensions of the technology acceptance model on parental preference (254 Italian parents) for the adoption of videogames in primary or secondary schools. Results revealed that 71% of the variance of par…

User-Centered Virtual Reality for Promoting Relaxation: An Innovative Approach

[EN] Virtual reality has been used effectively to promote relaxation and reduce stress. It is possible to find two main approaches to achieve such aims across the literature. The first one is focused on genetic environments filled with relaxing "narratives" to induce control over one's own body and physiological response, while the second one engages the user in virtual reality-mediated activities to empower his/her own abilities to regulate emotion. The scope of the present contribution is to extend the discourse on VR use to promote relaxation, by proposing a third approach. This would be based on VR with personalized content, based on user research to identify important life events. As a…

Comparison of relaxation techniques in virtual reality for breast cancer patients

A number of studies demonstrated that virtual reality (VR) featuring pleasant scenarios and relaxing narratives is effective in promoting relaxation in users, both in healthy and pathological contexts. One important field for application of relaxing VR is breast cancer, because of therapy-related distress and changes in body imagine experienced by patients during the care process. However, comparisons between different relaxation techniques adapted to virtual reality are rare. In the present study, the same virtual environment has been integrated with audio narratives designed according to two different relaxation techniques (respiration control and body scan). As initial exploration, 16 br…

Presence-inducing media for mental health applications

Presence inducing media have recently emerged as a potentially effective way to provide general and specialty mental health services, and they appear poised to enter mainstream clinical delivery. However, to ensure appropriate development and use of these technologies, clinicians must have a clear understanding of the opportunities and challenges they will provide to professional practice.