Psious Professionals

Public bathroom

This scene can be very useful for interventions for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorders, more specifically contamination-hygiene type in public toilets. This virtual environment wants the subject to confront his/her appellant thoughts and at the same time be capable of accustoming the anxiety that they produce in him/her and of extinguishing the ritualized neutralizing behaviors and thoughts.

The scene begins at the door of a public toilet. The patient will enter the toilet, and he/she will be able to confront anxiogenic situations inside the toilet cubicle. Finally the avatar will be placed opposite the sink, where he/she will be able to confront obsessions and prevent the use of compulsions and/or neutralizing thoughts. 

SETTINGS VARIABLES

• Gender
  Choose between a male or female body. A neutral body is selected by default.

• Skin tone
  Choose the skin tone that best represents your patient to enhance the feeling of immersion.

• Difficulty
  Easy / Difficult
  Control if the avatar touches certain elements like the faucet, the soap or the hand dryer, or they’re just simply next to him/her. 

• Dirty
  Clean / Dirty

• Toilet type
  Female / Male
  Choose the gender of the people in the environment.

• Sanitary mask
  You can choose whether or not the people around you will have a mask.

ACTION EVENTS

• Open entrance door
  The door opens and the avatar is situated in the toilet.

• Open WC cubicle door
  The door opens and the avatar enters in the toilet cubicle.

• Touch the wall (standing inside the cubicle)
  The avatar touches the wall with his/her left hand.

• Lower the toilet lid
  The avatar lowers the lid to sit on the toilet.

• Flush the toilet
  The avatar touches the button to flush the toilet. 

• Touch the wall (sitting on the toilet)
  The avatar touches the wall while sitting on the toilet.  

• Grab paper
  Grabs paper and throws it in the trash.

• Touch the toilet brush
  The avatar touches the brush on his/her left.

• Wash hands
  Depending on the difficulty settings that you’ve chosen, the avatar will wash its hands touching (difficult) or not (easy) the elements (soap, faucet, etc.).

POSITION EVENTS

• From the outside until sitting on the toilet
  The avatar stands outside the toilet, opens the door, appears in front of the toilet cubicle, opens the door, enters the toilet cubicle, lowers the toilet lid to sit on it and finally sits on the toilet.

• From sitting until washing hands
  The avatar appears sitting on the toilet, grabs paper, stands in front of the toilet, flushes the toilet and washes his/ her hands.

• Complete sequence
  The avatar is placed outside the toilet, opens the door, appears in front of the toilet cubicle, lowers the toilet lid to sit on it, sits on it, grabs paper, stands in front of the toilet, flushes the toilet, stands in front of the sink and washes his/her hands.

POSITION OF THE AVATAR

• Outside bathroom
• Inside bathroom
• Standing inside the toilet cubicle
• Sitting on the toilet
• In front of the sink

University

In this case, when the scene begins the patient appears in the hallway of a university. The students that appear speaking will be between 18 and 30 years. This will allow you to intervene with exam anxiety with young people and adults who present this same problem. When entering the classroom the patient will be able to see a projector in the background and the organization of the desks will be the one that you can see in universities.

Since this environment is intended for adults, it can also be used to work in other, non-strictly university situations, such as, for example, entrance and public exams.

SCENES

SETTINGS VARIABLES

AVATAR

Gender
Choose between a male or female body. A neutral body is selected by default.

Skin tone
Choose the skin tone that best represents your patient to enhance the feeling of immersion.

ATTENDANCE

Alone / A few students / A lot of students
Depending on the option we select, the type and the amount of ambient sound will change. 

With this configuration variable, you can regulate the levels of anxiety and distractors. In general, more people and more noise, lead to more difficulty.

Difficulty

Easy 

• Easier questions
• Relaxed students
• Calm and friendly teacher

Hard

• Difficult questions
• Anxious students
• Serious and controlling teacher

The easy configuration can be used in the early stages of the intervention, where you are seeking anxiety reduction in an environment that does not generate excessively high levels of anxiety.

Exam subject

Psychology
“Psychoeducation about test anxiety and social anxiety”

Natural Sciences and Biology
“Autoimmunity and Immunopathology”

History and Law
“The Spanish Constitution”

Each one of these exams will consist of 10 questions, most of them true / false type.

Duration

Short / Long
This last variable is related to the duration of the test. If we choose “short” the test will last only five minutes, while if we choose “long”, the test will be about twenty minutes.

EVENTS

• Teacher appears
  At the beginning of the session, the environment is the hallway of the high school/university, and an intelligible murmur is heard among the students who are waiting. When the event is activated, the teacher appears at one end of the hallway. As he approaches, he greets the patient with a gesture and invites the students to come into the classroom. Right after that, he proceeds to enter into the classroom and at the same time the murmur decreases until it reaches a normal level.  

• Enter classroom
  Once this event is triggered, a fade to black will occur and the patient will appear seated at the classroom table, ready to perform the exam.

Once in the classroom, the teacher will be waiting for the test to begin. The students will be reviewing or waiting for the test to begin, so the general murmur will be low and unintelligible. 

• Start exam
  When this event is activated, the test will be performed. The general murmur that could be heard is almost completely eliminated, and in the tablet placed on the desk in front of the patient will appear the first question of the test. This question will have two possible interactive answers, so to answer the question the patient should use visual control in the same way that he/she used it when entering the test classroom.

After the patient has selected one of the two available answers, the next question will appear, and the patient should follow the same interactive procedure to answer. When choosing one of the options, the third question will appear, and so on up to completing the ten questions.

In addition to the questions of the test and the corresponding answers, on the tablet will appear, at all times, the remaining time to finish the test. The time in question will depend on the configuration of the difficulty variable.

Throughout the development of the test, in case of having selected that there are people present, some students will finish their test announcing it aloud to the teacher (they will not move from their place). Depending on the difficulty level selected, there will be more or fewer students completing the test.

Once the test time expires, it will automatically be passed to the test completion event, described below. 

• Finish exam
  By activating this event, the teacher will finish the test with a fade to black. The teacher will reappear in the hallway with the tablet visible, being able to see the test result on the screen. At this point, the general murmur among the students in the hallway will again be intelligible.

School

At the beginning of this scene, the patient is in the hall of a high school, so the people that appear are teenagers (between 14 and 17 years). Therefore, this environment will be suitable for adolescents of this age who are anxious about performing a test. When entering the classroom, the patient will sit at one of the multiple tables and will be ready to begin the test.

SCENES

SETTINGS VARIABLES

AVATAR

Gender
Choose between a male or female body. A neutral body is selected by default.

Skin tone
Choose the skin tone that best represents your patient to enhance the feeling of immersion.

Attendance

Alone / A few students / A lot of students
Depending on the option we select, the type and the amount of ambient sound will change. 

With this configuration variable, you can regulate the levels of anxiety and distractors. In general, more people and more noise, lead to more difficulty.

Difficulty

Easy 

• Easier questions
• Relaxed students
• Calm and friendly teacher

Hard

• Difficult questions
• Anxious students
• Serious and controlling teacher

The easy configuration can be used in the early stages of the intervention, where you are seeking anxiety reduction in an environment that does not generate excessively high levels of anxiety.

Exam subject

Psychology
“Psychoeducation about test anxiety and social anxiety”

Natural Sciences and Biology
“The cell”

History and Law
“The recent Spain”

Each one of these exams will consist of 10 questions, most of them true / false type.

Duration

Short / Long
This last variable is related to the duration of the test. If we choose “short” the test will last only five minutes, while if we choose “long”, the test will be about twenty minutes.

EVENTS

• Teacher appears
  At the beginning of the session, the environment is the hallway of the high school/university, and an intelligible murmur is heard among the students who are waiting. When the event is activated, the teacher appears at one end of the hallway. As he approaches, he greets the patient with a gesture and invites the students to come into the classroom. Right after that, he proceeds to enter into the classroom and at the same time the murmur decreases until it reaches a normal level.  

• Enter classroom
  Once this event is triggered, a fade to black will occur and the patient will appear seated at the classroom table, ready to perform the exam.

Once in the classroom, the teacher will be waiting for the test to begin. The students will be reviewing or waiting for the test to begin, so the general murmur will be low and unintelligible. 

• Start exam
  When this event is activated, the test will be performed. The general murmur that could be heard is almost completely eliminated, and in the tablet placed on the desk in front of the patient will appear the first question of the test. This question will have two possible interactive answers, so to answer the question the patient should use visual control in the same way that he/she used it when entering the test classroom.

After the patient has selected one of the two available answers, the next question will appear, and the patient should follow the same interactive procedure to answer. When choosing one of the options, the third question will appear, and so on up to completing the ten questions.

In addition to the questions of the test and the corresponding answers, on the tablet will appear, at all times, the remaining time to finish the test. The time in question will depend on the configuration of the difficulty variable.

Throughout the development of the test, in case of having selected that there are people present, some students will finish their test announcing it aloud to the teacher (they will not move from their place). Depending on the difficulty level selected, there will be more or fewer students completing the test.

Once the test time expires, it will automatically be passed to the test completion event, described below. 

• Finish exam
  By activating this event, the teacher will finish the test with a fade to black. The teacher will reappear in the hallway with the tablet visible, being able to see the test result on the screen. At this point, the general murmur among the students in the hallway will again be intelligible.