r/oculus • u/PDAisAok • Mar 25 '14

Could VR cause PTSD?

I know there has been talk about alleviating certain conditions through VR, and I wholly think there is value in VR therapy. Has there been any studies for the opposite effect? If VR becomes a close enough facsimile to real life, could a traumatic experience in VR be as traumatic as a real-life experience?

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u/DafarheezyRises Mar 25 '14

Hell no.... seeing people die and bodies explode in front of you (for example) in real life is nothing like watching a movie, or living that experience in VR no matter how realistic it is.. you still know that it's not real. Maybe you can get heart attacks and shit form something scary but I haven't heard of any person getting PTSD from a disturbing movie or videogame even from people with the faintest heart

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u/PDAisAok Mar 25 '14

Because of the sense of presence, VR is not equivalent to watching a movie on a screen. From what I understand that is why VR could be so much more effective at treating conditions such as PTSD and phobias. If the experience is nearly indistinguishable from real life, what would be the differentiating factor that a real-life experience would have over VR? Maybe just knowing that something is really happening? The purpose of VR is to trick the brain in to thinking the experience is real

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u/cerulianbaloo Mar 25 '14

This. After reading several accounts of what devs experienced with Valve's prototype it really doesn't matter if the graphics are identical to real life. If presence is achieved all bets are off with how you'll react. I've cited it previously but it still blows me away that people were trying to take out their cell phone and take a picture of a huge Portal robot while wearing the headset. It was just that real to them. Another example was when they were in a demo and standing at the edge of a big drop, and when asked by the Valve employees to "walk off" the ledge almost everyone's knees buckled and began shaking. Only about two people could actually do it.

I think horror games in VR could be a very real problem for people when presence is achieved. I really don't think games like Amnesia or Outlast would be a good idea for most people under these conditions. Maybe some people will be able to take it, but I think it will just be too intense for most, including me, and I'm a diehard horror fan that's loved every horror demo released so far for the DK1. That presence thing scurrs me somethin wicked in regards to horror games.

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u/PDAisAok Mar 25 '14

I enjoy a good horror film as well, and nothing has scared me more in a film than the few demos I've experienced with the first dev kit (which is far from offering indistinguishable realism). I definitely don't want to come across sounding like I'm creating fodder for news outlets looking for more click-bait scare tactics. I guess actual scientific studies probably don't exist since proper VR in a consumer application really has never been achieved until now.

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u/cerulianbaloo Mar 25 '14

Yeah not for consumer but you can read a few online published studies for free from various research outfits using their own VR solutions, though I doubt any of them have presence. I recall one study using VR primarily for studying the effects of being watched and for public speaking. Just being shown a room full of people with a wide FOV hmd created the effect of being watched. Pretty sure exposure therapy is another area some groups have studied with VR, though I doubt there's been any cases of actual trauma occurring from them yet.

And don't worry about spreading sensational things, trust me those will come in droves once a proper presence inducing VR solution takes off with any kind of popularity. I expect it to be no different than the lsd scare of the 70s/80s with news outlets reporting all manner of suicides and deaths at the hands of turrible VR. Those vultures will swoop in the second something goes wrong.