Enhancing Virtual Reality Stress Relief with Haptics: The Virtual Rage Room Use Case

EXtended Reality (XR) is already demonstrating its potential beyond the entertainment and gaming industry. One sector clearly benefiting from the advantages of XR is the treatment of stress related mental illnesses by means of Virtual Reality (VR). This is a form of therapy using VR which seeks to help decrease the intensity of the stress responses and anxiety levels due to the various modern-day pressures (e.g., situations, thoughts, or memories which provoke anxiety or fear). While showing promising results, the audiovisual essence of Virtual Reality (VR) can limit the effectiveness of this type of virtual therapy, as the patient’s interaction with the environment is constrained to their visual or at most also their audio senses. As such, including in the immersive therapy tactile therapy could enhance the experience and thus the effectiveness of the therapy. However, this has been largely unexplored. The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of haptic feedback in reducing anxiety for stress relief treatment. Therefore, we present a haptic-enabled subjective methodology. As use case, we selected the booming case of the Virtual Rage Room (VRR), where participants can vent their rage by (virtually) destroying objects. The results of our study highlight the significantly positive impact of incorporating haptic feedback in mitigating anxiety within this context. Moreover, the analysis reassures the intrinsic value of this treatment as a potent tool for anxiety alleviation.