The design of clinical-oriented virtual environments: a communicational approach

Understanding how to use immersive virtual reality (VR) to support clinical practice presents a substantial challenge for the designers and users of this emerging technology. Taking this challenge this paper describes VR as a new medium: a communication medium in the case of multi-user VR and a communication interface in single-user VR. Two are the core characteristics of VR as communication tool: the perceptual illusion of nonmediation and the sense of community. The first characteristic of a satisfying virtual environment is the disappearance of mediation, a level of experience where both the VR system and the physical environment disappear from the user's phenomenal awareness. The second characteristic is the sense of community developed by interaction. Through interaction made possible by multi-user VR, individuals find or form groups that share interests. So, information exchange becomes the carrier for expressing self-concept and eliciting emotional support. Within this view, experiencing presence and telepresence do not depend so much on the faithfulness of the reproduction of ‘physical’ aspects of ‘external reality’ which is also a social production, and not a primitive or ‘natural’ fact as on the capacity of simulation to produce a context in which social actors may communicate and cooperate. The consequences of this approach for the design and the development of clinical oriented VR systems are presented, with the methodological and technical implications for the study of advanced human-computer interaction. The design of clinical-oriented virtual environments: a communicational approach