The use of computers, especially for virtual reality (VR), to understand, assess, and treat various mental health problems has been developed for the last decade, including application for phobia, post-traumatic stress disorder, attention deficits, and schizophrenia. However, the number of VR tools addressing obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is still lacking due to the heterogeneous symptoms of OCD and poor understanding of the relationship between VR and OCD. This article reviews the empirical literatures for VR tools in the future, which involve applications for both clinical work and experimental research in this area, including examining symptoms using VR according to OCD patients' individual symptoms, extending OCD research in the VR setting to also study behavioral and physiological correlations of the symptoms, and expanding the use of VR for OCD to cognitive-behavioral intervention.
Mental Health ; Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder ; Phobic Disorders ; Schizophrenia ; Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic

OBJECTIVE: A radial arm maze (RAM) is an essential tool for assessing spatial learning and memory. Although this tool is widely used to study deficits in spatial memory in animal models, it has several restrictions that prevent its adaptation to human research and training. Therefore, we developed a head-mounted-display RAM (HMD-RAM) program for humans and verified its validity by comparing it to the results obtained by previous RAM studies. We also compared the HMD and a flat monitor as experimental devices. METHODS: Forty participants were recruited for the current study (Study 1: 20 participants with the HMD device; Study 2: 20 participants with the flat monitor). They navigated a virtual room as a first-person viewer and used environmental landmarks to remember their spatial position and orientation. The main dependent measures were working memory error, reference memory error, detection time, travel distance, and participant’s head movements. To validate the program, participants also conducted neuropsychological assessments and self-reported measures. RESULTS: The results for HMD-RAM tasks were consistent with the results of previous research conducted on animals, and the HMD elicited a higher sense of presence, immersion, and simulator sickness than the flat monitor. According to post-experiment questions on navigation strategy, creating landmarks was important when people were discovering locations in their environment, and an HMD was beneficial for better navigation strategy. CONCLUSION: These results suggest that the HMD-RAM is valuable for estimating spatial learning and memory in humans and may be a useful tool for early diagnosis of deficits in spatial learning and memory, including amnestic mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s disease.
Animals ; Arm* ; Early Diagnosis ; Head Movements ; Humans ; Immersion ; Memory* ; Memory, Short-Term ; Mild Cognitive Impairment ; Models, Animal ; Spatial Learning* ; Spatial Memory

OBJECTIVE: Previous studies have suggested that a virtual classroom is immersive and ecologically valid neuropsychological assessment, but those studies have limited components for social attentions. Therefore, the objective in the current study is the development of a joint attention virtual reality (JA-VR) classroom to incorporate social attentions between a participant and a virtual avatar teacher. METHODS: Fifty-eight participants were recruited for current study (25 for pilot and 33 for main studies; 32.8% female, n=19; age: M=24.5, SD=4.0). We suggested a JA-VR classroom, and compared it with previous methods including a VR classroom without JA components. We conducted attention experiments with AX-version of continuous performance tasks. RESULTS: Our results suggest that the new JA-VR classroom had convergent validity with previous methods, and that the JA-VR classroom promoted attentional processing among participants better than both old VR and non-VR measures. CONCLUSION: We add an important social attention concept to the virtual classroom, and believe that this work is an methodological foundation for the study of social attention in school life. We hope it ultimately help people with mental handicaps in social attention.
Attention ; Female ; Hope ; Humans ; Joints

OBJECTIVES: The Symmetry, Ordering and Arranging Questionnaire (SOAQ) has been reported as a valid tool for the assessment of symmetry, ordering and arranging compulsive behaviors of patients with obsessive compulsive disorder. It was introduced by Radomsky and Rachman in 2004. The aim of this study was to assess the reliability, validity and psychometric properties of the Korean-version of the SOAQ (K-SOAQ). METHODS: Two hundreds twenty eight under-graduate college students were enrolled in this study. They were assessed with K-SOAQ, Obsessive-Compulsive Inventory-Revised (OCI-R), Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI). Statistical analysis was done using calculation of Cronbach's alpha, Spearman Correlation Coefficient and Principal Components Analysis. RESULTS: There were no significant differences in sex, education, and total scores of BDI and BAI. The Cronbach's alpha coefficient of K-SOAQ was high, Cronbach's alpha=0.96. There was strong evidence for a one-factor solution, accounting for 60.3% of the variance. Convergent validity was examined through correlations between the SOAQ and the OCI-R (r=0.61). Divergent validity was examined through correlations between the SOAQ and two self report measures; BDI (r=0.12) and BAI (r=0.19). CONCLUSION: The K-SOAQ showed good reliability and validity for the assessment of severity of compulsive characteristics regarding symmetry, ordering and arranging. The K-SOAQ is a useful instrument for assessing compulsive symptoms related with symmetry, ordering and arranging in Korea.
Accounting ; Anxiety ; Compulsive Behavior ; Depression ; Humans ; Korea ; Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder ; Psychometrics ; Surveys and Questionnaires ; Reproducibility of Results ; Self Report