scholarly journals Virtual Reality Technology and Speech Analysis for People Who Stutter

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 326-338
Author(s):  
Abeer Al-Nafjan ◽  
Najwa Alghamdi ◽  
Abdulaziz Almudhi

Virtual reality (VR) technology provides an interactive computer-generated experience that artificially simulates real-life situations by creating a virtual environment that looks real and stimulates the user’s feelings. During the past few years, the use of VR technology in clinical interventions for assessment, rehabilitation and treatment have received increased attention. Accordingly, many clinical studies and applications have been proposed in the field of mental health, including anxiety disorders. Stuttering is a speech disorder in which affected individuals have a problem with the flow of speech. This can manifest in the repetition and prolongation of words or phrases, as well as in involuntary silent pauses or blocks during which the individual is unable to produce sounds. Stuttering is often accompanied by a social anxiety disorder as a secondary symptom, which requires separate treatment. In this study, we evaluated the effectiveness of using a VR environment as a medium for presenting speech training tasks. In addition, we evaluated the accuracy of a speech analyzer module in detecting stuttering events.

2014 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 305-311
Author(s):  
Peter Jones

The concept of recovery is widely applied within service delivery in the field of mental health. The dimensions of recovery were explored using a singular conceptual framework known as Hodges’ model, which is shown to be suited to this particular task. This arises from the model’s structure, in that it encompasses the individual-group and a care domain specific to the political aspects of both health and social care. The evidence was found by relating recovery to the model’s care domains, which is also relevant to the experience of mental health service users and developments over the past decade in mental health service provision. Particular attention is given to the ‘Recovery Star’. This can be used as a key-working and outcomes tool. The discussion is also placed in a context of the current socio-economic climate, notably the ‘politics of recovery’ at a time of austerity.


2020 ◽  
Vol 91 (8) ◽  
pp. e3.2-e3
Author(s):  
Daniel Freeman

Daniel Freeman is an NIHR Research Professor and Professor of Clinical Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, a consultant clinical psychologist in Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust, a fellow of University College Oxford, and leads the Oxford Cognitive Approaches to Psychosis (O-CAP) research group at the University of Oxford.Daniel has been working with virtual reality (VR) since 2001 and is a founder of Oxford VR, a University of Oxford spinout company.Mental health disorders are very common, but far too few people receive the best treatments. Much greater access to the best psychological treatments may be achieved using automated delivery in virtual reality (VR). With virtual reality simulations, individuals can repeatedly experience problematic situations and be taught, via evidence-based psychological treatments, how to overcome difficulties. A key advantage of VR is that individuals know that a computer environment is not real but their minds and bodies behave as if it is real; hence, people will much more easily face difficult situations in VR than in real life and be able to try out new therapeutic strategies. VR treatments can also be made much more engaging and appealing for patients than traditional therapies. A systematic programme of work developing and testing automated VR psychological treatments will be described, with a particular focus on the gameChange (www.gameChangeVR.com) project for schizophrenia.


2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (08) ◽  
pp. 31-38
Author(s):  
Siddharth Jain ◽  

Construction 4.0 (a concept of Industry 4.0) is an ongoing transformation that aims at digitalization and automation of traditional construction and industrial practices using modern smart technology. The technological development especially of the construction sector is of utmost importance to meet the requirements of rapid construction projects aiming at quality work, increased productivity, and cost savings. One such technology that has come to the limelight is Virtual Reality (VR), which is a computer-generated smart environment that is artificially created using various types of hardware and software. This smart environment is created to resemble a real-life structure that can be explored, visualized, and interacted with by users using electronic devices for better decisionmaking before actual construction. The purpose of this paper is to design a Virtual Reality model using Building Information Modelling (BIM) and to examine the impact and influence of Virtual Reality Technology in the Indian construction industry with the help of a questionnaire survey. This study provides necessary information for implementing Virtual Reality technology in the construction industry. The results of this study provide a research road map to researchers for their future efforts.


Author(s):  
T. P. Kersten ◽  
G. Büyüksalih ◽  
F. Tschirschwitz ◽  
T. Kan ◽  
S. Deggim ◽  
...  

Recent advances in contemporary Virtual Reality (VR) technologies are going to have a significant impact on veryday life. Through VR it is possible to virtually explore a computer-generated environment as a different reality, and to immerse oneself into the past or in a virtual museum without leaving the current real-life situation. For such the ultimate VR experience, the user should only see the virtual world. Currently, the user must wear a VR headset which fits around the head and over the eyes to visually separate themselves from the physical world. Via the headset images are fed to the eyes through two small lenses. Cultural heritage monuments are ideally suited both for thorough multi-dimensional geometric documentation and for realistic interactive visualisation in immersive VR applications. Additionally, the game industry offers tools for interactive visualisation of objects to motivate users to virtually visit objects and places. In this paper the generation of a virtual 3D model of the Selimiye mosque in the city of Edirne, Turkey and its processing for data integration into the game engine Unity is presented. The project has been carried out as a co-operation between BİMTAŞ, a company of the Greater Municipality of Istanbul, Turkey and the Photogrammetry & Laser Scanning Lab of the HafenCity University Hamburg, Germany to demonstrate an immersive and interactive visualisation using the new VR system HTC Vive. The workflow from data acquisition to VR visualisation, including the necessary programming for navigation, is described. Furthermore, the possible use (including simultaneous multiple users environments) of such a VR visualisation for a CH monument is discussed in this contribution.


2013 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 97-102
Author(s):  
J. P. Tobin

We are painfully aware: Psychiatry in some states of the international community is often used to subvert the political and legal guarantees of the freedom of the individual and to violate seriously his human and legal rights (Daes,1986).ObjectiveIt can be politically convenient to incarcerate political opponents in a psychiatric hospital. It saves any potential political embarrassment that a judicial trial may present. It also undermines the credibility of opponents by labelling them with the stigma of being mentally insane. For this to occur, there has to be the acquiescence of mental health professionals and a subservient legal system.MethodThis article examines the abuse of psychiatry in two authoritarian systems, Russia and China.ResultNew diagnostic categories such as sluggish schizophrenia were created to facilitate the silencing of dissenters and were a source of self-deception for psychiatrist to placate their consciences as they operated as a tool of oppression on behalf of a political system.ConclusionIf we do not know the past, we will be condemned to repeat it.


Author(s):  
Mieszko WODZYŃSKI

The logging industry belongs to one of the industrial processing branches with the greatest risk of accidents at work. Unfortunately, such situations often result in serious injuries and even the deaths of employees. In most cases, the casualties are people who are badly trained and inexperienced, with a short employment history. One solution to avoid these tragedies is to support workers employed in this industry with training applications. This paper presents a description of a research and training platform for operating portable chainsaws using virtual reality (VR) technology. The platform simulates phenomena occurring while working with a chainsaw, such as falling tree parts, the occurrence of chips and characteristic sound effects. The study used the HTC Vive Pro set and a dummy chainsaw with an electric module, thanks to which the application lets you control a virtual chainsaw using a real life device tracked by a system for mapping objects in space. For the purpose of this work, a series of 32 tests were conducted with 16 subjects and conclusions were drawn on the basis of test reports and surveys, in which the subjects expressed their opinions about the course of events in the platform application.


2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2S11) ◽  
pp. 3735-3739

This objective of this research is to study the application of virtual reality in health care and to especially comprehend its role in mental health care. The methodology employed in qualitative in nature, mainly descriptive that takes in to consideration the databases of various journals and academic websites. The research paper aims at providing a review and analysis on how virtual reality or the artificial environment is used to treat various health related issues, paying specific attention on the mental health and related ailments. Virtual reality has taken a great leap in the past two decades where its various applications are being used to not only treat different medical conditions but also provide training to the medical professionals, thereby reducing the cost of training manifold. The use of artificial environment has improved the quality of health care in the recent years. However, there are still few challenges that the virtual reality world faces and needs to address. The applications of virtual reality need to be communicated widely as to increase the awareness among people and lessen the stigma attached with getting help for mental health issues.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Changjun Zhao

With the continuous development and progress of virtual reality technology in recent years, the application of virtual reality technology in all aspects of real life is no longer limited to the military field, medical, or film production fields, but it gradually appears in front of the public, into the lives of ordinary people. The human-computer interaction method in virtual reality and the presentation effect of the virtual scene are the two most important aspects of the virtual reality experience. How to provide a good human-computer interaction method for virtual reality applications and how to improve the final presentation effect of the virtual reality scene is also becoming an important research direction. This paper takes the virtual fitness club experience system as the application background, analyzes the function and performance requirements of the virtual reality experience system in the virtual reality environment, and proposes the use of Kinect as a video acquisition device to extract the user’s somatosensory operation actions through in-depth information to achieve somatosensory control. This article adopts a real human-computer interaction solution, uses Unity 3D game engine to build a virtual reality scene, defines shaders to improve the rendering effect of the scene, and uses Oculus Rift DK2 to complete an immersive 3D scene demonstration. This process greatly reduces resource consumption; it not only enables users to experience unprecedented immersion as users but also helps people create unprecedented scenes and experiences through virtual imagination. The virtual fitness club experience system probably reduces resource consumption by nearly 70%.


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