''I Call Upon a Friend'': Virtual Reality-Based Supports for Cognitive Reappraisal Identified through Co-designing with Adolescents

Title of the Paper

“I Call Upon a Friend”: Virtual Reality-Based Supports for Cognitive Reappraisal Identified through Co-designing with Adolescents

Bibliographic Information

• Research Domain: Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Virtual Reality (VR), Adolescent Mental Health, and Emotion Regulation
• Keywords: Co-design, Participatory Design, Emotion Regulation, Cognitive Reappraisal, Mental Health, Adolescents

Research Background and Problem Statement

• Problem or Challenge:

  • Adolescents often face challenges in emotion regulation during their developmental stages (50% of mental health issues manifest before the age of 14).
  • Traditional treatments, such as psychotherapy and school counseling, are often complex, inaccessible, or lack appeal, making it difficult to fully meet their needs.
  • Adolescents encounter various developmental and practical barriers when attempting to implement and transfer cognitive reappraisal (CR) skills, such as difficulty applying theoretical skills to daily life during emotional peaks.
  • While existing technologies have been effective in promoting emotion regulation skills, significant research gaps remain in addressing diverse user needs and in co-design, particularly regarding the untapped potential of VR technology.

• Significance of the Research:

  • Cognitive reappraisal, as a key emotion regulation strategy, is closely associated with positive mental health outcomes, such as improved well-being, social relationships, and life satisfaction.
  • Technology can lower barriers to accessing mental health services; VR, as an immersive tool, can simulate real-life scenarios, helping adolescents learn and apply emotion regulation skills more effectively.

• Motivation and Related Work:

  • Current research on VR-based emotion regulation support primarily focuses on adults or fails to fully integrate the real needs of adolescent participants.
  • Most existing studies are designed around a single cultural context (e.g., WASP populations), neglecting the impact of diverse racial, cultural, and socioeconomic backgrounds on CR.

Solution

• Core Method or Solution:

  • Conducted three co-design workshops (N=69, ages 15-18), involving adolescents in CR learning and VR application design.
  • Used activities rooted in adolescents' lived experiences, including "group reflection," "emotion expression games," and "hands-on creative tools," to explore barriers to emotion regulation and potential solutions.
  • Applied scenario instantiation methods to support further optimization of VR-based solutions.

• Innovations:

  • Combined in-depth user interviews with the immersive characteristics of VR technology to propose adolescent-participatory design strategies, enhancing the adaptability and effectiveness of the final solution.
  • Systematically analyzed adolescents' lived experiences with cognitive reappraisal across diverse socioeconomic and cultural groups for the first time.

• Implementation Steps and Key Techniques:

  1. Emotion Regulation Skills Training: Enhanced participants' understanding of cognitive reappraisal through body perception and CBT-mediated design techniques.
  2. VR Perception Training: Enabled adolescents to experience VR features through immersive explanations and hands-on use of Meta Quest 2 devices.
  3. Brainstorming and Creative Realization of VR Support Solutions: Refined adolescents' design ideas using strategies like scenario enactment and physical interaction.

Research Outcomes

• Specific Findings:

  • Identified four major challenges adolescents face in implementing cognitive reappraisal: 1) cognitive freezing during emotional peaks; 2) limited strategy options; 3) inflexibility in imagination; 4) a tendency to focus on external situations rather than self-regulation.
  • Proposed four primary functions of VR to support adolescents from their perspective: 1) simulating high-risk scenarios in a low-risk environment; 2) enabling socialized perspective-taking and situational viewpoint shifts; 3) providing multi-sensory embedded feedback mechanisms; 4) designing interactions that externalize internal activities.
  • Highlighted the unique potential of VR (e.g., immersion, multi-perspective capabilities) in promoting adolescents' emotion regulation skills.

• Advantages and Evaluation:

  • Compared to traditional therapies and non-VR technological supports, this study offers dynamic and concrete solutions (e.g., scenario reenactment, immersive learning environments, embodied interactions).
  • Achieved personalized solutions better suited to adolescents' social dynamics and learning habits through deep engagement with study participants.

• Experimental and Evaluation Results:

  • Adolescents were able to better reflect on life scenarios and articulate their emotion regulation needs through VR design and role-playing.
  • The study demonstrated that specific interaction methods, such as body perception tools (e.g., "tableau" drama techniques) and virtual scenario design, help promote cognitive reappraisal skills.

• Limitations and Future Directions:

  • Limitations: The study only covered general emotion regulation scenarios and lacked validation for clinical-grade emotional disorders such as trauma responses and anxiety disorders.
  • Future Directions: Further development of VR-integrated cognitive reappraisal support mechanisms; expanding research to more regions and cultural contexts to gain deeper insights into users' emotion regulation needs and technological preferences.