SelVReflect: A Guided VR Experience Fostering Reflection on Personal Challenges

Title of the Paper

SelVReflect: A Guided VR Experience Fostering Reflection on Personal Challenges

Paper Information

• Domain: Supporting reflection and self-expression on personal challenges using virtual reality (VR) technology
• Keywords: Virtual reality, guided, reflection, mental health, self-care, creativity, emotion

Research Background and Problem

• Problem or Challenge: Reflecting on personal challenges is an important psychological process, but many individuals lack the space, time, or resources to engage in deep reflection. Existing technologies are insufficient in supporting reflection, particularly in constructing abstract expression and immersive experiences.
• Significance: Deep reflection helps individuals understand their behavior, provides new meanings, and enhances mental health and well-being. Therefore, developing tools to support deeper reflection is an urgent need.
• Research Motivation and Related Work: Previous technology-assisted reflection efforts have focused on improving outcomes in educational contexts, with fewer tools designed specifically for reflection itself. VR's immersive characteristics make it a powerful tool for supporting personal reflection. However, prior VR applications have emphasized emotional regulation and art therapy functions, lacking specialized designs for everyday reflection.

Solution

• Proposed Method or Solution: Introducing and developing SelVReflect, a guided virtual reality experience that enables users to freely express emotions and reflect on past personal challenges through a 3D painting tool. Audio guidance is designed as a key element to support the reflection process.
• Innovative Features: This solution combines principles of positive psychology and art therapy while leveraging VR's unique spatial possibilities. Through audio prompts, users are guided to engage in creative expression and reflection, optimizing immersion and abstract thinking.
• Implementation Steps and Key Technologies:
  1. User-Centered Design: Employing a four-stage iterative design process to identify user needs and challenges, including painting experiences, difficulties in reviewing recorded content, focus group discussions to design guiding prompts, and role-playing tests for guided content.
  2. VR Tool Design: Utilizing the 3D painting tool developed by Wagener et al., offering various drawing functionalities such as animated brushes, 3D objects, preset environments, and color palettes.
  3. Audio Guidance Design: Providing multiple audio options (e.g., human voice or synthesized voice) to deliver reflection prompts either in real-time or upon user request. The prompts include specific questions to help users express challenges in stages, stimulate abstract thinking, and reassess challenges from new perspectives.

Research Outcomes

• Specific Results: SelVReflect enables participants to break down different stages of personal challenges, discover new relationships among components, and guide them toward positive reflection on these relationships. The newly formed understanding helps in addressing similar challenges in the future.
• Advantages:
  1. Users found the experience engaging, creative, and informative;
  2. Compared to traditional 2D artworks or unguided expression, SelVReflect deepened emotional expression and understanding of challenges through audio guidance.
• Experiment and Evaluation Results:
  1. Participants showed significantly improved reflection scores, reported more positive emotional states, and enhanced self-efficacy;
  2. Users with varying levels of emotional openness benefited, although those with lower openness faced more challenges during the process;
  3. Audio guidance received high overall ratings, but some participants desired more context-aware prompts.
• Limitations and Future Directions:
  1. The timing of prompts may lack personalized adjustments, with some users feeling their creative flow was interrupted;
  2. SelVReflect currently focuses on resolved personal challenges and is not applicable to ongoing challenges, requiring further study of its psychological effects;
  3. Testing should be expanded to include participants from diverse socioeconomic and educational backgrounds to validate broader applicability;
  4. Exploring the integration of personalized elements (e.g., photos or specific symbols) into the VR experience could enhance the depth of reflection.

Through this study, the authors provide theoretical and practical references for developing VR technologies that support deep reflection. They also propose a series of design recommendations, such as tailoring guided content to user needs, fostering abstract thinking and visual expression, and maintaining user autonomy and creativity.