Emotional Virtual Reality Stroop Task: Pilot Design

Abstract

Anxiety-inducing and assessment methods in Virtual Reality has been a topic of discussion in recent literature. The importance of the topic is related to the difficulty of getting accurate and timely measurements of anxiety without relying on self-report and breaking the immersion. To this end, the current study utilises the emotional version of a well-established cognitive task; the Stroop Color-Word Task and brings it to Virtual Reality. It consists of three levels; congruent which is used as control and corresponds with no anxiety, incongruent, which corresponds with mild anxiety and emotional, which corresponds with severe anxiety. This pilot serves two functions. The first is to validate the effects of the task using biosignal measurements. The second is to use the bio signal information and the labels to train a machine-learning algorithm. The information collected by the pilot will be used to decide what types of signals and devices to use in the final product, as well as what algorithm and time frame will be better suited for the purpose of accurately determining the user’s anxiety level within Virtual Reality without breaking the immersion.