Key elements of social presence psychosocial approach to VR based CBT: an interaction analysis

An effective VR based CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) requires an explicit knowledge of presence and social presence dynamics fired by virtual reality immersion. Most of the literaturesuggests that CMC does not have the capacity to support social and affective interaction,however, recent reviews of the social presence literature question the extent to which thisliterature can be generalised to every communication medium and to every application of thesemedia. In the present contribution, we propose a qualitative method based on a psychosocialapproach to investigate different dimensions of the therapeutic experience and interaction. Thefinal objective of the study is the improvement of the VR based therapy system designed by our research unit both from an ergonomic and, consequently, clinical point of view according to a perspective that is strongly ‘context driven’