The use of virtual reality for language investigation and learning

Virtual Reality (VR) is a technological tool traditionally used in psychology for clinical purposes or self-empowerment: a huge number of papers have documented the validity of treatments provided or supported by VR. Most of these have illustrated protocols for the treatment of anxiety disorders: from simple phobias (Krijn et al., 2007), to panic disorders (Botella et al., 2007), post-traumatic stress disorder (Gerardi et al., 2008), and generalized anxiety disorder (Repetto et al., 2009, 2013b; Repetto and Riva, 2011); recently, VR has also been effectively employed for stress management in a non-clinical population (Gaggioli et al., 2014).