Potential Integration of Virtual Reality and Sound for University Student Experience Therapy

Abstract

Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) is currently common among youngsters all over the globe. Technological development that creates virtual environment and environmental factors are possible causes besides the traditional cognition of SAD. Different types of therapy have been applied to mitigating or even curing SAD, some use advanced technologies like virtual reality, while others are quite conventional, such as music therapy that has been applied decades ago. Based on the findings of different types of previous study on SAD and its corresponding therapies, the study investigated the basic evidence of SAD and self-cognition of university students. To further develop the concept of possible application of music therapy to modern technology, the musical knowledge and preference were also parts of the investigation. Participants were 15 university students from different regions of China. A questionnaire that is comprised of 9 questions was filled. The questions included basic family composition (number of siblings), some representational questions about SAD extracted from Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale (LSAS), self-cognition of the ability to judge conversational emotions, and how well they are trained in music and their preference for specific types of music. The questions are generally based on previous studies, which demonstrate the inner connection between relevant separate concepts including music, vocal conversation, exposure and happiness recognition. Specifically we studied those who considered themselves to lack the ability of emotional recognition. The majority of them grew up with no or only one sibling. They tended to work in relatively spacious and empty places without surveillance; meanwhile most of them have low initiative to speak in public when unnecessary. From the musical perspective, most of them have not been trained with musical theory or just have a superficial understanding, which according to previous study, might result in inability in happiness recognition in vocal conversation, which consequently result in SAD.