Interreality: The use of advanced technologies in the assessment and treatment of psychological stress

Stress and its related comorbid diseases are responsible for a large proportion of disability worldwide. In particular, chronic stress is the main responsible for the dramatic increase of premature mortality in the Western countries. However, advanced simulation and sensing technologies, such as virtual reality and mobile biosensors offer interesting opportunities for innovative personal health-care solutions to stress. In this work, we describe a technology-based approach to the assessment and treatment of stress that is based on the vision of Interreality. The main feature of interreality is the creation of a hybrid-augmented experience merging the physical and virtual world. This is achieved through: a) an extended sense of presence: in interreality advanced simulations (3-D virtual worlds) are used to transform health guidelines and provisions into experience; b) an extended sense of community (social presence): interreality uses hybrid social interaction and dynamics of group sessions to provide each user with targeted social support in both the physical and virtual world; c) real-time feedback between the physical and virtual worlds: interreality uses bio and activity sensors and devices (e.g. smartphones) to track both the behavior and the health status of the user in real time and to provide targeted suggestions and guidelines. The feedback activity is twofold: (1) behavior in physical world influences the experience in the virtual one, and (2) behavior in the virtual world influences the experience in the real one.