Academic Research

User Experience, Virtual Reality, Healthcare, Chronic Pain, Usability, Mixed Reality

Master's Thesis

The Effectiveness of Mobile Virtual Reality as a Means for Pain Distraction

Research shows, VR is a useful medium for pain distraction, especially in acute pain. Our studies in Pain Studies Lab, SFU found VR's effectiveness in Chronic Pain management. These previous studies used traditional high-tech VR systems. I am researching the effectiveness of the low-cost Cardboard VR in pain distraction. I am using Cardboard and Oculus Rift for my studies.

Research Projects

The Effectiveness of Cardboard VR w/Chronic Pain patients.
Abstract

This repeated-measure study in a clinical setting examined how effective is Cardboard VR with actual pain patients for playing a VR game, compared to an Oculus Rift. 30 participating patients volunteered to play InMind on the Rift and the Cardboard. I measured Present Pain Intensity (PPI) and Retroactive Pain Intensity (RPI–pain in the last 10 minutes). The results showed, for RPI the effect of the Rift is profound, and the difference in two HMDs is significant. Immersion and Single-measure pain distraction were also significant. However, Cardboard was capable of providing significant pain distraction compared to the Pre-VR (no VR) condition.

Project Details

Immersion in Mobile VR compared to a Traditional HMD.
Abstract

The study aimed at finding the difference in levels of immersion between a Cardboard VR and a traditional Head-mounted Display–the Oculus Rift DK2. Three groups of participants played Cryoblast, a VR pain management game, on Cardboard, Oculus Rift and Desktop (control). Jennett et al.’s Immersive Experience Questionnaire was used to measure immersion. The results showed, the Cardboard VR, despite its simplicity and small screen size, is capable of providing an acceptable level of immersion compared to Oculus Rift’s larger screen size. However, examining the underlying factors of immersion (e.g., control, real-world dissociation, etc.) showed differences for these two VR viewers.

Read My Paper

Project Details

Publications

  1. A. Amin, D. Gromala, X. Tong, and C. Shaw, “Immersion in Cardboard VR Compared to a Traditional Head-Mounted Display,” in Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality, S. Lackey and R. Shumaker, Eds. Springer International Publishing, 2016, pp. 269–276.
  2. Amin, A., Gromala, D. (2016), "Immersion in Cardboard VR Compared to a traditional Head-Mounted Display," In the 22nd Medicine Meets Virtual Reality Conference.
  3. Gromala, D., Tong, X., Shaw, C., Amin, A., Ulas, S., Ramsay, G. (2016), “Mobius Floe: an Immersive Virtual Reality Game for Pain Distraction”, SPIE Proceedings, Vol. 9392, San Francisco.
  4. Tong, X., Amin, A. M., Gromala, D., Choo, A (2015). “The Design of an Immersive Mobile Virtual Reality Serious Game in Cardboard Head-mounted Display for Pain Management”, In 5th EAI International Symposium on Pervasive Computing Paradigms for Mental Health.
  5. Tong, X., Amin, A. M., Gromala, D., Shaw, C. (2015). “The Virtual Meditative Walk: an Immersive Virtual Environment for Pain Self-modulation through Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction Meditation”, In Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality (pp. 388-397). Springer International Publishing.
  6. Mahmud, H., Amin, A. M., Ali, M. E., Hashem, T., & Nutanong, S. (2013). “A group based approach for path queries in road networks”, In Advances in Spatial and Temporal Databases (pp. 367-385). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.
  7. Mahmud, H., Amin, A. M., Ali, M. E., & Hashem, T. (2012). “Shared execution of path queries on road networks”, arXiv preprint arXiv:1210.6746.

Research Poster

Get In Touch

ashfaq.m.amin@gmail.com