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Chapter 6. Experimental Validations - Social Phobia
Interest Engagement Friendliness Normality
Bored 5.00(0.00) 4.92(0.29) 3.92(0.90) 3.83(0.94)
Attentive 1.67(0.49) 1.92(0.79) 2.33(0.65) 2.50(1.00)
Random 3.50(0.80) 3.58(1.08) 2.92(1.00) 3.33(0.98)
Tracked all 3.50(1.51) 3.67(1.07) 3.42(0.79) 3.17(1.03)
Tracked looked 2.71(1.49) 3.29(1.11) 3.29(0.95) 3.00(1.00)
Tracked looked (absolute) 2.20(1.30) 2.80(0.84) 3.00(0.71) 2.80(1.09)
Table 6.11: Mean values to the four questions. The values in parentheses are the SDs to the
mean scores obtained by the 12 subjects. “Tracked all” are the mean values for the 12 subjects.
“Tracked looked” are the mean values without considering subjects who did not look during the
speaking exercise (7 out of the 12). “Tracked looked (absolute)” are the mean values considering
only the subjects who looked at the character throughout the whole talking exercise (5 out of 12).
looked at in order to avoid the subject being even more stressed than what she already was.
This part of the exposure session lasted for 5 − 6 minutes. The therapist then manually triggered
the change in character behavior in order to make it lose its attention and seem bored.
It stayed in this mode for 30 seconds to 1 minute. Then, as it triggered eye contact from the
subject, the character became attentive once again. Finally, the character remained attentive
until the end of the exposure session, which lasted approximately 1 minute more. Once the
exposure session was over, we asked the subject to give us her feedback, her impressions on
the virtual character and how the session had gone.
6.4.3 Results
In this section, we first present the results we have obtained from the evaluation of the 12
healthy subjects who tested our application. We then present the results to our case study, in
which a young girl suffering from Asperger syndrome tested our application.
6.4.3.1 Healthy Subjects
The values we discuss in this section are the overall mean ratings of the 12 subjects for each
of the 4 scenes (bored, attentive, random, and tracked). The mean results to the first question
are shown in the first row of Table 6.11 and are depicted on the top left of Figure 6.12.
They express the interest or indifference of the characters on screen. The mean for the
bored version of the scene was of 5 which is the highest possible value and corresponds to
a very indifferent evaluation. The attentive version obtained a mean value of 1.67 which
corresponds to an evaluation between fairly and very interested. For the random version and
the tracked version, both the mean scores were of 3.50. However, when we take out the
people who were not looking at the character on screen when talking to him/her (7 subjects
out of 12 remaining), this tracked score falls to 2.71. This evaluates to neither interested nor
indifferent. Finally, when we only consider the subjects who were looking at the character
throughout the whole talking exercise (5 subjects out of 12), this value further falls to 2.2,
and evaluates to fairly interested.
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