Design And Research On Immersive Virtual Reality Game In Application Of Mental Relaxation

Nowadays, we see a boom in virtual reality all over the globe, more and more companies and organizations at home and abroad are doing research on virtual reality, the age of virtual reality is come, this time it will enter into our daily life for good. Virtual reality has great impact on areas such as video game, military, architecture, tourism, education and medical treatment. Virtual reality has been used in psychotherapy since the end of last century, foreign researchers apply virtual reality technology on various psychological illness such as phobia, attention deficit, post-traumatic stress disorder, schizophrenia and they gain positive results. Though many study have been done on people diagnosed with psychological illness, we still lack research on common people. As we are in the economic transition period, lots of people are in the state of mental sub-health, especially many are in anxiety and stress. Many people in China are afraid to consult doctor, numerous treating institution in China couldn't meet corresponding standard, thus their psychological problems can't be solve properly. Hence this paper study common people with the state of mental sub-health who suffers from anxiety and stress in daily life. This paper combines literature research method, empirical research method and interdisciplinary research method altogether, explore ways of integrating immersive virtual reality and mental relaxation, use game as a convenient and self-service way for helping people alleviate negative emotion, learning relaxation training and enhancing their awareness of mental health.This paper suggests a hypothesis that when doing relaxation training, people will benefit more from immersive virtual environments than from traditional non-immersive environments. First, this paper studied theory and methods of mental relaxation, analysed positive effects of video games and possibilities using video games to relax. Then this paper investigated theories of immersive virtual reality, including presence, embodied cognition and different senses in virtual reality. After analysing above-mentioned theories, this paper proposed a sensors-controllers(chip)-virtual reality(computer) pattern to achieve multi-sensory multi-dimensions interactions between human and virtual reality.Second, this paper discussed game design and technical implementation of described immersive virtual reality games. This essay discovered basis of applying virtual realty game on mental relaxation and proposed a method called Virtual Reality for Relaxation. Then designed a immersive virtual reality games called Journey of Relaxation, this paper demonstrated playability, content, goals, operating mode, menu, scenes, levels and interactive items of this game, after that, this essay analysed relevant game equipment, whole system architecture and critical technical implementation of this game.At last, this paper used questionnaires to analyse experiential study of the game. This research used Game Experience Questionnaire to analyse different factors influence game experience. Afterwards, this paper used Presence Questionnaire to investigate different factors and their proportion influence presence. Finally, this paper used State Anxiety Inventory to testify effect of using immersive virtual reality game as a tool for mental relaxation.In conclusion, this paper emphasize on the importance of subjective feeling of presence experienced in virtual reality, the innovations of this research are suggested multi-sensory multi-dimensions interactions and the method of Virtual Reality for Relaxation. The results show a positive effect in using immersive virtual reality game for mental relaxation, effect of relaxation has a high correlation with immersive virtual environments, the more immersive the environments, the more presence human can gain, the better the results of mental relaxation.