Slashdot Mirror
Using Augmented Reality To Treat Cockroach Phobia
RichDiesal writes "In this blog post, I describe a new use for augmented reality — treating people for cockroach phobia. A recent paper in the academic journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking discusses a system where people suffering from cockroach phobia sit at a desk with a virtual reality headset. The headset has a camera on the front so that patients see the desk they're sitting at — but covered in cockroaches. In the study, researchers managed to elicit a fear response to virtual cockroaches similar to what would be experienced with real cockroaches. Sounds like a little slice of hell to me."
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*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Virtual reality is virtually real.
On topic though, that image alone is enough to make me slightly uncomfortable.
If sharing a song makes you a pirate, what do I have to share to be a ninja?
It's not good to get OK with cockaroaches, or cocks in general!!!
I've got cockroach phobia when I was young chasing by a huge flying cockroach like you've seen in some cheap horror movies. It actually knocked me off and took me to its nest to feed its kids. (Ok, the nest part might be in my imagination but it was so real).
For all those years I tried to fight the phobia, say fighting them, killing them, catching them bare hand and even change my facebook profile photo to cockroach.
All in vain, I tell you what. The only thing that could help us is to find a place where no cockroach can be seen to live. I'm at peace for many years.
Now you slashdot put a large freaking photo of cockroaches in the news that broke my nerves. I need to transfer to intensive care unit for severe phobia. Thanks a bunch ass-
Well, both flooding and gradual accomodation certainly works to get rid of a phobia (though it will tendency to return in some situations). You have to be really motivated to get rid of your phobia to even consider this kind of treatment, though, and for most sufferers (I'm one of them) their phobia just isn't bothersome or debilitating enough to go through with this.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Sigmund freud to thread 10/05/16/2224220.
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
Wouldn't it be better that as soon as the glasses detect a cockroach they 'augment reality' by becoming completely opaque?
Do we really need electricity to replace what chemistry already does so well?
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
In my recent psychology class, our 2004 textbook as well as a few VHS tapes discussed the use of augmented reality as a treatment for various phobias. One example is this article from 2005.
Wouldn't you be more likely to step on the whole bloody mess then? A body swarming with roaches *brrr*. No thank you. I'd rather be able to see so I could run the fark away, albeit in a dignified, lordly manner.
Augmented reality has been used to treat phobia for years. I remember reading a SciAm article about the medical application of augmented reality, where a virtual pet tarantula was used to treat arachnophobia, and a virtual snow-covered mountain landscape was set up for children recovering from burns where they and their parents could "play" together in the virtual mountains.
That article was from N years ago where N > 5. Can't remember the exact details but certainly it is not new.
And there was touch feedback in the cases described in that old article, which was lacking in this one. The virtual tarantula wasn't just an image you could see, but also a controlled device that could crawl on your hand and let you feel its hairy legs.
Colorless green Cthulhu waits dreaming furiously.
The idea behind this sort of therapy is to confront your fears in a controlled setting. The simulation induces more and more anxiety until you tell the psychiatrist that you are anxious. It is then toned down until you are relaxed again. These therapies are typically used in conjunction with relaxation techniques in an attempt to empower the patient to relax irrational fears away.
Augment their reality with a can of bug spray and some boric acid.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Or, land crayfish, as they're known colloquially. Some prefer to squeeze out the poo before you pop em in your mouth. But, true connoisseurs actually suck out the poo... some say, it's the best part.
How many more years will slashdot have an off-by-one error on your Score in your profile?
Some phobias are disabling - agoraphobia, for instance, or a sufficiently developed fear of heights. Some phobias are inconvenient like fear of the number thirteen.
But fear of cockroaches? I call that healthy!
Unless your job requires you to go into cockroach-infested places and not freak out, I can't see any serious downside to cockroach phobia.
Dunx
Converting caffeine into code since 1982
My wife has an absolute fear and hatred for clowns, so much so that her Mother once sent her to clown school in order to try to shake the fear. Alas, I marry her and get stuck with the "fear" and cannot go anywhere or anything with our kids that might involve... clowns.
So, I have to ask if this augmented reality system might work for other fears such as this? Perhaps make it so an image of a clown appears on the faces of all that are gazed upon?
I have to wonder if it would cause more stress than cures though.
I got over my cockroach phobia pretty quickly after moving into my new house. They were coming into my house and I traced them back to the hole in the ground where the water meter is. My solution, not wanting to get too close, was to pour poison into hole. Ten minutes later my driveway, garage, and front yard were covered with dozens of stunned cockroaches that had crawled out of their makeshift cave looking for some other dark place to live, which included the firewood pile, every corner and edge of the building, and under my car tires. I had to round them up one by one (using a broom and dustpan!) and get rid of them. I collected them in a bucket, drowned them in more poison, and buried them. Not so afraid of cockroaches any more. But they still gross me out!
Anyone whose first reaction to the above post was "that's insightful", you have some reading to do. If you read it and your first thought was "Whoosh", you can keep your geek card. (Insightful can be your second thought, of course).
Anyone in the first group, go read Hitchhiker's Guide please.
My webcomic
I once met a young woman at a late-summer outdoor gathering who twitched every so often. I looked closer, and it seemed that she didn't like bees. I inquired, and indeed, she'd been terrified of flying yellow bugs ever since she and her sister were attacked by a swarm when she was 12 years old.
It'd been 10+ years, she'd been to counseling, etc, but still no relief.
I was an amateur people-fixer then (this was 7 years ago), so I offered to help... After fumbling through a few different strategies, I remembered a certain variety of energy psychology ("acupressure for the emotions"). I walked her through that procedure. The woman felt the bee phobia as a clenching feeling around her heart (when you think about how terrible cockroaches are, where do you feel it in your body? Usually it's somewhere, some people are disconnected from such feelings).
She got rather giggly as the feeling moved out of her left arm. When it had left her body completely, I said "okay, I guess we're done now", and we went our separate ways.
She sought me out 20 or 30 minutes later: "Look, I got stung!" She was excited that her phobic response, which she suffered with for 10+ years, was gone.
Energy Psychology -- Gary Craig's Emotional Freedom Technique is the best-known -- is extremely effective. I've used it with many people since that first woman years ago, and consistently get excellent results. It doesn't fix every problem instantly, but many people find it better than anything else, and research is slowly being done.
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
"I have pressed the first lever", said O'Brien. "You understand the construction of this cage. The mask will fit over your head, leaving no exit. When I press this other lever, the door of the cage will slide up. These starving brutes will shoot out of it like bullets. Have you ever seen a rat leap through the air? They will leap on to your face and bore straight into it. Sometimes they attack the eyes first. Sometimes they burrow through the cheeks and devour the tongue."
I have seen some references to 1984 recently on
Yes there is a difference in this, however, in the fact that people would do this by choice "to be cured". I am just commenting on how the article hit me, nothing more nothing less.
Shoot, if this helps people, awesome. But on another note, how the hell would one augment a "fear of falling" (see article)? To me that is either:
"The ground is there, I can feel it!" --or-- "Shit, I am falling and this is going to hurt!"
We should start a new Slashdot and return control to the geeks. It actually wouldn't be that hard to get some users to
I have a phobia to Virtual Reality, I am looking forward to this treatment.
You will see monster cockroaches crawling around that nobody else can see.
Was this supposed to be a cure for a phobia or a recipe for schizophrenia? :P
I know of several cures. Spectracide makes one. The bugs go away and they don't come back...
So this is Rivia Fishopolis but for cockroaches.
It's for Windows Mobile cellphones with cameras, and it displays what the camera sees with fish swimming around and crosshairs to shoot the fish. If you move your phone it continues to show whatever the camera sees, and the fish "move" into the path of the crosshairs.
Shame there isn't a better video of it because the game is top-notch, I've literally spun in circles trying to shoot fish. Glad to see someone's using the idea for medical purposes.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
Why not just ask Zaphod if you can borrow his glasses?
I drink to make other people interesting!
'nuff said.
Ahh - My eye!
The doctor said I'm not supposed to get Slashdot in it!
I seem to recall some application back in the SunOS days called xroach, which when run would have roaches hide under your windows. Then when you closed/moved a window/xterm the roaches would scatter and hide under other windows.
All their work will be undone by ORKIN commercials and six-foot-tall roaches.
This is just too damn cruel, like desensitizing a child by beating it. Heck just play the latest and greatest FPS instead, then you'd desensitize humans too, double your fun, double your pleasure!
I suffer from a particularly strong form of cockroach phobia. I can't even see an American cockroach without freaking out. I can tolerate German cockroaches to some extent, because there used to be plenty in the tropical apartments where I spent most of my childhood, but they still make me feel anxious and very uncomfortable.
I'm so sensible that even touching the screen where the picture of the cockroaches is displayed proved very difficult. The mere fact that I looked at the cockroaches pictured in the screen made me anxious.
I work with computers like most slashdotters, so I can pretty much avoid cockroaches in my life, but I still would like to eradicate the phobia if such thing is possible. I would like to be able to touch a living one voluntarily one day. If this therapy comes to town, I'd take it.
Instead of eradicating the phobia I'd rather just eradicate the little bastards that cause the phobia.
the hell its a phobia. there horrid skittering insects, usually dirty, maybe poisionous, and getting as far away from them as possible or squashing them is a entirely sane way to deal with them. theres no time to distinguish between cockroaches and other more dangerous types before stomping your foot down.
It was virtually entertaining.
I don't think this will work at.
For starters, they need really tiny VR glasses and I don't think the technology is there yet.
Then they don't really say which fobia they're going to treat at all. Sounds a bit fishy to.
Last but not least, do they really expect that they will be able to find cockroaches that can afford the treatment.
Honestly, I think the whole thing of treating cockroaches for fobia is some kind of scam.
Not that I'd call it a phobia, but I always found cockroaches to be disgusting.
That was until I saw the movie "Joe's Apartment". Now the gross factor is still there, but the level is way lower.
The same empathy that makes us enjoy stories, fear horror movies and cringe when think about pulling fingernails with pliers works with VR. Shocking ;)
I'm not sure I entirely see the point. I'd rather not be fond of cockroaches.
So, how do they simulate the sensation of hundreds of cockroaches crawling all over your body?
It sounds like only visuals of cockroaches are being simulated and it's not a big deal. However, having the sensation of a cockroach crawling over your face at 2 A.M. will wake you up faster than espresso.
If "disco" means "I learn" in Latin, does "discothèque" mean "I learn technology"?
I have a colony of Blaptica Dubia Roaches in my house right now. They weren't cheap either but then again I purchased them from a reputable dealer The Roach Guy.
Now, I've got about 1200 of these guys ranging from 1/4 inch to full sized adults which are roughly 2 inches in length. I actually have them living in my living room in a 36 gallon rubbermaid bin. They even have special needs such as 95F temperatures for optimal breeding. To accomplish this I bought a human heating pad and a simple thermostat.
Why? I have a baby Bearded Dragon that absolutely _loves_ these things. They are healthier for him to eat than crickets and the roaches actually don't smell much at all and are _easy_ to care for.
However, even with them living with me, I'm still creeped out by them a bit. I don't mind the little ones at all, they can crawl up and down my hand/arm without me caring much. They remind me of those rolly polly pill bugs more than roaches at that size. But the adults are quite heavy for their size and quite agile. The part that really gets me is just how sticky their legs are (hooks really) and they are a pita to get off your hand/arm. So that bit creeps me out.
From time to time I see one of the adults molting and damn are they interesting when they do. They just split their shell and walk out _pure white_ and soft. Silky even. So I try and pick them up at this point just to get over my fear/creeped out-ness.
The thing that confuses me is, why am I creeped out at all? Nothing happened in my childhood or past that I can recall at all. Frankly, I don't think I ever actually got a good look at a roach until I bought some to live with me. Maybe it's all the anti-roach comments in cartoons/movies? Apparently I've been programmed to hate these things. Seems silly.
Long story short, I paid good money for my colony and I hope they start breeding! My little reptile loves them and my wallet will appreciate not paying $5-10 a week on crickets for the next decade! I see the benefit in these insects and I'm working on not fearing them. Maybe other people should get a "pet" roach such as a Madagascar hissing cockroach and get over their fears as well? They are actually very interesting creatures and have their benefits. They really don't need to be feared as a whole. But then again, I think that's why it's called a phobia.
Hate replying to myself, but I wanted to provide a video/visual. This is basically what I have in my living room, right now!
Not me and not my video, but a good representation of my setup: B.Dubia Setup
I am pretty sure I would be afraid of roaches crawling all over me. What I am unsure about is why that is a problem and why I would want to change that?
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
For all you phobia sufferers.... Phobias are very easy to fix. With no pain and suffering. All it takes is a few minutes actually. I'm a hypnotist, and I work with phobias all the time. They are my easiest clients. Do yourself a favor and find a hypnotist or a NLP person who uses 'the fast phobia cure' (also known as 'the rewind technique' or 'VKd'). You can do it over the phone, on skype, using text chat... Quite a few clients have told me afterwards, 'if only I had know years ago that it was this easy'. Joe www.wikihyp.com
Urban myth my ass. Spend some time in the tropics, some place hot and wet.
You might want to pack an elastic headband (Richard Simmons style). You'll figure out what it's for when you've learned the truth.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Build a custom Left 4 Dead 2 survival level, an empty room with four doors. When the level starts, angry zombie clowns rush in through all four doors. She gets a katana to fend them off. Now lock her in a dark room and tell her she's not coming out until she gets a good time on the level. Time for some tough love, remember it's for her own good!
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
I heard that they had setbacks due to storage problems for a while.... until they switched to RAID.
Sorry.
Am I the only person that immediately thought of a cockroach wearing a top hat, sporting a mustache and swinging a cane as it scuttles across the floor ?
I have this phobia, they absolutely terrify me, more then most other bugs except spiders.
Nothing cures Blattodephobia like going to distant planets to kill large insects and support the military dictatorship.
To kill cockroaches in your kitchen, raise couple of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_lizard
I'd like to buy homeland for our 10 million people. http://twitter.com/mahadiga