IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications
Serious games can support psychotherapy of children and adolescents
USAB'07 Proceedings of the 3rd Human-computer interaction and usability engineering of the Austrian computer society conference on HCI and usability for medicine and health care
INTERACT'11 Proceedings of the 13th IFIP TC 13 international conference on Human-computer interaction - Volume Part I
The perception of sound and its influence in the classroom
INTERACT'11 Proceedings of the 13th IFIP TC 13 international conference on Human-computer interaction - Volume Part I
Evaluation of the quality of collaboration between the client and the therapist in phobia treatments
Interacting with Computers
Evaluating the impact of a cloud-based serious game on obese people
Computers in Human Behavior
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In vivo exposure has proved its efficacy in the treatment of specific phobias; however, not all patients benefit from it. Communication and information technologies such as Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) have improved exposure treatment adherence and acceptance. Serious games (SG) could also be used in order to facilitate exposure treatment. A line of research on SG is emerging which focuses on health issues. We have developed a SG for the treatment of cockroach phobia that uses a mobile phone as the application device. This work examines results of an N=1 study about whether the use of this mobile game can facilitate treatment of this specific phobia preparing her for the AR exposure. A 25-year-old woman with cockroach phobia participated in the study. Results showed that the use of the mobile game reduced her level of fear and avoidance before a ''one-session'' AR exposure treatment was applied, following the guidelines by Ost. The participant found very helpful the use of the SG before the AR exposure session and she was willing to use it after the AR exposure session as a homework assignment. Although the results of this study are preliminary, SG appears to be a line of research of high interest in clinical psychology for the treatment of specific phobias.