Heart Rate Prediction from Head Movement during Virtual Reality Treatment for Social Anxiety

Nowadays, virtual reality exposure therapy (VRET) is suggested as a way to treat social anxiety disorder (SAD), including the more specific fear of public speaking (FoPs). The major advantage of using VRET is that the virtual environment represents something in between in vitro and in vivo exposure, and therefore, lower the threshold for engaging in exposure tasks. In this paper, we present a VR system for addressing public speaking anxiety. Furthermore, wireless wristband was worn to detect the heartbeat of the participant in real-time and head movement data were collected from the VR headset. In initial experiments, we use the movement from the VR headset to predict heart rate with the goal of being able to get heart rate from VR equipment without the need for additional equipment allowing larger follow up studies.