FEELINGS MATTER

The development of emotions is a key aspect of the therapies aiming to integrate people with NDD (Neuro-Developmental Disorders) in the society, and the better are the tools available to therapists, the better are also the therapies. It is known that the usage of VR systems can help children in developing their skills. This project aims to help therapists analyze how the usage of VR can influence the children’s emotions and development. Moreover, the more VR experiences can be used, the more accurate are the final results. We built an integrated application able to show not only what the child is seeing in his VR video but also data on his emotions in nearly real time, so that therapists can quickly control any parameter they want. In particular the six monitored feelings are: stress, focus, excitement, engagement, interest and relaxation. We gave it the greatest library of VR videos possible, namely all the YouTube VR videos. The result is an application easy to use and with many functionalities, like: control the visualized video (play/pause/full screen), change it, set thresholds of emotions to point out “critical values” with ad-hoc notifications, possibility to show or hide evolution of emotions in their graphs while seeing only their immediate numerical values in percentage, finally is it possible to visualize a final report on the entire session. The needed tools are, all things considered, not very expensive and easy to find; they are: the EMOTIV helmet, a smartphone that supports virtual reality, a VR headset (e.g. Google Cardboard), a computer with a Bluetooth dongle for the connection with the helmet and an internet connection. Another interesting feature of Feelings Matter is the fact that the experience can also be performed without the EMOTIV helmet, in the case there is only the need to remotely control the video and in this scenario the “supervisor” and the spectator don’t need to be necessarily in the same room to perform the experience.

Possible future works include, but are not limited to, create a better final report, create a YouTube Channel for the application, implement interactable-videos and create a machine learning algorithm for the classification of videos in the various emotions. Using this application any therapist can better understand what her patients are feeling, and as such design better therapies that could help these children be quicker and better integrated in our society.

USER MANUAL

These are the step to follow to use the application:

1. Turn on the Emotiv helmet and the Java application.
2. Click on the button “START” of the Java application, from this moment the helmet starts recording the child’s emotions.
3. Turn on the smartphone application and put the smartphone in the VRheadset.
4. Open the web app and follow the instructions provided by the user interface: a. Selectthresholds b. Choosevideotosee
5. When the main frame opens wait that the video is charged in the interface and than click on the “Play” button.
6. From this moment on, you will(if you want): a. receive notifications about emotions b. see what the child is seeing c. monitor child’s emotions by clicking on the respective buttons d. control the video(play/pause/fullscreen) e. change thresholds f. change video
7. When you decide to exit click on the“EndExperience” button.
8. You will see the final report and will be able to print it by clicking on the “Print report” button.
9. Click on the “STOP” button of the Javaa pplication or directly turn off the Emotiv helmet.
10. Turn off the smartphone app and exit from the web app.

Presentational video