Many children around the globe suffer from spider phobia. Virtual reality exposure therapy is an effective phobia treatment, but so far predominantly tailored for adults. A gamified approach utilizing gaze interaction would allow for a more child-friendly and engaging experience, and provide the possibility to foster working mechanisms of exposure therapy. We developed an application in which children make spiders change in positively connoted ways (e.g., make them dance or shrink) if sufficient visual attention towards them is captured via eye tracking. Thereby, motivation for and positive affects during exposure towards spiders are aspired. In this pilot study on 21 children without (n = 11) and with fear of spiders (n = 10), we examined positive and negative affect during exposure to a virtual spider and to different gaze-related transformations of the spider within a quasi-experimental design. Within a one-group design, we additionally examined fear of spiders in spider fearful children before and one week after the intervention. We found that significantly more positive than negative affect was induced by the spiders' transformations in children without and with fear of spiders. Fear of spiders was furthermore significantly reduced in spider-fearful children, showing large effect sizes (d > .80). Findings indicate eligibility for future clinical use and evaluation in children with spider phobia.

中文翻译：

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直视恐惧：使用基于注意力的反馈，让儿童游戏化虚拟现实接触蜘蛛。

全球许多儿童患有蜘蛛恐惧症。虚拟现实暴露疗法是一种有效的恐惧症治疗方法，但迄今为止主要针对成年人。利用凝视互动的游戏化方法将带来对儿童更加友好和有吸引力的体验，并为培养暴露疗法的工作机制提供了可能性。我们开发了一款应用程序，如果通过眼动追踪捕捉到对蜘蛛足够的视觉注意力，孩子们可以让蜘蛛以积极的方式发生变化（例如，让它们跳舞或收缩）。因此，人们渴望在接触蜘蛛的过程中产生积极的动机和积极的影响。在这项针对 21 名不害怕蜘蛛（n = 11）和害怕蜘蛛（n = 10）的儿童的试点研究中，我们检查了接触虚拟蜘蛛以及在准虚拟环境中接触虚拟蜘蛛时的积极和消极影响。实验设计。在一组设计中，我们还在干预前和干预后一周检查了害怕蜘蛛的儿童对蜘蛛的恐惧。我们发现，对于不害怕蜘蛛和害怕蜘蛛的儿童来说，蜘蛛的转变所引起的积极影响明显多于消极影响。此外，害怕蜘蛛的儿童对蜘蛛的恐惧显着降低，显示出较大的效应量 (d > .80)。研究结果表明未来有资格对患有蜘蛛恐惧症的儿童进行临床使用和评估。