The Role of Temporality in Virtual Reality Interventions for Depressive Episodes—A Scoping Review

TL;DR

This review highlights how virtual reality can help people with depression by altering their experience of time, but this area is not well studied yet.

Contribution

The paper identifies the underrepresentation of temporality in VR-based depression interventions and emphasizes the potential of immersion and visualization.

Findings

Only two of the seventeen reviewed studies explicitly address the temporal dimension in VR-based depression interventions.

VR's ability to generate immersion and scaffold imagination through visualization is key for modifying time perception in depression.

Most studies are exploratory and lack coherent experimental designs, limiting the conclusions that can be drawn.

Abstract

What are the main findings?
The temporal dimension in VR-based interventions for depression is important, yet underrepresented in the literature.Two features are considered essential in supporting the reorganization of the experience of time in depression through VR: generating immersion and scaffolding vivid imagination through visualization.VR has the capacity to generate experiences otherwise inaccessible in real life, such as shifting between perspectives and enabling interaction with abstract constructs, which remains underrated.

The temporal dimension in VR-based interventions for depression is important, yet underrepresented in the literature.

Two features are considered essential in supporting the reorganization of the experience of time in depression through VR: generating immersion and scaffolding vivid imagination through visualization.

VR has the capacity to generate experiences otherwise inaccessible in real life, such as shifting between perspectives and enabling interaction with abstract constructs, which remains underrated.

What are the implications of the main findings?
VR-based interventions may benefit from engaging individuals more actively through designing interactive experiences that provide opportunities for action.Drawing on VR’s underrated features such as interaction with abstract entities and possibility to switch between first-, second- and third person perspective consist a promising directions for further research.Since all analyzed studies are exploratory, further research using more coherent experimental designs is needed.

VR-based interventions may benefit from engaging individuals more actively through designing interactive experiences that provide opportunities for action.

Drawing on VR’s underrated features such as interaction with abstract entities and possibility to switch between first-, second- and third person perspective consist a promising directions for further research.

Since all analyzed studies are exploratory, further research using more coherent experimental designs is needed.

Background/Objectives: People living with depression often experience consistent disruptions in their experience of time, which further contributes to their suffering. We present a scoping review on virtual reality (VR)-based interventions for depression, addressing temporal processing and subjective experiences of time. The paper aims to explore the extent to which therapeutic interventions using VR target the temporal dimension of patients’ experiences. Methods: We conducted a scoping review using the PRISMA 2020 standard. The literature search was further extended using Research Rabbit and by examining the reference lists of relevant articles. Seventeen papers were selected for final analysis. Results: Our scoping review indicates that temporality in VR-based therapeutic interventions for depression remains underrepresented. Of the seventeen papers reviewed, only two explicitly deal with this issue, while the rest touch upon it briefly or implicitly. The studies suggest that VR’s main advantage in modifying the experience of time in depression is its potential to generate immersion and to scaffold imagination through visualization. The main limitations are methodological: most of the available research is exploratory, reports short-term effects, and utilizes a broad variety of empirical designs and therapeutic approaches.

Figures