A VR-Based Serious Game for Studying Emotional Regulation in Adolescents

Abstract

[EN] We all use more or less adapted strategies to confront adverse emotional situations in our lives without being psychologically affected. Emotional Regulation (ER) strategies that we use determine the way in which we feel, express and behave. Moreover, ER strategies are particularly important in adolescents, a population in the age when the deficits of ER strategies can be linked to the appearance of numerous mental health disorders such as depression or anxiety, or disruptive behaviors. Thus, the early detection of dysfunctional ER strategies and the training in adaptive ER strategies will help us to prevent the future occurrence of possible behavioral and psychosocial disorders. In this paper, we present the GAMETEEN SYSTEM (GT-System), a novel instrument based on Virtual Reality and serious games for the assessment and training of ER strategies in adolescent population. The results of our preliminary evaluation suggest that this system is effective in training and evaluating emotional regulation strategies in the adolescent population.