College of Nursing & Health Professions

Merlin Kochunilathil

College of Arts & Sciences Biological Sciences

Faculty Mentor: Dr.Girija Kaimal

Creative Art Therapies

Dr. Arun Ramakrishnan, Katrina Carroll-Haskins Co-Mentor

Virtual Reality & Art Therapy

Virtual reality is a form of 3D environmental simulations that has been successfully making its way into forms of therapy such as brain injury rehabilitation and pain management therapy. Conventional art therapy is confined to paper but with the availability of VR and software such as Google Tilt Brush, it is beneficial to combine virtual reality with art therapy because it offers a cleaner and more storage friendly alternative to conventional art making. The applicability, compatibility and usability of VR with the art making process will be observed due to a lack of extensive preexisting research. Participants were fitted with the HTC Vive headset and controllers and then allowed time to draw and experiment on Google Tilt Brush. Data was collected using a pre and post survey going over key aspects of the research such as usability, judgement, experience, and emotions. All the participants enjoyed the art making process in VR and were very engaged. Any difficulties were mostly centered around the controls and development of skills. Observing the art making process and user’s experiences in virtual reality software such as the Google Tilt Brush offers a new world of options and techniques to this form of creative therapy.