The interactivity of an immersive environment comes up from the relationship that is established between the user and the system. This relationship results in a set of data exchanges between human and technological actors. The real-time biofeedback devices allow to collect in real time the biodata generated by the user during the exhibition. The analysis, processing and conversion of these biodata into multimodal data allows to relate the stimuli with the emotions they trigger. This work describes an adaptive model for biofeedback data flows management used in the design of interactive immersive systems. The use of an affective algorithm allows to identify the types of emotions felt by the user and the respective intensities. The mapping between stimuli and emotions creates a set of biodata that can be used as elements of interaction that will readjust the stimuli generated by the system. The real-time interaction generated by the evolution of the user’s emotional state and the stimuli generated by the system allows him to adapt attitudes and behaviors to the situations he faces.

Rehabilitation involves all types of patients, including people with schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is considered a complex syndrome characterized in general by fundamental and characteristic distortions of thinking and perception. The quality of life of a person with schizophrenia can be compromised by difficulty in carrying out their daily tasks and by the social stigma of their condition. The importance of training and sensitizing students in rehabilitation areas to this type of problem to improve the rehabilitation processes in which they will participate as future professionals involves empathy and the ability to communicate with these populations. It is possible through virtual reality to create immersive environments to simulate some psychotic symptoms characteristic of people with schizophrenia, such as visual hallucinations and hearing voices. The aim of this study was to test the effect of exposure to experiences characteristic of schizophrenia through two different types of immersive environments, graphical computational virtual reality and 360° video, on students from areas of social rehabilitation regarding empathy, social distance, and attitudes towards people with schizophrenia. Although the results were positive for the three parameters under study, no significant differences were found for each of them between the environments to which the participants were exposed. This study concluded that the choice between the two types of immersive environments should be based on the project’s objectives, the target audience’s needs, and available resources, rather than the type of environment itself, as their impact was similar.

The implementation of gamification in immersive environments is a complex and multidimensional process. A socio-technical approach is necessary to cover all the specifications that the system needs to satisfy the needs and the purpose of its genesis. The use of virtual reality (VR) technologies in mental healthcare associated with gamification mechanisms has been gaining popularity. Two projects were developed using VR, one that allows people to experience and better understand mental health conditions through empathy construct and the other can be used to help patients with social phobia or Arachnophobia to reduce their phobias using VR solutions and real-time biofeedback. The authors analyze the aspects that influence the development of immersive environments and gamification mechanisms and propose a socio-technical methodology based on actor-network theory for the survey and definition of requirements.

Virtual Reality, due to its complexity and technological requirements, has a set of frictions that hinder its dissemination. The main ones can be summarized in the requirement to learn complex developing environments, like game engines, then we need to install applications, specific to each operating system and according to the means through which they can be accessed.

Art has a power different from all other human actions; it can produce a variety of human emotions like nothing else. The main purpose of this chapter is to study the relation between media arts and emotions. Virtual environments are increasingly being used by artists; the use of immersive environments allows the media art artist to go further than express himself, allows that through contemplation and interaction the participant also becomes part of the artistic artefact. Immersive environments can induce emotional changes capable of generating states of empathy. Considering an immersive environment as a socio-technical system, where human and non-human elements interact, establishing strong relationships, the authors used actor-network theory as an approach to design an immersive artifact of digital media art. The use of neurofeedback mechanisms during the participant's exposure to immersive environments opens doors to new types of interaction, allowing to explore emotional states to generate empathy.