A Duke University project has designed a virtual crack house as a way of helping addicts overcome their addiction. The sim is designed to actually place addicts in tempting situations in order to experience cravings. These cravings are learned behavior which the game aims to erode. Designer of the sim, Professor Zach Rosenthal explained the details of the learned behavior and how the sim effects it:

When temptation arises [in game]… the patient rates his or her own craving level. But the magic moment comes when a high craving subsides, which it does, because the patient won’t be taking drugs in the virtual world. The therapist tries to tie that moment, when a craving subsides, to a trigger, like a tone. So the addict eventually learns to associate the sound with the sensation of decreased craving… For example, if an addict ends up in a [real world] tempting situation, he or she can take out the phone donated by the program, dial a number and hear that tone. The addict remembers the sound learned in the therapy session, and the craving should subside.

A now clean long time addict who has been through the program praised it openly by saying:

The program has done wonders for me. Although I have fallen since I came out of the program, I am clean and have been clean for a good while.

The sim has been modeled on real world environments from pictures that were taken when the Durham, NC Police Department took the team to known drug locations.

via Game Politics

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This entry was posted by Andrew Cummings on Wednesday, November 7th, 2007 at 4:31 am and is filed under Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.