**3.11 The difference in the implementation of AR and VR for helping children with autism to empathize and improve their transpositional thinking**

AR can help children with autism to implement empathy skills, by using board games. The intervention method of AR technology is usually to superimpose the content of different media on an object. For example, AR can superimpose different 3D virtual facial expressions on the autistic patient's face to help them think about the different kinds of emotions that are present in themselves. We call this as selffacial modeling (**Figure 5**), which was previously impossible to achieve, but it can be done by using AR technology. In addition, AR can provide some virtual 3D decorations for children to play with, or it can augment some virtual 3D animations on their body by self-reference, which are shown on a screen, to help a child pretend he is a king or a specific character (**Figure 6**). In this form, AR will become a tool to help autistic children to imagine and pretend, and they will gain the ability to empathize from it. This strategy lets autistic children play the game of empathy through the mechanism of pretend-play. Most of the AR methods are used to manipulate or passively perceive the comparison between real objects and the virtual content, in order to obtain the feeling of empathy.

From another perspective, VR provides a completely immersive picture experience, but it has different effects, compared to AR. The current VR technology can change a person's judgment of the senses, which allows one to fully integrate another person's perspectives, and this method can make one see the world through another person's eyes. In addition, through the exchange of different perspectives, the individual can even see the state of interaction between himself and another person, through the eyes of others, or he can experience and observe the type of social interaction from a different personal perspective. This approach greatly changes and breaks through the VR of the past, as a mechanism for on-site

#### **Figure 6.**

*Using AR technology to help children with autism to elicit pretend-play and symbolic play (a crown means a king, or courage). An autistic child can also play a self-role game; its meaning is different from a table game, because participants can join this scene face-to-face and play with others who are also self-imitating.*

always been the focus of researchers in the training of autism [71]. However, there are many difficulties in the training and implementation of a person's transpositional thinking ability. The first difficulty to be faced is how to let autistic children figure out how to take on another role? It is very difficult for them to show their abilities, because they cannot understand why therapists ask them to show the emotions and feelings of another character, or even to pretend to be another character, because they have a weak imagination and rigid logical thinking [72]. This is a rather difficult task for autistic children to understand. These communication methods are not in line with their real identity, they are abstract, and cannot be interpreted through a visual mode. For autistic children, who understand things through vision, it is only when they can truly see, or feel, the social status of different roles that they can solve the current training problems [43].

**3.10 AR technology can help autistic children to realize a social interaction**

With the application of AR technology, a person's transpositional thinking ability has been greatly improved. AR can simulate the facial expression of patients through self-reference (**Figure 5**) [46], Unlike the traditional training strategy, where autistic patients are asked to look into a mirror to guess, and learn about, emotional expressions, which is especially futile for them [69], AR technology can give correct facial expressions and superimpose them on the faces of autistic children [46]. The training methods listed above (**Figure 5**), whether they are looking at their own facial expressions in a mirror or imitating their own social actions, are collectively referred to as self-referential imitation, especially the visual reference of social cues (such as facial expressions, body movements, voice intonation, etc.). Whether viewed from their own first-person perspective, or from the perspective of others (a third-person perspective), it is a very special visual sensory experience

*AR technology can achieve a self-face reference training strategy to solve the dilemma of autism in social skills*

**experience from multiple perspectives and senses**

for autistic children [46].

*Types of Nonverbal Communication*

**Figure 5.**

**44**

*training [46].*


experiments, which proves that autistic children can still achieve the common perception of psychological and physiological perceptions, with the help of technology. Autistic children can effectively perceive and express empathy, which encourages them to use the mechanism of social reciprocity, and enhances their

*How to Use the Advantages of AR and VR Technique to Integrate Special Visual Training…*

**Visual picture Experimental scenes**

social skills [43].

**Personal perspective**

2 Third person (side view) (put yourself in it)

**Table 3.**

**47**

*B-virtual character).*

1 First person Generally faces the

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.94587*

perspective of others and interacts with virtual characters

From the perspective of the third person, we can

Or the perspective is looking at the past from behind yourself (see your background and the front of the virtual character) [43]

*The self-reference application of a synchronous visual sensory world achieved by CAVE-like immersive 3D technology (a-autistic participant, A"-(participant's virtual avatar captured by front or back camera),*

see the social interaction between ourselves and the virtual role, and we can distinguish them by looking from the back of the virtual role (see the back of the virtual character, and yourself in front). [43]

**Table 2.**

*Differences in the implementation of empathetic and transpositional thinking skills between AR and VR.*

experience, but with the performance of empathy, and it helps users to think from the perspective of others and to master the skills and abilities of empathy. In addition, the empathy experience provided by VR is felt from the first-person perspective and is achieved through the mechanism of exchanging perspectives (**Table 2**).
