ANSIBLE: A virtual world ecosystem for improving psycho-social well-being

Abstract

We describe preliminary results of ANSIBLE – A Network of Social Interactions for Bilateral Life Enhancement. ANSIBLE leverages virtual worlds to deliver evidence based wellness promoting strategies and virtual agents as tools to facilitate asynchronous human-human communication in order to counteract behavioral health challenges associated with prolonged isolation and deep space exploration. ANSIBLE was deployed in August 2015 in a 12 month study with six crew members in an isolation simulated Mars habitat facility. In this paper, we compare the data for the first five months of this mission to a previous control mission for which ANSIBLE was not used. We found initial support for ANSIBLE to increase perceptions of closeness and satisfaction with friend and family relationships (but not other crew members) during prolonged isolation as well as a trend in stress reduction and increased feelings of ANSIBLE usability over time.