Abstract
The chapter discusses various applications of virtual reality in clinical research and practice. Despite certain limitations, virtual reality allows high degree of control over the testing procedure and it has the potential to create real life situations.
Virtual reality is therefore used not only as a tool for examination of cognitive functioning, but also in the field of cognitive remediation, training aimed at correction of disturbed functions. However, possible applications of virtual technology are much larger, for example for designing of specific stimuli that are otherwise very difficult to obtain due to financial, ethical or medical reasons (eg. virtual characters for paraphiliac individuals with sexual deviance).
The chapter also deals with specific concepts such as telepresence and immersion. We also discuss the problematic topics, such as gambling and undesirable effects of virtual gaming on children's' mental health of children.