The influences of virtual social feedback on social anxiety disorders

2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (6) ◽  
pp. 726-735 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tomoko Kishimoto ◽  
Xinfang Ding
Keyword(s):  
Social Anxiety ◽  
Public Speaking ◽  
Group Differences ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Social Feedback ◽  
Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy ◽  
Health Control ◽  
Negative Condition ◽  
Virtual Reality Exposure ◽  
Healthy Participants

AbstractBackground:Social feedback in the virtual environment is a critical part of successful virtual reality exposure therapy (VRET), and identifying the influences of virtual social feedback on social anxiety patients is necessary.Aims:The present study aimed to explore the influences of ambiguous and negative virtual social feedback on social anxiety patients and a health control group (HCG).Method:Twenty-six social anxiety patients and 26 healthy participants were recruited. All participants were exposed to a virtual public speaking scenario. The participants were required to make two 3-minute speeches while the virtual audiences gave them either ambiguous feedback or negative feedback. The subjective units of discomfort (SUD) and heart rate were collected during the process.Results:The results showed that SAD individuals reported higher levels of subjective anxiety than those in the HCG, and the between-group differences were larger in the mild ambiguous condition than in the intense negative condition.Conclusions:This study indicates that social anxiety patients have an interpretation bias towards ambiguous virtual social feedback. Therefore, it is important for VR-based interventions to take into account not only the valence of the feedback but also the ambiguity aspect.

Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy for treating social anxiety in stuttering: A scoping review

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Chard ◽  
Nejra van Zalk
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Reality ◽  
Social Anxiety ◽  
Public Speaking ◽  
Exposure Therapy ◽  
Treatment Success ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Effective Technique ◽  
Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
Virtual Reality Exposure

Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy (VRET) has been shown to be an effective technique for reducing social anxiety. People who stutter are at greater risk of developing heightened social anxiety. Cognitive behavior therapy protocols have shown promise in reducing social anxiety in people who stutter, but no studies have investigated VRET targeting social anxiety associated with stuttering. The aim of the current review is to provide an overview of VRET techniques used to treat social anxiety and insights into how VRET might be adopted in the case of comorbid stuttering and social anxiety. Twelve studies were reviewed to understand key distinctions in VRET protocols used to treat social anxiety. Distinctions include exercises targeting public speaking vs. general social anxiety, computer-generated virtual environments vs. 360 video, and therapist guided vs. automated VRET. An overview of wider research questions surrounding VRET is then presented to aid the understanding of treatment success and outline important directions for future research. Based on the review findings, suggestions are made regarding VRET design for stuttering. In sum, VRET should be tailored to situations and cognitive-behavioral processes that underlie the experience of social anxiety amongst people who stutter, with automated VRET using a virtual therapist a potentially suitable format for delivering treatment.

scholarly journals A Comparison of Active and Passive Virtual Reality Exposure Scenarios to Elicit Social Anxiety

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yoones A. Sekhavat ◽  
Poorya Nomani
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Reality ◽  
Anxiety Disorder ◽  
Social Anxiety ◽  
Anxiety Disorders ◽  
Social Situations ◽  
Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy ◽  
Sense Of Presence ◽  
Two Parameters ◽  
Virtual Reality Exposure ◽  
Healthy Participants

Social phobia is an anxiety disorder that results in an excessive and unreasonable fear of social situations. As a safe and controlled tool, Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy (VRET) has been used to treat anxiety disorders and phobias. This paper aims to study whether VRET with active scenarios can challenge a person more than passive scenarios. By comparing participants who were exposed to active and passive scenarios in VRET, we show that active scenarios are more effective than passive scenarios to elicit social anxiety in healthy participants. We focus on eliciting social anxiety and creating the sense of presence as two parameters enhancing the efficacy of VRET scenarios.

scholarly journals Neural correlates of negative expectancy and impaired social feedback processing in social anxiety

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 285-291 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruolei Gu ◽  
Xiang Ao ◽  
Licheng Mo ◽  
Dandan Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Social Anxiety ◽  
Cognitive Processing ◽  
Social Acceptance ◽  
Cognitive Biases ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Social Feedback ◽  
Feedback Processing ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
High Social Anxiety

Abstract Social anxiety has been associated with abnormalities in cognitive processing in the literature, manifesting as various cognitive biases. To what extent these biases interrupt social interactions remains largely unclear. This study used the Social Judgment Paradigm that could separate the expectation and experience stages of social feedback processing. Event-related potentials (ERPs) in these two stages were recorded to detect the effect of social anxiety that might not be reflected by behavioral data. Participants were divided into two groups according to their social anxiety level. Participants in the high social anxiety (HSA) group were more likely to predict that they would be socially rejected by peers than did their low social anxiety (LSA) counterparts (i.e. the control group). Compared to the ERP data of the LSA group, the HSA group showed: (a) a larger P1 component to social cues (peer faces) prior to social feedback presentation, possibly indicating an attention bias; (b) a difference in feedback-related negativity amplitude between unexpected social acceptance and unexpected social rejection, possibly indicating an expectancy bias; and (c) a diminished sensitivity of the P3 amplitude to social feedback valence (be accepted/be rejected), possibly indicating an experience bias. These results could help understand the cognitive mechanisms that comprise and maintain social anxiety.

scholarly journals Cloud Based Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy Service for Public Speaking Anxiety

Information ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justas Šalkevičius ◽  
Audronė Miškinytė ◽  
Lukas Navickas
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Reality ◽  
Public Speaking ◽  
Exposure Therapy ◽  
Behavioral Therapy ◽  
Public Speaking Anxiety ◽  
Speaking Anxiety ◽  
Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy ◽  
Skin Response ◽  
Virtual Reality Exposure ◽  
Therapy Service

Public speaking anxiety is commonly treated using cognitive behavioral therapy. During the therapy session, the patient is either asked to vividly imagine and describe the feared stimulus or is confronted with it in the real world. Sometimes, however, it can be hard to imagine the object of fear or to create a controllable environment that contains this stimulus. Virtual reality exposure therapy (VRET) can help solve these problems by placing the patient in a simulated 3D environment. While standalone VRET applications have been investigated for more than 25 years, we are analyzing the viability of a cloud-based VRET system. In this paper, we discuss the architectural and technical choices made in order to create a mobile and lightweight solution that can be easily adapted by any psychology clinic. Moreover, we are analyzing data gathered from 30 participants who have undergone a VRET session for public speaking anxiety. Finally, the collected psychophysiological signals including galvanic skin response (GSR) and skin temperature are processed and investigated in order to evaluate our cloud-based VRET system.

The Effects of Video and Nonnegative Social Feedback on Distorted Appraisals of Bodily Sensations and Social Anxiety

2011 ◽  
Vol 109 (2) ◽  
pp. 411-427 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yoshihiro Kanai ◽  
Junwen Chen ◽  
Satoko Sasagawa ◽  
Yuji Sakano
Keyword(s):  
Social Anxiety ◽  
Video Feedback ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Positive Outcomes ◽  
Social Feedback ◽  
Anticipatory Anxiety ◽  
Socially Anxious ◽  
Differential Effects ◽  
Bodily Sensations ◽  
Experimental Group

The effects of video feedback and nonnegative feedback from other people were examined as possibly ameliorating distorted appraisals of bodily sensations, as well as subjective and physiological anxiety in socially anxious individuals. Nonnegative feedback from a confederate emphasized the absence of negative outcomes (e.g., did not seem to tremble) rather than the presence of positive outcomes (e.g., looked calm). Socially anxious students were randomly assigned to either the experimental group, which received video and social feedback ( n = 12), or the control group ( n = 13). Participants were asked to give a videotaped speech twice. After the first speech, the experimental group watched the videotape of their speech and received feedback from a confederate, whereas the control group watched the video of another person's speech. The intervention improved distorted appraisal of bodily sensations and anticipatory anxiety for the experimental group. However, there were no differential effects on anxiety between the groups during speeches.

scholarly journals Attention Guidance Augmentation of Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy for Social Anxiety Disorder: A Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mikael Rubin ◽  
Karl Muller ◽  
Mary Hayhoe ◽  
Michael J Telch
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Reality ◽  
Anxiety Disorder ◽  
Social Anxiety ◽  
Visual Attention ◽  
Social Anxiety Disorder ◽  
Exposure Therapy ◽  
Mediation Effect ◽  
Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy ◽  
Weak Evidence ◽  
Virtual Reality Exposure

Biased attention to social threat has been implicated in social anxiety disorder. Modifying visual attention during exposure therapy offers a direct test of this mechanism. We developed and tested a brief virtual reality exposure therapy (VRET) protocol using 360º-video and eye tracking. Participants (N = 21) were randomized to either standard VRET or VRET + attention guidance training (AGT). Multi-level Bayesian models were used to test (1) whether there was an effect of condition over time and (2) whether post-treatment changes in gaze patterns mediated the effect of condition at follow-up. There was a large overall effect of the intervention on symptoms of social anxiety, as well as an effect of the AGT augmentation on changes in visual attention to audience members. There was weak evidence against an effect of condition on fear of public speaking and weak evidence supporting a mediation effect, however these estimates were strongly influenced by model priors. Taken together, our findings suggest that attention can be modified within and during VRET and that modification of visual gaze avoidance may be casually linked to reductions in social anxiety. Replication with a larger sample size is needed.

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