Can Virtual Reality Effectively Elicit Distress Associated with Social Anxiety Disorder?

Owens, Maryann E.; Beidel, Déborah C.

doi:10.1007/s10862-014-9454-x

Cited by 85 publications

(64 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…The present study showed that, in general, participants in the social anxiety disorder group had higher levels of anxiety than the healthy control group in a virtual public speaking environment. This finding is consistent with previous studies (Kim et al, 2017;Owens and Beidel, 2015;Pan et al, 2012;Parrish et al, 2016), wherein researchers found that participants with social anxiety disorders tended to respond to virtual social scenarios with higher levels of anxietysimilar to how they respond to real social scenarios. This finding makes it possible for virtual reality to be used as a treatment tool to reduce social anxiety.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

The influences of virtual social feedback on social anxiety disorders

Kishimoto

Ding

2019

Behav. Cogn. Psychother.

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Background: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.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

The influences of virtual social feedback on social anxiety disorders

Kishimoto

Ding

2019

Behav. Cogn. Psychother.

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“…16 In sum, CBT with in virtuo exposure could be a particularly enticing form of therapy for the treatment of SAD to reduce patients' treatment avoidance and facilitate the task of planning out treatment for therapists. Given most previous studies have been encouraging, but have some limitations (considered more fully in the Discussion), [17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24] we propose that a full individual CBT treatment with in virtuo exposure is an effective, efficient and practical alternative to standard individual CBT in the treatment of SAD. Comparisons between individual CBT treatment using either in vivo or in virtuo exposure and a waiting-list control condition were conducted, with the hypothesis that CBT with in virtuo exposure would be more effective and more practical for therapists than CBT with in vivo exposure.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 89%

Virtual reality compared within vivoexposure in the treatment of social anxiety disorder: A three-arm randomised controlled trial

et al. 2017

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BackgroundPeople with social anxiety disorder (SAD) fear social interactions and may be reluctant to seek treatments involving exposure to social situations. Social exposure conducted in virtual reality (VR), embedded in individual cognitive–behavioural therapy (CBT), could be an answer.AimsTo show that conducting VR exposure in CBT for SAD is effective and is more practical for therapists than conducting exposurein vivo.MethodParticipants were randomly assigned to either VR exposure (n= 17),in vivoexposure (n= 22) or waiting list (n= 20). Participants in the active arms received individual CBT for 14 weekly sessions and outcome was assessed with questionnaires and a behaviour avoidance test. (Trial registration number ISRCTN99747069.)ResultsImprovements were found on the primary (Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale) and all five secondary outcome measures in both CBT groups compared with the waiting list. Conducting exposure in VR was more effective at post-treatment thanin vivoon the primary outcome measure and on one secondary measure. Improvements were maintained at the 6-month follow-up. VR was significantly more practical for therapists thanin vivoexposure.ConclusionsUsing VR can be advantageous over standard CBT as a potential solution for treatment avoidance and as an efficient, cost-effective and practical medium of exposure.

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“…The data relating to galvanic skin response measurement, obtained through percentage variation over the sessions with exposure to VR (Figure 1), indicated that both P1 and P2's galvanic response measurements altered during each session by at least 20% (2 points on the scale in question) in P1's case (13 th session) and 30% (3 points on the scale) in P2's case (1 st and 13 th sessions). The changes in these measurements indicated that the scenarios produced alterations in the records of the participants' physiological levels during exposure and therefore meet the criterion discussed by Owens and Beidel (2015) for intervention effectiveness. Nevertheless, the alterations in the galvanic skin response did not show patterns that could be related to the scenario changes which, generally, included the addition of new and potentially anxiogenic stimuli, such as new avatars in the environment, programmed spoken interactions and performance of tasks under the scrutiny of other avatars.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 77%

A Treatment Program for Social Anxiety Disorder by Using Virtual Reality

Perandré¹,

Haydu²

2018

Temas Psicol.

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Virtual Reality (VR) was used in this study as a therapeutic tool in a behavior-analytic intervention with two subjects who had social anxiety disorder. The goals were to assess the therapeutic effects of the intervention program and the VR simulator with regard to the ability to generate sense of presence and anxiety responses. The program consisted of: (a) initial session, (b) baseline, (c) intervention sessions with exposure to VR, (d) closing session, (e) follow up (up to one and three months after treatment). Sense of presence, anxiety and galvanic skin response were reported in each exposure therapy session and anxiety, depression and social phobia inventories were reported at the end of each stage. Functional analyses were formulated based on behaviors occurring in social contexts between sessions. The simulator produced anxiety and high levels of presence during exposure; and both participants had reduced levels of anxiety at the end of intervention and generalization to the natural context. In conclusion, behavior-analytic intervention with exposure to VR was effective and fostered a repertoire for coping with situations of social interaction.

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Can Virtual Reality Effectively Elicit Distress Associated with Social Anxiety Disorder?

Cited by 85 publications

References 37 publications

The influences of virtual social feedback on social anxiety disorders

The influences of virtual social feedback on social anxiety disorders

Virtual reality compared within vivoexposure in the treatment of social anxiety disorder: A three-arm randomised controlled trial

A Treatment Program for Social Anxiety Disorder by Using Virtual Reality

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