Fear and Anxiety in Virtual Reality / BestMasters (PDF)

Virtual realities provide an outstanding tool in anxiety research. A fear conditioning study investigates and illustrates the development of anxiety disorders in humans. Hannah Genheimer describes the scientific background of fear and anxiety and presents an empirical study in a highly controlled virtual environment. Psychophysiological as well as subjective data on the participants' fear and anxiety clearly show contextual fear conditioning. Cue conditioning in the light of one-trial learning is discussed. The results emphasize the promising application of virtual environments in psychotherapy.

Contents

• From classical conditioning to contextual fear conditioning
• Fear conditioning in virtual reality
• Explicit ratings and physiological data
• Contextual conditioning and anxiety disorders

Target Groups

• Researchers and Students in the field of biological and clinical psychology, neurobiology and behavioral physiology
• Teachers and concerns focusing on the development and application of virtual environments, psychotherapists interested in anxiety and anxiety disorders

The Author

Hannah Genheimer studied Biology and wrote her interdisciplinary master thesis at the Department of Psychology I in Wuerzburg. Currently, she workson the investigation of fear and anxiety in her dissertation project implicating fear conditioning in virtual reality and vagus nerve stimulation.