Abstract
Virtual reality lets the user be immersed in a 3-dimensional environment, which can enhance certain emotional responses to stimuli relative to experiencing them on a flat computer screen. We here tested whether displaying two different types of threats in immersive virtual reality enhanced threat related autonomic responses measured by skin conductance responses (SCRs). We studied innate and learned threat responses because these types of threats have been shown to depend on different neural circuits in animals. Therefore, it is possible that immersive virtual reality may modulate one of these threats but not the other. Innate threat responses were provoked by the sudden appearance of characters at proximal egocentric distance, which were compared to the sudden appearance of distant characters (proximal threat). Learned threat responses were studied by conditioning two of the characters to an electric shock (conditioned threat) and contrasting SCRs to these characters with SCRs to two other characters that were never paired with shock. We found that displaying stimuli in immersive virtual reality enhanced proximal threat responses but not conditioned threat responses. Findings show that immersive virtual reality can enhance an innate type of threat responses without affecting a learned threat response, suggesting that separate neural pathways serve these threat responses.
Highlights
Defensive response because of divergence in neural circuitry responsible for detection and expression of fear
The difference in skin conductance responses (SCR) between CS− presentations (CS)+ and CS− was similar in immersive virtual reality head-mounted display and on the computer display as there was no interaction between display type and CS-type (CS x Display: F1, 80 = 0.68, p = 0.41, η2 = 0.01)
We examined whether immersive virtual-reality modulates proximal and conditioned threat responses indexed by SCR
Summary
Defensive response because of divergence in neural circuitry responsible for detection and expression of fear. We compared autonomic responses in one group of participants that viewed threat cues displayed on a computer screen to another group of participants that viewed threat cues in an immersive virtual-reality head-mounted display. For both display media, four virtual characters were presented at proximal and distant egocentric distances. We hypothesized that presenting visual threat cues in a head-mounted display would result in greater SCR for proximal but not conditioned threat compared to a computer display This would indicate a difference in the visual processing of Before During After. Indoor Outdoor Indoor Outdoor Indoor Outdoor proximal and conditioned threat, which could be a result of the division of neural pathways processing these threats that has been reported in animals[14,19]
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