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Social anxiety changes the way we move—A social approach-avoidance task in a virtual reality CAVE system

Please always quote using this URN: urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-200528
  • Investigating approach-avoidance behavior regarding affective stimuli is important in broadening the understanding of one of the most common psychiatric disorders, social anxiety disorder. Many studies in this field rely on approach-avoidance tasks, which mainly assess hand movements, or interpersonal distance measures, which return inconsistent results and lack ecological validity. Therefore, the present study introduces a virtual reality task, looking at avoidance parameters (movement time and speed, distance to social stimulus, gazeInvestigating approach-avoidance behavior regarding affective stimuli is important in broadening the understanding of one of the most common psychiatric disorders, social anxiety disorder. Many studies in this field rely on approach-avoidance tasks, which mainly assess hand movements, or interpersonal distance measures, which return inconsistent results and lack ecological validity. Therefore, the present study introduces a virtual reality task, looking at avoidance parameters (movement time and speed, distance to social stimulus, gaze behavior) during whole-body movements. These complex movements represent the most ecologically valid form of approach and avoidance behavior. These are at the core of complex and natural social behavior. With this newly developed task, the present study examined whether high socially anxious individuals differ in avoidance behavior when bypassing another person, here virtual humans with neutral and angry facial expressions. Results showed that virtual bystanders displaying angry facial expressions were generally avoided by all participants. In addition, high socially anxious participants generally displayed enhanced avoidance behavior towards virtual people, but no specifically exaggerated avoidance behavior towards virtual people with a negative facial expression. The newly developed virtual reality task proved to be an ecological valid tool for research on complex approach-avoidance behavior in social situations. The first results revealed that whole body approach-avoidance behavior relative to passive bystanders is modulated by their emotional facial expressions and that social anxiety generally amplifies such avoidance.show moreshow less

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Metadaten
Author: Bastian LangeORCiD, Paul Pauli
URN:urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-200528
Document Type:Journal article
Faculties:Medizinische Fakultät
Fakultät für Humanwissenschaften (Philos., Psycho., Erziehungs- u. Gesell.-Wissensch.) / Institut für Psychologie
Language:English
Parent Title (English):PLoS ONE
Year of Completion:2019
Volume:14
Issue:12
Pagenumber:e0226805
Source:PLoS ONE 14(12):e0226805 (2019). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0226805
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0226805
Dewey Decimal Classification:1 Philosophie und Psychologie / 15 Psychologie / 150 Psychologie
Tag:analysis of variance; anxiolytics; behavior; emotions; face; questionnaires; social anxiety disorder; virtual reality
Release Date:2020/03/30
Collections:Open-Access-Publikationsfonds / Förderzeitraum 2019
Licence (German):License LogoCC BY: Creative-Commons-Lizenz: Namensnennung 4.0 International