The primary goal of this research program was to investigate the effectiveness of virtual reality therapy (VRT) in reducing public speaking anxiety of university students. The prevalence and impact of public speaking anxiety as a type of Social Phobia are discussed. Studies of VRT as an emerging treatment for psychological problems are reviewed. In the present study, eight students completed VRT individual treatment and post-testing, and six students in a Wait-List control group completed post-testing. Assessment measures included four self-report inventories, self-report of Subjective Units of Discomfort during exposure to VRT and physiological measurements of heart rate during speaking tasks. Four weekly individual exposure treatment sessions of approximately 15 min each were conducted by the author serving as therapist. Results on self-report and physiological measures appear to indicate that four virtual reality treatment sessions were effective in reducing public speaking anxiety in university students, corroborating earlier studies of VRT's effectiveness as a psychotherapeutic modality. Future research directions are discussed, primarily the need for research on younger populations, to assess the effectiveness of VRT for earlier intervention with public speaking anxiety.
The major goal of this research was to investigate the efficacy of virtual reality therapy (VRT) in the treatment of the fear of public speaking. After an extensive two-stage screening process, sixteen subjects were selected from the pool. They were assigned to two treatment conditions: VRT (N=8) and comparison group (N=8). Fourteen subjects completed the study. The VRT group was exposed to the virtual reality public speaking scene while the comparison group was exposed to a trivial virtual reality scene and guided by the experimenters to manage their phobia either by using visualization techniques or selfexposure to the situation they feared. The VRT and comparison group sessions were conducted on an individual basis over a five week period. Two assessment measures were used in this study. The first measure used was the Attitude Towards Public Speaking (ATPS) Questionnaire. The second measure used was the eleven-point Subjective Units of Disturbance (SUD) scale. These measurements assessed the anxiety, avoidance, attitudes and disturbance associated with their fear of public speaking before and after treatments. In addition, objective measures such as heart rate was collected in each stage of the treatment. Significant differences between the six subjects who completed the VRT sessions and comparison group were found on all measures. The VRT group showed significant improvement after five weeks of treatment. The comparison group did not show any meaningful changes. The authors concluded that VRT was successful in reducing the fear of the public speaking.
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