Cognitive Processing and Regulation Modulates Analogue Trauma Symptoms in a Virtual Reality Paradigm

The effect of attachment security priming and oxytocin on physiological responses to trauma films and subsequent intrusions

“…Although we have not explicitly assessed negative appraisals in our study, we infer from stress models which posit that subjective distress occurs when a situation is appraised as psychosocial threat (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). Our interpretation is also supported by evidence that both elevated psychobiological stress response to a psychosocial stressor prior to the trauma film (Schultebraucks et al, 2019) and negative appraisals facilitate intrusion development and maintenance (Schweizer et al, 2019) and are detrimental for recovery from trauma by helping to maintain PTSD re-experiencing symptoms (Ehlers & Steil, 1995). Secure attachment priming could exert its protective effect on intrusion development by reducing distress and thus altering negative appraisals of trauma memories, which is a promising avenue for future research and clinical approaches for PTSD.…”

Virtually renovating the Trauma Film Paradigm: Comparing virtual reality with on-screen presentation of an analogue trauma

“…Realistic 360° film footage as an appropriate analogue for a real-life trauma event is difficult to attain. As a result, VR studies typically rely on programmed animations of simulated stressful environments such as an animation of the aftermath of a train collision (Boskovic et al, 2019;Dibbets, 2020) or simulated bomb detonation (Schweizer et al, 2017;Schweizer et al, 2019). Such VR scenes have been found to increase physiological response (Schweizer et al, 2018) and evoke intrusions later (Cuperus et al, 2016;Dibbets, 2020).…”

Editorial for the Special Issue on Negative Appraisals in Trauma: Current Status and Future Directions for Research

“…Participants provided their own completions for these scenarios, and the association between participants' spontaneous, idiosyncratic endings and traumarelevant measures was examined. Schweizer et al (2018) used a real-time, virtual reality analog trauma to induce peri-traumatic stress responses in a sample of healthy individuals. An advantage of this novel trauma analog is that it allows for a first-person experience, which in turn may have the potential to elicit stronger emotional stress responses compared to aversive pictures or film material.…”