Is Anxiety-Inducing VR Experienced Differently Depending on Personality? The Mediating Role of Presence

Abstract

This study attempted to investigate the role of presence in an anxiety-inducing virtual reality (VR) experience and explain possible individual differences in the feeling of presence. More specifically, it was investigated if the feeling of presence (a) differed by personality and (b) affected individual levels of anxiety. This study utilized the psychobiological model of the Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI) to study personality in the context of virtual reality exposure therapy (VRET). In total, thirty six individuals participated in a lab experiment in which anxiety-inducing VR content was experienced through a head-mounted display. The results suggested that individuals with high levels of cooperativeness and selftranscendence experienced increased levels of presence, which further enhanced cognitive anxiety levels. On a physiological level, cooperativeness and reward dependence enhanced somatic anxiety (respiration), but presence was not a significant mediating factor.

Virtual Reality as a Tool in the Treatment of Claustrophobia - A Review

“…(5-17) 5 [38], [43], [48], [33], [34] Adults (18-59) 13 [85], [86], [87], [88], [89], [90], [91], [92], [93], [94], [95], [83], [84] Older adults (60-100) 6…”

Can You Feel It?

“…As the simultaneous use of cues during a psychotherapy session is more prone to occur than using them separately, and an extensive library of different kinds of scenarios and anxiety cues will be provided, testing the impact of different meaningful combinations of cues on the anxiety level would also be an interesting direction for future research in this domain. These meaningful combinations of anxiety cues could also be suggested for personalised VRET sessions as patients are for example triggered or more intensely immersed by different kinds of (combinations of) cues in the virtual scenario, aligning the design of VRET with individual differences (as suggested by Song et al, 2021). A possible reason why the physical cue did not elicit more self-reported anxiety might be that the experienced warmth was found to be too unrealistic in the virtual setting because it only warmed one side of the participant's face.…”

“…Additional objective indicators (e.g., physiological measures) could have provided an added value for a somatic parameter for anxiety (cfr. Song et al, 2021).…”

“…For example, Igras-Cybulska et al (2020) gathered feedback on different existing VR applications for fear of public speaking and found out that the 'responsiveness of the crowd' is an important design factor. Another interesting example is the inclusion of multisensory cues (visual + auditory + tactile + olfactory), as this has a great impact on the feeling of presence and immersion, which consequently has an impact on the effectiveness of fear elicitation, as reported by end-users (Peperkorn & Mühlberger, 2013;Marquardt et al, 2018;Song et al, 2021). Also, when designing VRET, the possibility of combining the treatment with other complementary elements of effective methods such as serious games (with different levels and challenges) could be considered, enabling the interaction with anxiety cues and the feeling of presence (Levy et al, 2016;Rizhan et al, 2021), as tested by Yoones et al (2017) through the comparison of an active vs passive virtual scenario in eliciting social anxiety.…”

Virtual reality and music's impact on psychological well-being

“…While immersion and presence are different in terms of definition, they are closely tied together and if immersion is significantly high, higher levels of presence will also be reported ( 32 ). Additionally, another researcher's study indicated that people who are more cooperative and self-transcendent may experience more presence indicating how personality may play a role in how a person interacts in immersive environments ( 33 ).…”