A study found that, when a companion is present virtually as an avatar, people respond with less anxiety to fear-inducing noises. This effect was found to be most pronounced in women.
Led by Professor Grit Hein, the study is published in the journal Translational Psychiatry and could have implications for the treatment and management of social anxiety.
“In a nutshell, we have shown that anxiety can also be reduced by the ‘presence’ of a virtual person, especially in socially anxious women. And women in general seem to benefit more from social presence,” Prof Hein said. She believes that this insight might have practical significance.
The study recruited 208 men and women, who were all exposed to fear-inducing sounds alternating with neutral ones – either alone or in the company of another person. Women had female companions, men had male companions. The researchers determined the level of the participants’ anxiety response through changes in skin conductance. Moreover, the participants had to rate the sounds on a scale.
But the series of experiments differed in one key aspect: One group had a real person at their side during the experiment whereas the second group completed the task in a virtual reality – accompanied by an avatar that was an image of the real companion.
“Earlier experiments have shown that the presence of a third party can significantly reduce fear responses. In such situations, social support thus has a stress-buffering effect,” said Prof Hein.
However, not all people are equally sociable: for some, the presence of others might actually trigger apprehension or anxiety. They fear that their companion might notice their anxious responses, such as trembling, flushing or sweating, causing them stress in the first place. Thus far it was unclear whether an avatar is also capable of triggering such a response.
The results of Prof Hein’s study have now provided clarity in this regard. They show that:
- women respond much more strongly to fear-inducing sounds than men do.
- the presence of another person reduces anxiety, especially in women. This is especially true for women without social anxiety disorder.
- the presence of a virtual person also reduces the anxiety response in women – regardless of the level of social anxiety they experience. So a virtual agent may increase feelings of safety in women suffering from social anxiety disorder.
- social anxiety does not have a comparable effect on men.
“Our findings provide new insights into the individual differences that influence the social modulation of the autonomic human anxiety responses,” the authors concluded in their study. The researchers’ next aim is to study long-term effects and replicate the findings in real life.
Future studies should systematically explore the effect of the gender of the present person, they suggested. This would also allow scientifically sound evidence to be provided as to how men respond when they have a woman at their side in fear-inducing situations and vice versa.
Source: News-Medical.Net
