Measuring and combating social anxiety with Bournemouth University
Investigating face perception in social VR settings and recording brain activity with EEG
What was the purpose of the study? A specialist team at Bournemouth University’s Multimodal Immersive Neuro-Sensing Cluster is hoping this project will provide a biomarker for social anxiety assessment by investigating face perception in social VR settings and recording brain activity with electroencephalography (EEG) technology.
Context: Recent research has found social contexts and emotions influence the electric brain activity of early face perception, leading to the notion that social interactions and affective states are also processed during early face perception. Currently, around 12.1% of the population experiences social anxiety disorder within their lifetime. This study could have implications for developing mental health treatment and resilience training.
TG0’s role in the study: TG0’s etee controller is being used in this study to monitor pressure in immersive VR environments. The manner (approaching or withdrawing) and the affective state of the social interactions will be systematically manipulated, and social anxiety will be measured according to the force applied to the controller, questionnaires and EEG activities.
Results and conclusion: The study is ongoing.
Additional reading: TG0’s etee VR controllers used in anxiety study, Studying the human mind and behaviour in VR
