TG0’s etee VR controllers used in anxiety study

TG0 is working with Bournemouth University using patented TG0 touch and pressure sensing technology to help measure social anxiety.

Social anxiety is a mental disorder with a high prevalence. About 7.1% of the adult population is diagnosed with this condition, and 12.1% of population experienced this condition in their lifetime. The project will provide a biomarker for social anxiety assessment by investigating face perception in social VR settings and recording brain activity with EEG measures.

Face perception is crucial for successful daily social interactions. Current theories suggest that early perception of faces only processes the structure of faces. However, recent findings showed that social contexts and emotions influenced the electric brain activity (i.e., EEG) of early face perception, leading to the embodied face perception notion that social interactions and associated affective states are also processed during early face perception. It is hypothesized that social anxiety, a mental disorder characterized by sentiments of fear and anxiety in social situations, potentially modulates the embodied face perception. The current project will investigate this by employing an integrated mobile EEG and virtual reality (VR) approach.

The project will build immersive and realistic VR environments using the Unity engine and employ naturalistic social interactions between humans and virtual characters utilizing TG0’s intelligent materials (etee handsets). The manner (approaching or withdrawing) and the affective state (positive or negative) of the social interactions will be systematically manipulated. Social anxiety will be measured with questionnaires and the hand force applied to the intelligent materials, and, if deemed necessary, directly studied in a diagnosed patient group. The main measure will be the EEG activities related to early face perception during realistic social interactions.

The key questions are:

1. Embodied social interactions in face perception: in what manner is early face perception (measured in EEG) influenced by affective social interactions.

2. Social anxiety modulation: how the EEG activities representing this embodied face perception is modulated by social anxiety (measured in questionnaires, hand force, and in social anxiety patients if possible).

For more information on the study click HERE