Utrecht University.
Utrecht University.
Behav Ther. 2021 Sep;52(5):1188-1197. doi: 10.1016/j.beth.2021.01.005. Epub 2021 Feb 2.
Exposure-based therapy is an effective treatment for social anxiety, but some patients relapse. We used a novel virtual reality procedure to examine spontaneous recovery (i.e., a return of fear over time) and fear renewal (i.e., the return of fear after a context switch) in individuals with fear of public speaking. On Day 1, 32 participants received exposure training before a virtual audience. On Day 8, participants completed a spontaneous recovery phase, followed by a fear renewal test, in which they gave a presentation in front of a new (context switch) or the same audience (no context switch). After exposure, participants exhibited a lower heart rate, subjective distress, negative valence, and arousal. One week later, participants showed spontaneous recovery of heart rate, and the context switch group showed renewal of subjective distress, negative valence, and arousal. Future studies can use this procedure to test interventions aimed at improving long-term exposure effects in individuals with public speaking fear.
暴露疗法是治疗社交焦虑症的有效方法，但有些患者会复发。我们使用一种新的虚拟现实程序来检查演讲恐惧个体的自发恢复（即恐惧随时间的恢复）和恐惧更新（即在上下文切换后恐惧的恢复）。在第 1 天，32 名参与者在虚拟观众面前接受暴露训练。在第 8 天，参与者完成了自发恢复阶段，随后进行了恐惧更新测试，他们在新的（上下文切换）或相同的观众（无上下文切换）面前进行演讲。暴露后，参与者的心率、主观不适、负性效价和唤醒水平降低。一周后，参与者的心率出现自发恢复，而上下文切换组的主观不适、负性效价和唤醒水平出现恢复。未来的研究可以使用这种程序来测试旨在改善演讲恐惧个体长期暴露效果的干预措施。
