Department of Psychology, The University of Texas at Austin, TX, USA.
Center for Perceptual Systems, The University of Texas at Austin, TX, USA.
Cogn Behav Ther. 2022 Sep;51(5):371-387. doi: 10.1080/16506073.2022.2053882. Epub 2022 Apr 6.
Biased attention to social threats has been implicated in social anxiety disorder. Modifying visual attention during exposure therapy offers a direct test of this mechanism. We developed and tested a brief virtual reality exposure therapy (VRET) protocol using 360°-video and eye tracking. Participants (N = 21) were randomized to either standard VRET or VRET + attention guidance training (AGT). Multilevel Bayesian models were used to test (1) whether there was an effect of condition over time and (2) whether post-treatment changes in gaze patterns mediated the effect of condition at follow-up. There was a large overall effect of the intervention on symptoms of social anxiety, as well as an effect of the AGT augmentation on changes in visual attention to audience members. There was weak evidence against an effect of condition on fear of public speaking and weak evidence supporting a mediation effect, however these estimates were strongly influenced by model priors. Taken together, our findings suggest that attention can be modified VRET and that modification of visual gaze avoidance may be casually linked to reductions in social anxiety. Replication with a larger sample size is needed.
对社交威胁的偏见关注与社交焦虑症有关。在暴露疗法中改变视觉注意力为这一机制提供了直接的检验。我们开发并测试了一种使用 360°视频和眼动追踪的简短虚拟现实暴露疗法 (VRET) 方案。参与者（N=21）被随机分配到标准 VRET 或 VRET+注意引导训练 (AGT) 组。多层贝叶斯模型用于检验：(1) 随着时间的推移，条件是否有影响，以及 (2) 治疗后注视模式的变化是否在随访时调节了条件的影响。干预措施对社交焦虑症状有很大的总体影响，AGT 增强对观众成员的视觉注意力变化也有影响。尽管存在对条件影响的公共演讲恐惧的微弱证据，但支持中介效应的证据较弱，但这些估计受到模型先验的强烈影响。总之，我们的研究结果表明，注意力可以通过 VRET 进行调整，并且视觉回避的改变可能与社交焦虑的减少有关。需要更大的样本量进行复制。
