Gamification Group, Faculty of Information Technology and Communication Sciences, Tampere University, Tampere, Finland.
Cyberpsychol Behav Soc Netw. 2023 Apr;26(4):246-254. doi: 10.1089/cyber.2022.0251. Epub 2023 Mar 28.
Social performance situations often constitute one of the most challenging communication tasks across different cultures. In today's work environments, giving presentations and performing in front of others are often essential and expected. Therefore, public speaking anxiety can have a serious impact on an individual's job performance, career choice, and prospects. Contemporary consumer virtual reality hardware has made it possible to practice public speaking anywhere in a safe and private virtual reality environment (VRE). As VREs offer the means to practice real-life scenarios, they also make it possible to go beyond what is "real"; to replace simulations with more dynamic and innovative training environments. Furthermore, with occupational life undergoing a significant shift toward technology-mediated working conditions, innovative tools and methods could also be used during virtually implemented real-time social interactions. This research aimed to study the ways in which an illusion of height, that is, perceived tallness versus perceived shortness, without any visible virtual body or representation, influences state speech anxiety and emotional responses of participants during simulation of a stressful speech task. The experiment followed a strictly controlled between-subject procedure, and both self-reported and psychophysiological data were collected. Results indicate that participants perceiving the illusion of tallness felt less anxious and had lower self-reported arousal compared with participants with the illusion of shortness. This implies that even simple, visual, first-person perspective manipulation of the VRE could help individuals to reduce their stress responses during a task-oriented situation.
社交情境通常构成了跨文化交流中最具挑战性的任务之一。在当今的工作环境中，进行演示和在他人面前表演往往是必不可少且预期的。因此，公众演讲焦虑会对个人的工作表现、职业选择和前景产生严重影响。当代消费者虚拟现实硬件使在安全和私密的虚拟现实环境 (VRE) 中随时随地进行公众演讲练习成为可能。由于 VRE 提供了练习真实场景的手段，它们还可以超越“真实”，用更具动态和创新性的培训环境来替代模拟。此外，随着职业生活向技术介导的工作条件发生重大转变，创新工具和方法也可以在虚拟实施的实时社交互动中使用。本研究旨在研究在没有任何可见的虚拟身体或表示的情况下，高度错觉（即感知的高大与感知的矮小）如何影响参与者在模拟有压力的演讲任务期间的状态演讲焦虑和情绪反应。该实验遵循严格的控制组间程序，并收集了自我报告和心理生理数据。结果表明，与具有矮小错觉的参与者相比，感知到高大错觉的参与者感到焦虑程度较低，自我报告的唤醒程度也较低。这意味着，即使是 VRE 的简单、视觉、第一人称视角操纵，也可以帮助个人在面向任务的情况下减少压力反应。
