Virtual realities provide an outstanding tool in anxiety research. A fear conditioning study investigates and illustrates the development of anxiety disorders in humans. Hannah Genheimer describes the scientific background of fear and anxiety and presents an empirical study in a highly controlled virtual environment. Psychophysiological as well as subjective data on the participants' fear and anxiety clearly show contextual fear conditioning. Cue conditioning in the light of one-trial learning is discussed. The results emphasize the promising application of virtual environments in psychotherapy.

Study in the field of social sciences Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

Autorentext

Hannah Genheimer studied Biology and wrote her interdisciplinary master thesis at the Department of Psychology I in Wuerzburg. Currently, she works on the investigation of fear and anxiety in her dissertation project implicating fear conditioning in virtual reality and vagus nerve stimulation.

Inhalt
From classical conditioning to contextual fear conditioning.- Fear conditioning in virtual reality.- Explicit ratings and physiological data.-Contextual conditioning and anxiety disorders.