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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychol.
Sec. Quantitative Psychology and Measurement
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1432141
This article is part of the Research Topic Exploring Innovative Experimental Paradigms and Methods in Psychology View all 3 articles

PanicRoom: A Virtual Reality-based Pavlovian Fear Conditioning paradigm

Provisionally accepted
Chiara Lucifora Chiara Lucifora 1*Aldo Gangemi Aldo Gangemi 1Giorgio M. Grasso Giorgio M. Grasso 2Giovanni D'Italia Giovanni D'Italia 2Carmelo M. Vicario Carmelo M. Vicario 2
  • 1 University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
  • 2 University of Messina, Messina, Sicilia, Italy

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Pavlovian fear conditioning is an experimental paradigm used to study the acquisition and extinction of fear responses and various aspects of fear and anxiety. We developed a VR version of this paradigm to leverage the benefits of virtual reality, such as ecological validity, standardization, safety, and therapeutic applications. Our objective was to create an open-source, immersive environment for studying fear-related responses using the Unity Engine 3D and an Oculus Rift device.In this virtual environment, participants encountered a screaming monster at 100 dB approaching them as the fear-inducing stimulus (Unconditioned Stimulus or US). Our protocol includes three sessions: habituation, acquisition, and extinction, with two stimuli associated with different doors (blue vs. red). The blue door (CS+) is linked to the US, while the red door (CS-) is a control.We tested this VR paradigm on 84 young participants, recording their Skin Conductance Responses (SCR) and Fear Stimulus Ratings (FSR) on a 10-point Likert scale. The findings showed significantly higher SCR and FSR responses to CS+ compared to CS-during the acquisition phase and higher SCR and FSR for CS+ compared to habituation and extinction sessions. These results support the protocol's reliability for studying fear and anxiety-related conditions.

    Keywords: virtual reality, Fear conditioning, experimental paradigm, Pavlovian fear conditioning task in virtual reality, Pavlovian (classical) conditioning

    Received: 13 May 2024; Accepted: 29 Aug 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Lucifora, Gangemi, Grasso, D'Italia and Vicario. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Chiara Lucifora, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.