@article{bouchard_conducting_2025,

title = {Conducting exposure in virtual reality for the treatment of social phobia does lead to change in dysfunctional beliefs},

author = {S. Bouchard and H. Forget},

url = {https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-105023856314&partnerID=40&md5=db4c4e86d7c32b544fe28c7fb6f9172b},

issn = {15548716 (ISSN)},

year  = {2025},

date = {2025-01-01},

journal = {Annual Review of CyberTherapy and Telemedicine},

volume = {23},

pages = {258–264},

abstract = {This study used data from a randomized control trial on cognitive behavior therapy for social phobia testing the effectiveness of exposure conducted in virtual reality. Measures of cognitive mechanisms had been collected but never analyzed. The study was motivated by a recent publication mentioning that potential aversive outcomes of being judged in virtual reality and by virtual characters have no objective negative consequence in daily life. A sample of 51 adults completed outcome and cognitive mechanism measures at a pretreatment, after 14 weeks of treatment or being on a waiting list, and at a 6-month follow-up. Results demonstrate that conducting exposure in virtual reality led to reductions in dysfunctional beliefs about the perceived consequences of feared social threats, about the likelihood of these feared threats occurring, as well as an increase in perceived self-efficacy to face social situations. These changes were statistically significant when compared to the waiting list condition, remained stable at the 6-month follow-up, and were no less important than when exposure was conducted in vivo. All predictors significantly correlated (p < .001) with the two measures of treatment outcome. Further analyses of cognitive mechanism measures predicting treatment outcomes revealed that, when controlling for shared variance, changes in perceived likelihood and in self-efficacy contributed significantly to patients’ improvement, whereas the role of perceived consequences was only a predictor of self-efficacy. © 2025, Interactive Media Institute. All rights reserved.},

keywords = {adult, article, clinical article, cognitive behavioral therapy, controlled study, exposure, female, follow up, hospital admission, human, in vivo study, Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale, male, multiple regression, predictors of outcome, randomized controlled trial, social anxiety disorder, social phobia, Social Phobia Scale, threat, treatment duration, Treatment mechanisms, treatment outcome, virtual reality},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{cote_documenting_2005,

title = {Documenting the efficacy of virtual realityexposure with psychophysiological and information processing measures},

author = {S. Côté and S. Bouchard},

url = {https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-25144467954&doi=10.1007%2fs10484-005-6379-x&partnerID=40&md5=12308d48c2d79eff9c6446385244c27c},

doi = {10.1007/s10484-005-6379-x},

issn = {10900586 (ISSN)},

year  = {2005},

date = {2005-01-01},

journal = {Applied Psychophysiology Biofeedback},

volume = {30},

number = {3},

pages = {217–232},

abstract = {Many outcome studies have been conducted to assess the efficacy of virtual reality in the treatment of specific phobias. However, most studies used self-report data. The addition of objective measures of arousal and information processing mechanisms would be a valuable contribution in order to validate the usefulness of virtual reality in the treatment of anxiety disorders. The goal of this study was to document the impact of virtual reality exposure (VRE) on cardiac response and automatic processing of threatening stimuli. Twenty-eight adults suffering from arachnophobia were assessed and received an exposure-based treatment using virtual reality. General outcome and specific processes measures included a battery of standardized questionnaires, a pictorial emotional Stroop task, a behavioral avoidance test and a measure of participants' inter-beat intervals (IBI) while they were looking at a live tarantula. Assessment was conducted before and after treatment. Repeated measures ANOVAs revealed that therapy had a positive impact on questionnaire data, as well as on the behavioral avoidance test. Analyses made on the pictorial Stroop task showed that information processing of spider-related stimuli changed after treatment, which also indicates therapeutic success. Psychophysiological data also showed a positive change after treatment, suggesting a decrease in anxiety. In sum, VRE led to significant therapeutic improvements on objective measures as well as on self-report instruments. © 2005 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc.},

keywords = {adult, analysis of variance, Animals, arachnophobia, Arousal, article, avoidance behavior, cardiovascular response, clinical article, emotion, Emotions, exposure, Fear, female, Heart Rate, human, Humans, information processing, male, medical documentation, Mental Processes, Middle Aged, outcomes research, phobia, phobias, Phobic Disorders, Psychophysiology, questionnaire, Reproducibility of Results, self report, spider, Spiders, standardization, stimulus response, task performance, threat, treatment outcome, User-Computer Interface, virtual reality, Visual Perception, visual stimulation},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}