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Abstract

An overall assessment of phobic fear requires self-report of fear, but also behavioral tests and physiological measures. In clinical practice however, response levels are commonly assessed only with questionnaires. The rare use of direct psychophysiological measures may have two reasons: first, in-vivo assessments in phobic situations are difficult to realize and frequently associated with methodological problems. Second, standardized laboratory settings hardly elicit clinically relevant emotions. Virtual scenarios can be used to simulate realistic (phobic) situations and therefore should be useful to induce emotions in a controlled, standardized way. In the present study verbal and physiological fear reactions were examined in 15 high-tunnel-fearful individuals and 15 matched control persons in three simulated virtual driving scenarios including an open environment, a half-open tunnel (gallery) and a closed tunnel. High-tunnel-fearful
participants were characterized by elevated fear responses specifically during tunnel drives, as reflected in verbal fear ratings, heart rate reactions and startle responses. The need for a full psychophysiological assessment of phobic fear was indicated by low correlations between subjective and physiological assessments. Fear ratings differentiated fearful from non-fearful participants with an accuracy of 93\%, heart rate with an accuracy of 88\%. The combination of fear ratings and heart rate reached an accuracy of 96\%. Results indicate that virtual environments are valuable instruments for clinical diagnoses and experimental research.