IF PUBLIC speaking gives you the willies, the chances are you鈥檒l be just as
scared of virtual people, experts have discovered. But in the long run these
鈥渁vatars鈥� will help you overcome your fears.
Mel Slater at University College London. and his colleague David-Paul Pertaub
have developed a VR environment to help people overcome their phobias. In their
virtual seminar room, people have to give a presentation to eight
computer-generated people who can appear by turns fascinated, bored stiff or
just annoyingly neutral.
While it鈥檚 not the first time VR has been used to treat phobias, such as fear
of spiders or flying, no one knew if the technique could also help people to
overcome their social phobias.
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To find out, Pertaub watched how people behave in seminars and programmed the
virtual people to do the same things: crossing their arms, frowning, yawning and
putting their feet on the table. 鈥淥ur negative audience is very negative,鈥� says
Slater.
Then Slater and Pertaub compared the performances of 43 volunteers who gave a
talk either to an attentive audience or to an unenthusiastic one. Surprisingly,
the subjects responded as if the avatars were real.
Those who had to give their talk to a negative, off-putting audience all
displayed the telltale signs of anxiety: sweating, heart palpitations and a
tightness in the chest, followed by dissatisfaction with the way their
presentation had gone.
鈥淚t felt really bad. I couldn鈥檛 just ignore them. I had to talk to them and
tell them to sit up and pay attention,鈥� reported one test subject. 鈥淓specially
the man on the left who put his head in his hands. I had to ask him to sit up
and listen.鈥�
Virtual people have many advantages over real audiences, says Slater. 鈥淭hey
never get tired, you can program them to do whatever you like, you can dress
them how you wish and choose different ages and genders very easily.鈥� You can
also rerun the scenarios exactly and choreograph interesting situations. But,
perhaps most importantly, people are more willing to talk to a virtual audience
than they are to real people.
鈥淚t鈥檚 clearly a very powerful and unavoidable response,鈥� says Slater. 鈥淥ur
visual system sees things and prompts an automatic and immediate physiological
response before people have a chance to rationalise that the people are not
谤别补濒.鈥�
To ensure these reactions were a direct response to the virtual people,
Slater ran tests comparing speakers鈥� responses when talking to the virtual
audience and to an empty room. Heart rates were normal when they were talking to
themselves. 鈥淏ut when they were in front of a virtual audience, their heart
rates shot up,鈥� he says. Slater would now like to use the approach to help
people master other social situations, such as parties or job interviews.