A Revised and Extended Paradigm for Social and Non-social Stress Elicitation in Psychological Research - A Feasibility Study in Virtual Reality

Virtual Reality (VR) environments, with their immersive and controllable nature, have long been harnessed for a variety of serious applications, including but not limited to psychology, therapy, and fundamental scientific research. At the forefront of innovation, these dynamic, digitally-constructed realities offer unprecedented opportunities for breakthroughs in our understanding and treatment of complex psychological conditions, exemplified by the pioneering work discussed in this study on stress-related disorders and schizophrenia using VR. Stress is a significant factor affecting mental and physical health. Investigating response to stressors is crucial for understanding of the complex pathways between stress and health in different diseases e.g. schizophrenia. However, existing paradigms for stress exposure in schizophrenia have a number of limitations. This study presents a revised and extended paradigm for social and non-social stress exposure in Immersive Virtual Reality (IVR) called the VR Metro Stress Task (VR-MST), that addresses these limitations. Here we present preliminary data on acceptability, presence and immersion, as well as affective response to stressors. We present promising results for the use of VR-MST for stress induction, thus considering it a valuable tool for research on stress-related disorders and interventions.