Greville, W. James and Newton, Philip M. and Roche, Bryan and Dymond, Simon (2013) Conditioned suppression in a virtual environment. Computers in Human Behavior, 29 (3). pp. 552-558. ISSN 0747-5632

Preview

Download (277kB) | Preview

Abstract

Virtual environments (VEs) provide an inexpensive way of conducting ecologically valid psychological research. The present study used a VE to demonstrate conditioned suppression, a behavioral model of anxiety, in a first-person perspective video game. During operant training, participants learned to shoot crates to find gold bars and thus score points in the game. Next, during Pavlovian conditioning, a colored light (i.e., conditioned stimulus: CS+) was followed by a white noise unconditioned stimulus (US) while a different colored light (CS−) was not paired with the US. Probe trials in a final testing phase were then used to assess suppression. We found significant suppression of accurate responding (shots hitting the designated targets) during the presence of the CS+ relative to the CS−, both in terms of total hits and hits as a proportion of total shots. Importantly, this effect emerged despite the overall level of operant responding being undiminished during the CS+. Our findings are consistent with related studies examining human behavior in real environments, and demonstrate the potential of VEs in combination with a modestly aversive CS to allow a detailed behavioral profile of anxiety to emerge.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	The definitive version of this article is available at DOI: 10.1016/j.chb.2012.11.016
Keywords:	Conditioned suppression; Conditioning; Virtual environment; First person perspective video game; Anxiety;
Academic Unit:	Faculty of Science and Engineering > Psychology
Item ID:	6810
Identification Number:	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2012.11.016
Depositing User:	Dr. Bryan Roche
Date Deposited:	15 Jan 2016 10:31
Journal or Publication Title:	Computers in Human Behavior
Publisher:	Elsevier
Refereed:	Yes
URI:	http://www.sciencedirect.com/
Use Licence:	This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

Repository Staff Only(login required)

Item control page

Downloads

Origin of downloads