An examination of active inference in autistic adults using immersive virtual reality.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Arthur T
PROVIDER: S-EPMC8514518 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:Avoidance behavior is a key symptom of most anxiety disorders and a central readout in animal research. However, the quantification of real-life avoidance behavior in humans is typically restricted to clinical populations, who show actual avoidance of phobic objects. In experimental approaches for healthy participants, many avoidance tasks utilize button responses or a joystick navigation on the screen as indicators of avoidance behavior. To allow the ecologically valid assessment of avoidance behavior in healthy participants, we developed a new automated immersive Virtual Reality paradigm, where participants could freely navigate in virtual 3-dimensional, 360-degrees scenes by real naturalistic body movements. A differential fear conditioning procedure was followed by three newly developed behavioral tasks to assess participants' avoidance behavior of the conditioned stimuli: an approach, a forced-choice, and a search task. They varied in instructions, degrees of freedom, and high or low task-related relevance of the stimuli. We initially examined the tasks in a quasi-experiment (N = 55), with four consecutive runs and various experimental adaptations. Here, although we observed avoidance behavior in all three tasks after additional reinforcement, we only detected fear-conditioned avoidance behavior in the behavioral forced-choice and search tasks. These findings were largely replicated in a confirmatory experiment (N = 72) with randomized group allocation, except that fear-conditioned avoidance behavior was only manifest in the behavioral search task. This supports the notion that the behavioral search task is sensitive to detect avoidance behavior after fear conditioning only, whereas the behavioral approach and forced-choice tasks are still able to detect "strong" avoidance behavior after fear conditioning and additional reinforcement.
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Project description:BackgroundImmersive virtual reality (IVR) can be defined as a fully computer-generated environment shown on a head-mounted display. Existing research suggests that key features of IVR can assist older adults in their everyday lives, providing opportunities for health promotion and tackling social isolation and loneliness. There has been a surge in qualitative studies exploring older adults' experiences and perceptions of IVR. However, there has been no systematic synthesis of these studies to inform the design of new, more accessible IVR technologies.ObjectiveThis study aimed to systematically review and synthesize qualitative studies exploring older adults' experiences and perceptions of IVR.MethodsA systematic review and thematic synthesis were conducted following the ENTREQ (Enhancing Transparency in Reporting the Synthesis of Qualitative Research) guidelines. In total, 2 reviewers completed title and abstract screening, full-text screening, data extraction, and quality appraisal. Thematic synthesis is derived from the qualitative method, thematic analysis. It involves 3 key steps: initial coding and grouping of these codes, the formation of descriptive themes from these codes, and going beyond these data to form analytical themes. Confidence in the evidence was assessed using the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation-Confidence in the Evidence from Reviews of Qualitative Research approach.ResultsOverall, 13 studies were included in the final synthesis, including 224 participants across 9 countries and 5 continents. Confidence in the evidence ranged from high to moderate. Three descriptive themes were generated: practical aspects of IVR use, experiencing unique features of IVR, and perceptions of IVR. The findings from the descriptive themes suggested that there are several improvements that need to be made to existing IVR devices to facilitate older adults' use of this technology. However, older adults' responses to IVR were generally positive. Three analytical themes were generated: tolerating the bad to experience the good, buying in to IVR (don't judge a book by its cover), and "it proves to me I can do it." The analytical themes illustrated that older adults were willing to tolerate discomforts that accompany existing IVR technologies to experience features such as immersive social networking. There was a discrepancy between older adults' perceptions of IVR before use-which were generally negative-and after use-which were generally positive-and IVR provided a platform for older adults to access certain activities and environments more easily than in the real world because of limitations caused by aging.ConclusionsThis review offers insights into older adults' experiences and perceptions of IVR and suggests how a few improvements to its existing hardware and software as well as how it is first presented could offer new opportunities for older adults to take part in meaningful activities tailored to their needs and preferences.Trial registrationPROSPERO CRD42020200774; https://tinyurl.com/8f48w2vt.International registered report identifier (irrid)RR2-10.1177/16094069211009682.
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