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Public speaking is a communication ability that is expressed in social contexts. Public speaking anxiety consists of the fear of giving a speech or a presentation and the perception of being badly judged by others. Such feelings can impair the performance and physiological activation of the presenter. In this study, eighty participants, most naive in Virtual Reality experience, underwent one of four virtual reality public speaking scenarios. Four different conditions were tested in a between-group design, where the audience could express positive or negative non-verbal behavior (in terms of body gesture and facial expression), together with positive or adverse questions raised during a question-and-answer session (Q&A). The primary outcomes concerned the virtual audience behavior's effect on perceived anxiety and physiological arousal. In general, perceived anxiety seemed to be unaffected neither by the verbal nor non-verbal behavior of the audience. Nevertheless, experimental manipulation showed a higher susceptibility to public speaking anxiety in those participants who scored higher on the Social Interaction Anxiety Scale (SIAS) than those with lower Social Interaction Anxiety Scale scores. Specifically, in the case where the verbal attitude was negative, high SIAS trait participants reported a higher level of anxiety. Participants' physiological arousal was also affected by the proposed scenarios. Participants dealing with an approving audience and encouraging Q&A reported increased skin conductance response. The lack of correlation between reported anxiety and skin conductance response might suggest a physiological engagement in an interactive exchange with the virtual audience rather than a form of discomfort during the task.

Public speaking anxiety (PSA) is defined as a strong distress when performing a speech in front of an audience, causing impairment in terms of work possibilities and social relationships. Audience behavior and feedback received during a speech are a crucial variable to induce PSA, affecting performance and perception. In this study, two different virtual reality public speaking scenarios were developed to investigate the impact of positive (more assertive) versus negative (more hostile) audience behavior regarding perceived anxiety and physiological arousal during performance. Moreover, the presence of any carry-over effect based on first experiences (positive vs. negative) was investigated by using a within-between design. Both explicit (questionnaires) and implicit physiological measures (heart rate [HR]) were used to assess participants' experience. The results confirmed the influence of audience behavior on perceived anxiety. As expected, negative audience elicited greater anxiety and lower experience pleasantness. More interesting, the first experience influenced the perceived anxiety and arousal during performance, suggesting some sort of priming effect due to the valence of previous experience. In particular, starting with an encouraging feedback scenario did not increase the perceived anxiety and HR in front of a subsequent annoying audience. This modulation did not appear in the group who started with the annoying audience, which clearly reported higher HR and anxiety during the annoying exposure compared with the encouraging audience. These results are discussed considering previous evidence on the effect of feedback on performance. In addition, physiological results are interpreted considering the role of somatic marker theory in human performance.

Public speaking anxiety is defined as a strong difficulty in speaking in front of an audience and has been shown to impair work performance and social relationships. Virtual Reality (VR) offers an efficient tool for modulating public speaking anxiety through a wide range of customizations concerning environmental settings. However, scientific research needs to understand better what features of the simulated environment are more important to increase or reduce participants’ perceived discomfort. The present study investigates the role of visual (human vs cartoon characters) and acoustic (human vs robotic voice) audience features on perceived anxiety, sense of presence, and perceived realism in an interactive VR public speaking scenario. 42 participants (mean age = 24 y.o; Females = 30) performed four public speaking sessions, characterized by different levels (high vs. low) of graphic and acoustic audience design. Both explicit (questionnaires) and implicit physiological measures (Electrodermal activity-EDA) collected during audience interaction were used to assess the participants’ experiences. The results showed that the features of the simulated audience played a crucial role in perceived anxiety during a virtual public speaking. Specifically, the more realistic level of graphic and acoustic stimuli resulted in higher levels of self-reported anxiety as compared to the lower realism level. However, the experienced realism and the sense of presence seem more affected by the graphical than acoustic features of the virtual environment. By contrast, the acoustic features impact on the interaction realism with the virtual audience. Interestingly, the robotic voice (lower acoustic realism) increased electrodermal response during the interaction with the audience, interpreted as a break in the sense of presence. A positive correlation between anxiety, sense of presence, and experienced realism was found. As well, perceived anxiety is correlated with electrodermal activit

The practice of treating phobias with Virtual Reality-based therapies is a well-established field. Understanding the level of realism required by the therapy to be most effective is an essential matter of study. This research aims to explore the effects of visual realism on the emotional response in subjects with social phobia when exposed to VR-based applications. Social phobias are triggered by the presence of other people, which translated into virtual environments, refers to avatars. Our hypothesis is that patients with social phobia experience different emotional response to humanlike avatars compared to people without social phobia. To try the hypothesis, a prototype-based survey is conducted. Three types of avatars are implemented with different levels of human likeness: low, medium, and high. The analysis of the collected data suggests that for people with social phobias the anxiety is lowest for avatars with high levels of human likeness. This result is in direct contrast with the uncanny valley effect theory. The research explores how we should design virtual environments to make them more effective in the treatment of phobias. Moreover, the research produces new knowledge about the perception of humanlike avatars in virtual reality.