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Updated: Jun 10, 2025

Human Fear Conditioning Conducted in Full Immersion 3-Dimensional Virtual Reality
Published on: August 9, 2010
PanicRoom: a virtual reality-based Pavlovian fear conditioning paradigm
Chiara Lucifora1,2, Aldo Gangemi1,2, Giovanni D'Italia3
1Department of Philosophy, Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy.
Introduction:
Pavlovian fear conditioning is an experimental paradigm used to study the acquisition and extinction of fear responses and the various aspects of fear and anxiety. We developed a virtual reality (VR) version of this paradigm to leverage the benefits of virtual reality, such as ecological validity, standardization, safety, and therapeutic applications. Our objective was to create an open-source and immersive environment for studying fear-related responses using Unity Engine 3D and the Oculus Rift device.
Methods:
In this virtual environment, the participants encountered a monster screaming at 100 dB approaching them as the fear-inducing stimulus (unconditioned stimulus or US). Our protocol included three sessions: habituation, acquisition, and extinction, with two stimuli associated with different doors (blue vs. red). The blue door (CS+) was linked to the US, while the red door (CS-) was the control. We tested this VR paradigm on 84 young participants, recording their skin conductance response (SCRs) and fear stimulus ratings (FSRs) on a 10-point Likert scale.
Results:
The findings showed significantly higher SCRs and FSRs for CS+ as compared to CS- during the acquisition phase and higher SCRs and FSRs for CS+ during the acquisition phase as compared to the habituation and extinction sessions.
Discussion And Conclusions:
These results supported the reliability of the protocol for studying fear and anxiety-related conditions.
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