Isabel L Kampmann

University of Münster | WWU · Clinical Psychology

Social comparison can guide adaptive behavior in fear-related situations. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of social comparison standards on acute anxiety levels and phobic symptoms. The sample comprised 159 individuals (Mage = 23.4) with self-reported fear of flying (22.6%) or fear of heights (77.4%) who were randomly assigned...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0092804.].

Background Cognitions play an important role in the development and maintenance of social anxiety disorder (SAD). Methods To investigate whether changes in cognitions during the first six sessions of exposure therapy are associated with treatment outcome, we assessed reported self-focused attention, self-efficacy in social situations, and estimate...

Ample evidence supports the use of Virtual Reality (VR) for anxiety disorders. Nonetheless, currently there is no evidence about moderators or potential negative effects of VR treatment strategies. An Individual Patient Data (IPD) approach was employed with 15 retrieved datasets. The current study sample was composed of 810 patients. Randomized con...

Cognitive biases have been suggested to play a crucial role in the etiology and maintenance of social anxiety disorder (SAD). The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of exposure therapy on attention- and approach-avoidance bias in SAD. In a randomized controlled trial, we compared changes from pre- to posttreatment in both biases...

Self-report data and anxiety levels during the in vivo and virtual reality BAT.

Social anxiety is commonly assessed with self-report measures. This study aimed to investigate whether maximum anxiety levels during in vivo and virtual reality behavioral assessment tasks (BATs), and implicit approach-avoidance tendencies during the approach-avoidance task (AAT) explain more variation as predictors of daily social anxiety than sel...

This meta-analysis investigated the efficacy of technology-assisted interventions for individuals with social anxiety disorder (SAD). A systematic literature search in the databases Medline, PsychInfo, and Web of Science revealed 37 randomized controlled trials (2991 participants) that were grouped into internet delivered cognitive behavior therapy...

To increase the accessibility and efficiency of virtual reality exposure therapy (VRET) this paper proposes a system for home-based use where patients with social phobia are supported by a virtual health agent. We present an overview of our system design, and discuss key techniques such as (1) dialogue techniques to create automated free speech dia...

Current developments of virtual reality exposure therapy (VRET) system focus mainly on systems that can be used in health clinics under the direct supervision of a therapist. Offering patients however the possibility to do this treatment at home would make VRET more accessible. In this paper we therefore present a home-based VRET system for the tre...

Background and objectives: Research on virtual reality exposure therapy (VRET) has demonstrated good treatment efficacy with regards to several anxiety disorders. Yet, there is lack of knowledge about the value of integrating interaction between clients and virtual humans in VRET. Such interaction might prove effective in treating psychological co...

Virtual reality exposure therapy has been proposed as a viable alternative in the treatment of anxiety disorders, including social anxiety disorder. Therapists could benefit from extensive control of anxiety eliciting stimuli during virtual exposure. Two stimuli controls are studied in this study: the social dialogue situation, and the dialogue fee...

PREVIOUS RESEARCH REVEALED AN AUTOMATIC BEHAVIORAL BIAS IN HIGH SOCIALLY ANXIOUS INDIVIDUALS (HSAS): although their explicit evaluations of smiling faces are positive, they show automatic avoidance of these faces. This is reflected by faster pushing than pulling of smiling faces in an Approach-Avoidance Task (AAT; Heuer et al., 2007). The current s...

Current practice in Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy (VRET) is that therapists ask patients about their anxiety level by means of the Subjective Unit of Discomfort (SUD) scale. With an aim of developing a home-based VRET system, this measurement ideally should be done using speech technology. In a VRET system for social phobia with scripted avatar-...

People with social phobia have a severe fear of everyday social situations. In this paper we describe a virtual reality exposure therapy system specifically designed to expose patients with social phobia to various social situations. Patients can engage in a free speech dialogue with avatars while being monitored by a therapist. To control phobic s...