Essere sociali: studio psico-fisiologico dell'interazione sociale in Realtà Virtuale

Recent and past literature proposes several behavioral and physiological indicators observable during any social interaction: the present research work aims to explore interpersonal space between individuals, facial expressions perception and interpretation of others’ intentions, using the innovative Virtual Reality (VR) tool. The experimental protocol involved 36 healthy participants exploring the controlled virtual environment, a subway station, focusing on visual and auditory stimuli, while heart rate (ECG) and electrodermal activity (EDA) were recorded throughout the task’s duration. The results show differentiated activation for the three investigated emotions, related to the manipulation of the facial expressions and to the voice tones of the avatars: Neutral, Fear and Anger stimuli can be arranged on a continuum of increasing activation with a greater EDA Mean arousal for the emotion of Anger. Furthermore, physiological activity also changes with respect to the perceived distance from the participant interacting with the VR avatars. Invasion of personal space corresponds to an increase in arousal. This last variable, however, had a different impact on the subject’s EDA, which varies depending on the perceived emotion of the avatars in the environment and with the emotion of Fear resulting in an atypical pattern. These findings demonstrate that the perception of emotions and discomfort, related to the invasion of one’s own space, could be experienced not only in a real-laboratory context, but even in a virtual environment, with the advantage of obtaining a controlled setting that preserves ecological validity. The research design used could be applied to different experimental samples: in fact, the use of VR could also be implemented for the rehabilitation of the individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), social anxiety disorder (SAD), or frontal brain injuries, in order to improve social skills and further research is needed to achieve this goal.