Treatment effect on biases in size estimation in spider phobia

•We found a clear size estimation bias in spider phobic participants towards a living spider.•We found that effective exposure treatment conducted in virtual reality to reduce the bias in size estimation.•Post treatment size bias in spider phobic participants was comparable to the size bias displaye...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Biological psychology 2016-12, Vol.121 (Pt B), p.146-152
Main Authors: Shiban, Youssef, Fruth, Martina B., Pauli, Paul, Kinateder, Max, Reichenberger, Jonas, Mühlberger, Andreas
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Animals
Arousal
Attentional Bias
Exposure therapy
Fear
Female
Follow-Up Studies
Galvanic Skin Response
Humans
Implosive Therapy
Male
Perceptual bias
Phobic Disorders - psychology
Phobic Disorders - therapy
Size Perception
Skin conductance response
Spider phobia
Spiders
User-Computer Interface
Virtual reality
Young Adult
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Summary:•We found a clear size estimation bias in spider phobic participants towards a living spider.•We found that effective exposure treatment conducted in virtual reality to reduce the bias in size estimation.•Post treatment size bias in spider phobic participants was comparable to the size bias displayed by healthy participants. The current study investigates biases in size estimations made by spider-phobic and healthy participants before and after treatment. Forty-one spider-phobic and 20 healthy participants received virtual reality (VR) exposure treatment and were then asked to rate the size of a real spider immediately before and, on average, 15days after the treatment. During the VR exposure treatment skin conductance response was assessed. Prior to the treatment, both groups tended to overestimate the size of the spider, but this size estimation bias was significantly larger in the phobic group than in the control group. The VR exposure treatment reduced this bias, which was reflected in a significantly smaller size rating post treatment. However, the size estimation bias was unrelated to the skin conductance response. Our results confirm the hypothesis that size estimation by spider-phobic patients is biased. This bias is not stable over time and can be decreased with adequate treatment.
ISSN:0301-0511
1873-6246
DOI:10.1016/j.biopsycho.2016.03.005