title: Human experimental anxiety: actual public speaking induces more intense physiological responses than simulated public speaking.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  a) To perform a systematic and meta-analytic review to verify whether the Simulated Public Speaking Task (SPST) leads to a greater increase in self-rated anxiety than in physiological correlates of anxiety; and b) to compare the results obtained with the SPST with an actual public speaking task involving healthy volunteers.
  
  
  METHODS
  a) The PubMed and ISI Web of Knowledge databases were searched for studies involving the SPST prior to 2012. Eleven publications were eligible and provided data from 143 healthy volunteers for meta-analysis; b) 48 university students without somatic or psychiatric disorders were divided into three experimental groups of 16 subjects to undergo one of the following: SPST, real-world public speaking task (real-world), and control situation (control).
  
  
  RESULTS
  The meta-analysis showed that the SPST induced a significant increase in the Visual Analogue Mood Scale (VAMS) anxiety factor, but no significant increases in systolic blood pressure or heart rate. The empirical study showed that the real-world public speaking task increased heart rate, systolic blood pressure and diastolic blood pressure significantly more than the control and SPST conditions.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  These results suggest that real public speaking might be better than SPST in inducing experimental anxiety.
authors.affiliation: Universidade de São Paulo, Department of Neuroscience and Behavioral Science, School of Medicine, Ribeirão PretoSP, Brazil.
authors.forename: Antonio Waldo
authors.initials: AW
authors.lastname: Zuardi
authors.forename: José Alexandre de Souza
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Crippa
authors.forename: Jaime Eduardo Cecílio
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Hallak
authors.forename: Ricardo
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Gorayeb
mesh_terms: D001007:Anxiety / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology*; D001794:Blood Pressure / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006339:Heart Rate / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D057566:Self Report; D013060:Speech / Q000502:physiology*