A high-fidelity virtual environment for the study of paranoia.
Psychotic disorders carry social and economic costs for sufferers and society. Recent evidence highlights the risk posed by urban upbringing and social deprivation in the genesis of paranoia and psychosis. Evidence based psychological interventions are often not offered because of a lack of therapists. Virtual reality (VR) environments have been used to treat mental health problems. VR may be a way of understanding the aetiological processes in psychosis and increasing psychotherapeutic resources for its treatment. We developed a high-fidelity virtual reality scenario of an urban street scene to test the hypothesis that virtual urban exposure is able to generate paranoia to a comparable or greater extent than scenarios using indoor scenes. Participants (n = 32) entered the VR scenario for four minutes, after which time their degree of paranoid ideation was assessed. We demonstrated that the virtual reality scenario was able to elicit paranoia in a nonclinical, healthy group and that an urban scene was more likely to lead to higher levels of paranoia than a virtual indoor environment. We suggest that this study offers evidence to support the role of exposure to factors in the urban environment in the genesis and maintenance of psychotic experiences and symptoms. The realistic high-fidelity street scene scenario may offer a useful tool for therapists.
Division of Mental Health and Wellbeing, Warwick Medical School, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, UK ; Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, Oxford OX3 7JX, UK.
Matthew R
MR
Broome
Division of Mental Health and Wellbeing, Warwick Medical School, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, UK.
Eva
E
Zányi
Division of Health Sciences,Warwick Medical School, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, UK.
Thomas
T
Hamborg
Visualisation Group, WMG, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, UK.
Elmedin
E
Selmanovic
School of Computing, Mathematics and Digital Technology, MMU, Manchester M1 5GD, UK.
Silvester
S
Czanner
Division of Mental Health and Wellbeing, Warwick Medical School, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, UK ; Department of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK.
Max
M
Birchwood
Visualisation Group, WMG, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, UK.
Alan
A
Chalmers
Division of Mental Health and Wellbeing, Warwick Medical School, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, UK.
Swaran P
SP
Singh