Association between anxiety and skin conductance according to the intensity of shaking of virtual reality images

Dong Jun Kim; Hyewon Kim; Kiwon Kim; Min-Ji Kim; Hong Jin Jeon

doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1196767

Association between anxiety and skin conductance according to the intensity of shaking of virtual reality images

Front Psychiatry. 2023 Oct 3:14:1196767. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1196767. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Dong Jun Kim^{1

2

3}, Hyewon Kim¹, Kiwon Kim⁴, Min-Ji Kim⁵, Hong Jin Jeon^{1

2

6}

Affiliations

¹ Samsung Medical Center, Sungkyunkwan University, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
² Meditrix Co., Ltd., Seoul, Republic of Korea.
³ Department of Health Sciences and Technology, Samsung Advanced Institute for Health Sciences & Technology (SAIHST), Sungkyunkwan University, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
⁴ Department of Psychiatry, Kangdong Sacred Heart Hospital, Hallym University College of Medicine, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
⁵ Biomedical Statistics Center, Samsung Medical Center, Research Institute for Future Medicine, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
⁶ Department of Health Sciences and Technology, Medical Device Management and Research, Clinical Research Design and Evaluation, SAIHST, Sungkyunkwan University, Seoul, Republic of Korea.

Abstract

Introduction: Despite the advantages of virtual reality (VR), cyber sickness makes it difficult to apply VR to those who are already anxious and in distress. Skin conductance (SC) is widely used as a bio-signal reflecting anxiety. It is positively correlated with anxiety. The objective of this study was to determine the association between SC and anxiety in VR.

Methods: Healthy volunteers with moderate-to-high stress defined as a Perceived Stress Scale-10 (PSS-10) score ≥20 were enrolled. STAI-X-1 was used to measure anxiety, and galvanic skin response was used to measure SC. This study used an open, randomized, crossover design. In this study, 360° videos consisted of two types, namely, less dizzying video (G1) and more dizzying video (G2). We randomized subjects into two groups according to video exposure order: G1 after watching G2 (Order 1) and G2 after watching G1 (Order 2). Of 81 subjects, the average age (±SD) was 39.98 ± 10.94 years for the Order 1 group and 36.54 ± 12.44 years for the Order 2 group.

Results: Anxiety was significantly decreased in the Order 2 group (p < 0.035) after watching videos, whereas there was no significant change in anxiety in the Order 1 group. In both groups, SC was significantly increased after exposure to a dizzying video. Mean difference (SD) between the second VR video and baseline SC was 1.61 (1.07) (p < 0.0001) in the Order 1 group and 0.92 (0.90) (p < 0.0001) in the Order 2 group, showing a significant difference between the two groups (p < 0.003). However, there was no significant difference between the two groups (p < 0.077) after baseline correction.

Conclusion: Anxiety was decreased significantly in the Order 2 group. The Order 1 group showed a high rate of change in skin conductivity. It is possible to reduce SC and anxiety by viewing a less dizzying VR video first and then viewing a more dizzying video later.

Keywords: anxiety; cyber sickness; depression; skin conductance; virtual reality.

Grants and funding

This research was supported by the Bio & Medical Technology Development Program of the NRF funded by the Korean government, MSIP (No. NRF-2017M3A9F1027323; PI HJ). It was also supported by the Bio & Medical Technology Development Program of the National Research Foundation (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT (No. 2021M3A9E4080784) and a grant (HR21C0885) of the Korea Health Technology R&D Project through the Korea Health Industry Development Institute (KHIDI) funded by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, Republic of Korea. Funding sources had no role in the study design, data collection, data analysis, data interpretation, writing of this article, or the decision to submit this article for publication.