TY - JOUR
T1 - A Novel Integrating Virtual Reality Approach for the Assessment of the Attachment Behavioral System
AU - Giglioli, Irene Alice Chicchi
AU - Chicchi Giglioli, Irene Alice Margherita
AU - Pravettoni, Gabriella
AU - Martín, Dolores Lucia Sutil
AU - Parra, Elena
AU - Raya, Mariano A.
PY - 2017
Y1 - 2017
N2 - Virtual reality (VR) technology represents a novel and powerful tool for behavioral research in psychological assessment. VR provides simulated experiences able to create the sensation of undergoing real situations. Users become active participants in the virtual environment seeing, hearing, feeling, and actuating as if they were in the real world. Currently, the most psychological VR applications concern the treatment of various mental disorders but not the assessment, that it is mainly based on paper and pencil tests. The observation of behaviors is costly, labor-intensive, and it is hard to create social situations in laboratory settings, even if the observation of actual behaviors could be particularly informative. In this framework, social stressful experiences can activate various behaviors of attachment for a significant person that can help to control and soothe them to promote individual's well-being. Social support seeking, physical proximity, and positive and negative behaviors represent the main attachment behaviors that people can carry out during experiences of distress. We proposed VR as a novel integrating approach to measure real attachment behaviors. The first studies on attachment behavioral system by VR showed the potentiality of this approach. To improve the assessment during the VR experience, we proposed virtual stealth assessment (VSA) as a new method. VSA could represent a valid and novel technique to measure various psychological attributes in real-time during the virtual experience. The possible use of this method in psychology could be to generate a more complete, exhaustive, and accurate individual's psychological evaluation.
AB - Virtual reality (VR) technology represents a novel and powerful tool for behavioral research in psychological assessment. VR provides simulated experiences able to create the sensation of undergoing real situations. Users become active participants in the virtual environment seeing, hearing, feeling, and actuating as if they were in the real world. Currently, the most psychological VR applications concern the treatment of various mental disorders but not the assessment, that it is mainly based on paper and pencil tests. The observation of behaviors is costly, labor-intensive, and it is hard to create social situations in laboratory settings, even if the observation of actual behaviors could be particularly informative. In this framework, social stressful experiences can activate various behaviors of attachment for a significant person that can help to control and soothe them to promote individual's well-being. Social support seeking, physical proximity, and positive and negative behaviors represent the main attachment behaviors that people can carry out during experiences of distress. We proposed VR as a novel integrating approach to measure real attachment behaviors. The first studies on attachment behavioral system by VR showed the potentiality of this approach. To improve the assessment during the VR experience, we proposed virtual stealth assessment (VSA) as a new method. VSA could represent a valid and novel technique to measure various psychological attributes in real-time during the virtual experience. The possible use of this method in psychology could be to generate a more complete, exhaustive, and accurate individual's psychological evaluation.
KW - attachment
KW - ecological validity
KW - evidence-centered design
KW - presence
KW - stealth assessment
KW - virtual reality
KW - attachment
KW - ecological validity
KW - evidence-centered design
KW - presence
KW - stealth assessment
KW - virtual reality
UR - http://hdl.handle.net/10807/268317
U2 - 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00959
DO - 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00959
M3 - Article
SN - 1664-1078
VL - 8
SP - N/A-N/A
JO - Frontiers in Psychology
JF - Frontiers in Psychology
ER -