Neural and Affective Dynamics of Social Context Conditioning in Virtual Reality

Fear conditioning paradigms model fear acquisition and extinction in controlled experiments. Context conditioning induces anxiety to unpredictable threats rather than fear of specific stimuli and serves as a model for anxiety disorders. Importantly, contexts have been mostly studied in terms of spatial properties (e.g. a room), while social contexts seem most relevant for many anxiety disorders. Consequently, the present study investigated context conditioning in a social context using Virtual Reality. Overall 40 participants underwent habituation, acquisition, and extinctions phase in the same virtual room. Two contexts were operationalized as co-presence of particular virtual agents. An aversive US was only presented during one agent’ co-presence (CTX+) but not the other’s (CTX-). Ratings and physiological data showed increased anxious arousal during CTX+ relative to CTX- for acquisition. Concurrent measurement of neural oscillations via EEG allowed to investigate underlying processes. Power in the parietal alpha and frontal beta band was reduced during CTX+ compared to CTX- for acquisition suggesting increased attentional and sensory-motor processing. These findings show successful context conditioning in social contexts which is accompanied by an increase in attention and motor preparation. Social context conditioning can serve as an effective model to study mechanisms of anxiety and anxiety disorders in humans.