Virtual Training For Fear Of Public Speaking Design Of an Audience For

Immersive Virtual Environments

Sandra Poeschl *

Nicola Doering

Ilmenau University of Technology

Research Group Media Psychology & Media Design

ABSTRACT
Virtual Reality technology offers great possibilities for Cognitive
Behavioral Therapy on Fear of Public Speaking: Clients can be
exposed to virtual fear-triggering stimuli (exposure) and are able
to role-play in virtual environments, training social skills to
overcome their fear. This poster deals with the design of a realistic
virtual presentation scenario based on an observation of a real
audience.
INDEX TERMS: J.4 [Computer Applications]: Social and
Behavioral
SciencesPsychology;
I.3.7
[Computing
Methodologies]: Three-Dimensional Graphics and Realism
Virtual Reality
1

INTRODUCTION

Fear of Public Speaking (or glossophobia or speech anxiety) is a

common psychological disorder and characterized by anxiety
prior to or at the thought of having to communicate verbally with
any group of people. It leads to avoidance of those situations,
physical distress and even panic. Treatment typically involves
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), including exposure to feartriggering stimuli (e. g., speaking in front of a group), social skills
training and relaxation training [1].
Virtual Reality technology as a therapeutic or training tool
offers great possibilities for CBT: Clients can be exposed to
virtual fear-triggering stimuli (exposure) and are able to role-play
in virtual and different scenarios, training social skills to
overcome their fear [2]. Usually, prototypical (neutral, social and
anti-social) audience behavior serves as stimulus in virtual
training sessions, although there is significant lack of theoretical
basis on typical and realistic audience behavior. Presence (a users
subjective psychological response to a VR system) is related to
the experience of emotions [3], like fear. Therefore, using
prototypical behavior instead of realistic audience behavior
may lead to lower experiences of presence and to lesser
performance in VR training applications.
The work presented in this poster aims at overcoming this
problem by designing an application including realistic audience
behavior. We describe an explorative observation study on
realistic audience behavior. The results obtained are used to
design a virtual training scenario for fear of public speaking in a
CAVE.
RELATED WORK

Related work shows that virtual presentation environments can

induce fearful experiences [4], especially when featuring negative

* sandra.poeschl@tu-ilmenau.de
+

nicola.doering@tu-ilmenau.de

IEEE Virtual Reality 2012

4-8 March, Orange County, CA, USA
978-1-4673-1246-2/12/$31.00 2012 IEEE

Ilmenau University of Technology

Research Group Media Psychology & Media Design

audience behavior [5]. Also, VR exposure for Fear of Public

speaking is more effective than waiting list control groups [6, 7].
In the studies mentioned, prototypical audience behavior was
simulated. However, to further enhance transfer from virtual
training to real life performance, modeling realistic audience
behavior may be a promising next step. Our explorative study
deals with this problem by gathering observational data on natural
nonverbal audience behavior.
3

METHOD

A real audience (consisting of n = 18 men and women) in an

undergraduate seminar was observed in a structured, nonparticipant overt observation. We used event samples of three
frontal lecture sessions, taping the lectures on video and analyzing
the video material (see figure 1).
Behavior frequency of four nonverbal dimensions (eye contact,
facial expression, gesture, and posture; N = 5916 behavioral
actions in total, coded into 35 categories) was rated by means of a
quantitative content analysis, in regard to frequency and
positioning across three rows of seats within the lecture room.
Further, we analyzed the first, middle and last 15 minutes of the
lecture sessions (with a duration of 90 min. each), as we assumed
that nonverbal audience behavior may change over time (for
example packing away things towards the end of a session).

Figure 1. Screenshot of analyzed video material on audience

behavior

RESULTS

Selected behavior patterns (facial expressions and gesture) are

presented by means of excerpts of the accomplished design
manual. The audience to be designed will show behavioral actions
according to a database that includes mean frequencies for one
person per row and per minute. These are used to present our
findings. Due to the multitude of facial expressions and gestures,
findings are highlighted by prototypical behavior actions.
4.1
Facial expression
As table 1 shows, friendly and neutral face expressions are rather
common. Also, they are closely related, as a joyful facial
expression changes into a neutral one when coming to an end.
Social facial expressions increase with distance to the presenter,
maybe to establish a closer contact. Further, neutral and social
expressions increase with time. This can be explained by the fact
that at the end of a lecture session, more interactions and

101

discussions take place, as frontal presentations are already

finished. The anti-social expression of anger was shown rather
seldom, so a natural audience seems to be either social or neutral.
Table 1. Means of frequency of facial expressions for one person
per row and per minute
Facial
expression
Pleasure

Neutral

Anger

0.11

Middle
part of
session
0.23

0.16

0.17

0.34

0.24
0.12

0.24
0.17

0.41
0.24

0.17

0.2

0.32

0.24
0.03

0.17
0.02

0.32
0.04

0.03

0.02

0.01

0.01

0.01

First part
of session
First row
Middle
row
Last row
First row
Middle
row
Last row
First row
Middle
row
Last row

Last part
of session
0.44

4.2
Gesture
Considering gestures, self-grooming is rather common (see table
2). It happens constantly and rather often. Interestingly, neither
very social gestures (like nodding) or very anti-social gestures
(like head shaking) happen very often. Nodding increases towards
the end of a lecture, but not for the last row. This could hint at the
last row not taking part in interactions at the end of the lecture.
Natural audience behavior also seems to be rather friendly in
regard to gestures. Maybe social norms of not openly showing
disapproval lead to the low incidence of shaking ones head.
Table 2. Means of frequency of gestures for one person per row
and per minute
Gesture
Nodding

Selfgrooming

Head
shaking

First row
Middle
row
Last row
First row
Middle
row
Last row
First row
Middle
row
Last row

First part
of
session
0

Middle
part of
session
0.01

0.05

0.03

0.20

0.01

< 0.01

0.01

0.22

0.28

0.3

0.36

0.37

0.34

0.24

0.23

0.26

< 0.01

< 0.01

< 0.01

< 0.01

Last part
of session

CONCLUSION AND FUTURE PROSPECTS

The results of this study serve to design a virtual audience in a

training application for fear of public speaking in a CAVE.
Currently, a concept on how to transfer our findings into audience
design is developed. The next step will be the development of a
prototype of the mentioned virtual training application. It will be
formatively evaluated and redesigned in an iterative process
according to the framework of Bowman and Hodges [8],
including studies on valence of social, neutral and anti-social
audience behavior, presence as well as experienced fear of public
speaking during training.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors thank Thomas Jung-Boehmcker for his support and
contribution to the data collection, data preparation and analysis.
REFERENCES
[1]

[2]

[3]

0.19

[4]

[5]

[6]

DISCUSSION

Findings show that audiences tend to be social, but neutral and

anti-social behavior is also shown seldom but constantly.
Secondly, behavior differs between points of time during a lecture
session and between different rows of seats.
However, the work presented has certain limitations. First of
all, an undergraduate student audience at a university lecture
session in Germany was observed. Results cannot be transferred
to other audiences without caution. Secondly, the audience
consisted mostly of women. Gender-balanced audiences could
show different behavioral patterns. Thirdly, this being an

102

explorative study, aspects like interactions between presenter and

audience, interaction between audience members themselves or
exact duration of behavior actions were not considered. Future
studies should aim at replicating and supplementing the obtained
findings with different kinds of audiences and examine how
different behavior actions are interpreted and reacted to by
presenters. Still, in light of the lack of theoretical background on
realistic audience behavior, the study can serve as a starting point
for future research and as a first guideline for audience design.

[7]

[8]

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