Sensorily Stressed: Using Virtual Reality Technology to Examine the Relationship between Sensory Sensitivities and Anxiety

焦虑在现代社会变得越来越成问题。它对我们的社会和个人福祉产生了负面影响，并且由于医疗保健需求的增加和人们工作效率的降低，美国经济损失超过350亿美元。这种焦虑的来源之一是我们的感官，有些人发现他们对日常环境的反应过于强烈。这在自闭症患者中最常见，但在整个人群中也有发现。关于感官和焦虑之间的关系，有一些相互竞争的理论，但他们的大多数关键研究都使用了调查。这个项目的目的是在虚拟现实中使用实验来测试这些理论的关键预测。第一步将是开发虚拟环境，我们可以在其中测试参与者，并成功地使他们或多或少地焦虑。一旦这项工作完成，就有可能测试感官敏感性导致焦虑的程度，而不是相反。这些发现将立即适用于帮助那些因感官环境而遭受严重焦虑的人。从长远来看，与研究小组的现有社区和工业伙伴合作，将做出更广泛的改变，以帮助轻度受影响的人。这将使孩子和工作的成年人过上更健康、更快乐、更有成效的生活。

Anxiety is becoming increasingly problematic in modern-day society. It is negatively impacting our societal and individual well-being, as well as costing the US economy over $35 billion because of increased healthcare demands and people working less effectively. One of the sources of this anxiety is our senses, where some people find that they respond too strongly to everyday environments. This is most common in autistic people but is also found throughout the population. There are competing theories describing the relationship between the senses and anxiety, but most of their key studies have used surveys. The aim of this project is to use experiments in Virtual Reality to test the key predictions of these theories. The first steps will be developing virtual environments in which we can test the participants and successfully make them more or less anxious. Once this has been done, it will be possible to test the extent to which sensory sensitivities lead to anxiety versus the other way around. These findings will be immediately applicable to help people suffering from severe anxiety caused by their sensory environment. In the long term, in collaboration with the pre-existing community and industrial partners of the research group, wider changes will be made to help the mildly affected. This will lead to children and working adults leading healthier, happier, and more productive lives.