Paranoid?

Second Life: A Virtual Lab?

A research team at the Institute of Psychiatry have recently developed an immersive virtual environment to investigate the psychology of paranoia. They have constructed a virtual reality simulation of a library and populated this library with avatars of ordinary people doing what people do in a library. The library and the avatars are designed to create a controlled non-threatening environment that participants explore and record their feelings about the people they encounter. As one of the researchers, Dr Daniel Freeman observes:

"If you go up to people they will 'react' to you in the same way - but different people saw this in different ways. Some saw it as a really positive experience saying that the characters 'liked' them or were 'friendly'. However, others said they were suspicious of the characters - or they wanted them to go away"

Computers, the internet, and virtual environments are increasingly important research tools for psychologists. This is one example of how these tools may help psychologists to understand paranoid thoughts and feelings in people who have been diagnosed with a psychotic illness like schizophrenia. It may help psychologists to understand paranoid thoughts and feelings in 'normal' people. People like you and me. Yes, you.

Link to BBC article on 'Virtual World tackles Paranoia'

Link to Abstract of research study on Virtual Reality and Paranoia