A new smartphone app developed by researchers at the University of Basel uses
Where do people get arachnophobia at all?
It is estimated that up to five percent of all peoplehave a strong fear of spiders. It is believed that this well-founded phobia of scary eight-legged creatures is inherent in some people evolutionarily. A 2017 study found that six-month-old infants often exhibit a stress response when encountering spiders, suggesting that aversion to spiders may be innate, developed as a defense against dangerous threats.
Exposure therapy is one of the mosteffective ways to treat fears such as arachnophobia. However, safely addressing the source of fear is not always a simple process. For example, not every therapist's office will have a couple of giant tarantulas.
How the Phobys app works
A new smartphone app calledPhobys aims to bring impact therapy to the masses of arachnophobes through a simple augmented reality interface designed to project images of moving spiders onto the surrounding space. A clinical study testing the effectiveness of the supplement enrolled 66 subjects with clinical or subclinical fear of spiders.
Two-thirds of the subjects were instructed to performsix 30-minute smartphone app sessions over two weeks. Another third acted as control without direct intervention.
Test results
At the beginning and end of the six-week studyall participants completed a battery of behavioral tests to measure their fear and disgust responses. One particular test, called the Behavioral Approach Test, involves showing participants a real spider in a clear plastic container and measuring how close they get to the spider and how they interact with it.
According to scientists, using the applicationled to a decrease in fear, disgust and avoidance behavior with a medium effect level when tested in a real situation, as well as a decrease with a large effect level when assessing fear using a questionnaire.
Links to download the application for iOS and Android can be found on the official website. The app is free to try, but you'll have to pay for the full training protocol.
Source: newatlas
Illustrations: phobys
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