Development of a Behavioral Avoidance Test in Virtual Reality (VR-BAT).

Behavioral Avoidance Test (BAT) is the gold-standard to measure phobic avoidance based on the minimum distance that a patient can keep from a phobic stimulus (e.g., a spider). Despite its wide use, this measure lacks standardization and is not easily customizable for individual patient's characteristics. Herein, we overcome these issues by means of a Virtual Reality-based BAT (VR-BAT). This tool allowed a reliable collection of behavioral as well as psychophysiological data. Preliminary results showed a notable difference with respect to the traditional BAT: the approach time and not the distance was the parameter correlated with phobic symptoms as tested in a group including highly-spiderfearful participants. The validation of the VR-BAT, integrated with the psychophysiological data, will allow a meaningful advancement in the assessment of phobic avoidance and in the evaluation of the therapies aimed at reducing it.