Conditioned response (CRs) triggered by stimuli predicting aversive consequences have been confirmed across various species including humans, and were found to be exaggerated in anxious individuals and anxiety disorder patients. Importantly, contextual information may strongly modulate such conditioned responses (CR), however, there are several methodological boundaries in the translation of animal findings to humans, and from healthy individuals to patients. Virtual Reality (VR) is a useful technological tool for overcoming such boundaries. In this review, we summarize and evaluate human VR conditioning studies exploring the role of the context as conditioned stimulus or occasion setter for CRs. We observe that VR allows successful acquisition of conditioned anxiety and conditioned fear in response to virtual contexts and virtual cues, respectively. VR studies also revealed that spatial or temporal contextual information determine whether conditioned anxiety and conditioned fear become extinguished and/or return. Novel contexts resembling the threatening context foster conditioned fear but not conditioned anxiety, suggesting distinct context-related generalization processes. We conclude VR contexts are able to strongly modulate CRs and therefore allow a comprehensive investigation of the modulatory role of the context over CR in humans leading to conclusions relevant for non-VR and clinical studies.

由预测厌恶后果的刺激触发的条件反应 (CR) 已在包括人类在内的各种物种中得到证实，并且在焦虑个体和焦虑症患者中被夸大。重要的是，上下文信息可能会强烈调节这种条件反应 (CR)，但是，在将动物发现转化为人类以及从健康个体到患者的过程中，存在多种方法学界限。虚拟现实 (VR) 是克服这些界限的有用技术工具。在这篇综述中，我们总结并评估了人类 VR 条件反射研究，探索环境作为 CR 的条件刺激或场合设置者的作用。我们观察到，VR 可以成功获得条件性焦虑和条件性恐惧，以响应虚拟环境和虚拟线索，分别。VR 研究还表明，空间或时间背景信息决定了条件性焦虑和条件性恐惧是否会消失和/或返回。与威胁情境相似的新情境会促进条件恐惧，但不会促进条件焦虑，这表明与情境相关的不同概括过程。我们得出结论，VR 上下文能够强烈调节 CR，因此可以全面调查上下文对人类 CR 的调节作用，从而得出与非 VR 和临床研究相关的结论。建议不同的上下文相关的泛化过程。我们得出结论，VR 上下文能够强烈调节 CR，因此可以全面调查上下文对人类 CR 的调节作用，从而得出与非 VR 和临床研究相关的结论。建议不同的上下文相关的泛化过程。我们得出结论，VR 上下文能够强烈调节 CR，因此可以全面调查上下文对人类 CR 的调节作用，从而得出与非 VR 和临床研究相关的结论。