Effects of Social Presence and Perception in Virtual Reality on Pain
Public ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT03157362. Field values are reproduced from the official study page; the official ClinicalTrials.gov record remains the source of truth for eligibility, enrollment, and contact information.
Data is sourced from official ClinicalTrials.gov public API records. Always review the official ClinicalTrials.gov record for the latest information.
Brief summary
Reproduced verbatim from the official ClinicalTrials.gov record. Not medical advice.
This experiment aims to examine the effects of transportation via social presence in "near" and "far" virtual environments, on pain threshold in two groups: 1. healthy volunteers in an induced pain task, and 2. older adults suffering from pain. In the first, pilot group, a within-subjects study, participants will complete a series of induced-pain heat ramps in virtual environments that are "near" or "far"-in other words, they will either duplicate their actual physical environment, or represent another location. A second factor in this experiment will be mediated social presence, in which participants interact with confederates as avatars in either condition. The hypotheses follow: H1: Participants who feel present in a remote location will have a higher pain tolerance than those in a near location. H2: Participants who feel socially present with a confederate will have a higher pain tolerance than those who are alone in a virtual environment. H3: There will be an interaction between social presence and virtual environment such that participants who feel socially present in a remote location will have the highest pain tolerance overall. Building on these results,the next step will be a long-term study on older adult pain patients. In this step, the most successful condition in the first study to lightweight, portable headsets that can be used outside of the lab environment. This intervention will be tested on older adult patients who are suffering from chronic pain.
Study identification
- NCT ID
- NCT03157362
- Recruitment status
- Completed
- Study type
- Interventional
- Phase
- Not applicable
- Enrollment
- 105 participants
Conditions and interventions
Conditions
Eligibility (public fields only)
- Age range
- 18 Years and older
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- Accepts healthy volunteers
This page does not interpret eligibility. Detailed inclusion and exclusion criteria are on the official ClinicalTrials.gov record.
Study timeline
- Start date
- Jan 31, 2018
- Primary completion
- Nov 7, 2018
- Completion
- Nov 7, 2018
- Last update posted
- Feb 6, 2022
2018
United States locations
- U.S. sites
- 1
- U.S. states
- 1
- U.S. cities
- 1
| Facility | City | State | ZIP | Site status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cornell Virtual Embodiment Lab | Ithaca | New York | 14853 | — |
Site contact phone numbers, emails, and investigator names are intentionally not displayed here. Open the official ClinicalTrials.gov record for site contact information.
About this trial record page
- What this page shows
- Public field values for ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT03157362, including study identification, conditions, interventions, eligibility (age, sex, healthy volunteer), timeline, and U.S. site list.
- What this page does not do
- No medical advice, eligibility judgments, treatment recommendations, study quality scoring, or AI-generated medical summaries. No site contact phone numbers, emails, or investigator names.
- Where the data comes from
- Sourced from the official ClinicalTrials.gov public API. The official record is the source of truth.
- Last refresh
- Last update posted Feb 6, 2022 · Synced Sep 6, 2026
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Open the official record
The complete protocol, eligibility criteria, and contact information for NCT03157362 live on ClinicalTrials.gov.