A virtual reality Underground ride has been used by Institute of Psychiatry at King's researchers to reveal the extent that paranoia occurs in the general public. The research, led by psychologist Dr Daniel Freeman, and funded by the Wellcome Trust, demonstrates that suspicious or paranoid thoughts are much more common in the general population than was previously thought and that they are almost as common as anxiety and depression.

Until now, researchers have been unable to study paranoia (exaggerated fears about threats from others) in laboratory settings, instead relying on questionnaires, which can be inaccurate. A collaboration led by Dr Daniel Freeman, a Wellcome Trust researcher, has developed a computer simulation to study paranoid thoughts.

"Paranoid thoughts are often triggered by ambiguous events such as people looking in one’s direction or hearing laughter in a room but it is very difficult to recreate such social interactions," says Dr Freeman. "Virtual reality allows us to do just that, to look at how different people interpret exactly the same social situation. It is a uniquely powerful method to detect those liable to misinterpret other people."

Wearing virtual reality headsets, 200 volunteers broadly representative of the general population walked around a virtual London underground carriage in a four-minute journey between station stops. The carriage contained neutral computer people (avatars) that breathed, looked around, and sometimes met the gaze of the participants. One avatar read a newspaper, another would occasionally smile if looked at. A soundtrack of a train carriage was played.

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