Emotional Responses to a Virtual Public Speaking Task: Effects of Audience Attitude and Size

However, it is unclear how specific components influence stress-related emotional responses and whether public speaking anxiety levels moderate their relationships. In this study, 102 participants with varied public speaking anxiety levels gave a speech to a virtual audience consisting of either 2 or 6 members and with either an encouraging or a critical attitude.

Physiological signals, speech characteristics, subjective stress levels, and audience evaluation were measured during the experiment. Results show that participants overall evaluated the encouraging audience more positively and felt more nervous in the critical audience condition. In people with higher public speaking anxiety levels, the nervousness was stronger in the critical condition, but their heart rate was higher in the encouraging condition.