You'll be Great: Virtual Agent-based Cognitive Restructuring to Reduce Public Speaking Anxiety
Abstract
Public speaking is an essential task for success in many careers, yet fear of public speaking makes this an undesirable activity for most people and negatively affects the quality of many presentations. Cognitive behavioral therapy is an effective tool for helping people overcome social anxieties disorders, including public speaking anxiety. However, most people do not engage in this therapy for public speaking anxiety, due to time constraints and other barriers. We present a virtual coach that uses cognitive behavioral therapy techniques to help presenters restructure irrational thoughts associated with public speaking anxiety. The design of the virtual coach was informed by an analysis of a corpus of cognitive restructuring examples generated by a clinical psychologist. In a between-subjects experiment comparing the virtual coach to a control condition, the virtual coach was shown to be significantly better at reducing thoughts associated with speech anxiety and improving a presentation experience for speakers.
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One study used natural language generation (NLG).
“one used natural language generation (NLG) [57]”
From Generative AI Mental Health Chatbots as Therapeutic Tools: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Their Role in Reducing Mental Health Issues (2025) · cites this paper as [57]
Cites
A cognitive-behavioral model of anxiety in social phobia
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Fitzpatrick, K. K., Darcy, A., & Vierhile, M. (2017) · JMIR Mental Health · doi:10.2196/mental.7785 · Cited by 2,730 · cited 2× · see citing works
“Recently, virtual agents have been effectively used to deliver CBT to patients with mental disorders [14], depression [13], [15], and anxiety in particular [15].”
BackgroundMethodA brief version of the Fear of Negative Evaluation Scale
Leary, M. R. (1983) · Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin · doi:10.1177/0146167283093007 · Cited by 2,178 · see citing works
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Health dialog systems for patients and consumers
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Suganuma, S., Sakamoto, D., & Shimoyama, H. (2018) · JMIR Mental Health · doi:10.2196/10454 · Cited by 112 · see citing works
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Chatbot features for anxiety and depression: a scoping review
Ahmed, A., Hassan, A., Aziz, S., Abd-alrazaq, A. A., Ali, N., Alzubaidi, M., Al-Thani, D., Elhusein, B., Siddig, M. A., Ahmed, M., et al. (2023) · Health Informatics Journal · doi:10.1177/14604582221146719 · Cited by 82 · see citing works
Zhang, Q., Zhang, R., Xiong, Y., Sui, Y., Tong, C., & Lin, F.-H. (2025) · Journal of Medical Internet Research · doi:10.2196/78238 · Cited by 56 · see citing works
“Most studies used a single AI chatbot, including ChatGPT (various versions, n=5), Replika (n=4), Limbic care (n=2), and one study each for Elomia [63], Philobot [58], MyAI [62], Virtual Coach Angela [57], Reading Bot [30], Emohaa [64], Amanda [29], XiaoE [54], and Therabot [55].”
- Authors
- Kimani, E., Bickmore, T., Trinh, H., & Pedrelli, P.
- Affiliations
- Northeastern University (US)
- Massachusetts General Hospital (US)
- Venue
- 2019 8th International Conference on Affective Computing and Intelligent Interaction (ACII)
- Publisher
- IEEE
- Published
- 2019-09
- Pages
- 641-647
- ISSN
- 2156-8103 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2995586598
- Cited by
- 41
- References
- 7
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 8 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 6 · 2021: 5 · 2020: 5
- FWCI
- 10.35
- Type
- conference paper
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Licence
- Locations
- International Conference on Affective Computing and Intelligent Interaction and workshops (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Applied Psychology › Digital Mental Health Interventions
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Social Robot Interaction and HRI
- Keywords
- public speaking anxiety, cognitive restructuring, virtual coach, virtual agents, cognitive behavioral therapy, speaking anxiety, irrational thoughts, social anxiety
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