Misplaced Pages

#817182

47-504: FOF may refer to: Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files , an American television series Fear of falling Fight or Flight (disambiguation) Finding of fact Finnish Orienteering Federation Flow of funds Focus on the Family Forum of Firms , an accountancy trade organization Forskning och Framsteg , a Swedish popular science magazine Fred. Olsen Airtransport ,

94-444: A ladder or chair , or even walking up a flight of stairs . It is uncertain if acrophobia is related to the failure to reach a certain developmental stage. Besides associative accounts, a diathetic-stress model is also very appealing for considering both vicarious learning and hereditary factors such as personality traits (i.e., neuroticism). Another possible contributing factor is a dysfunction in maintaining balance. In this case,

141-498: A 0–6 point scale and degree of avoidance on a 0–2 point scale. The Attitude Towards Heights Questionnaires (ATHQ) and Behavioural Avoidance Tests (BAT) are also used. However, acrophobic individuals tend to have biases in self-reporting. They often overestimate the danger and question their abilities of addressing height relevant issues. A Height Interpretation Questionnaire (HIQ) is a self-report to measure these height relevant judgements and interpretations. The Depression Scale of

188-463: A defunct Norwegian airline Frets on Fire , a video game Fund of funds Identification friend or foe FOF grade tea FOF, the SMILES notation for oxygen difluoride Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title FOF . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to

235-488: A degree of natural fear when exposed to heights, known as the fear of falling . On the other hand, those who have little fear of such exposure are said to have a head for heights . A head for heights is advantageous for hiking or climbing in mountainous terrain and also in certain jobs such as steeplejacks or wind turbine mechanics. People with acrophobia can experience a panic attack in high places and become too agitated to get themselves down safely. Approximately 2–5% of

282-400: A dysfunction of the vestibular system in the inner ear. In short, it is the feeling of motion when one is actually stationary. Symptoms of vertigo include dizziness, nausea, vomiting, shortness of breath, and the inability to walk or stand. Some individuals are more reliant on visual cues to control posture than others. Vestibular sensations can arise when unsound information is detected along

329-539: A fear of heights, but it is more accurately a spinning sensation that occurs when one is not actually spinning. It can be triggered by looking down from a high place, by looking straight up at a high place or tall object, or even by watching something (i.e. a car or a bird) go past at high speed, but this alone does not describe vertigo. True vertigo can be triggered by almost any type of movement (e.g. standing up, sitting down, walking) or change in visual perspective (e.g. squatting down, walking up or down stairs, looking out of

376-431: A glass floor with a view of a few meters of apparent fall-space below it. Although human infants initially experienced fear when crawling on the visual cliff, most of them overcame the fear through practice, exposure and mastery and retained a level of healthy cautiousness. While an innate cautiousness around heights is helpful for survival, extreme fear can interfere with the activities of everyday life, such as standing on

423-429: A lack of exposure to heights in early life. The degree of fear varies, and the term phobia is reserved for those at the extreme end of the spectrum. Researchers have argued that a fear of heights is an instinct found in many mammals, including domestic animals and humans. Experiments using visual cliffs have shown human infants and toddlers , as well as other animals of various ages, to be reluctant in venturing onto

470-431: A long time, the fear of falling was merely believed to be a result of the psychological trauma of a fall, also called "post-fall syndrome". This syndrome was first mentioned in 1982 by Murphy and Isaacs, who noticed that after a fall, ambulatory persons developed intense fear and walking disorders. Fear of falling has been identified as one of the key symptoms of this syndrome. Since that time, FOF has gained recognition as

517-571: A number of studies into using virtual reality therapy for acrophobia. Botella and colleagues and Schneider were the first to use VR in treatment. Specifically, Schneider utilised inverted lenses in binoculars to "alter" the reality. Later in the mid-1990s, VR became computer-based and was widely available for therapists. A cheap VR equipment uses a normal PC with head-mounted display (HMD). In contrast, VRET uses an advanced computer automatic virtual environment (CAVE). VR has several advantages over in vivo treatment: (1) therapist can control

SECTION 10

#1732790172818

564-469: A paper entitled "Dream Form and Strength of Impulse in Dreams of Falling and Other Dreams of Descent". According to Saul and Curtis, dreams of falling can have various meanings, such as the sensation of falling asleep, the symbolization of a real risk of falling from bed, the repetition of traumatic experiences of falling or sensations of falling from parents’ arms in childhood, birth and delivery, ambition or

611-440: A specific health problem among older adults. However, FOF was also commonly found among elderly persons who had not yet experienced a fall. Prevalence of FOF appears to increase with age and to be higher in women. Age remains significant in multiple logistic regression analyses. The results of different studies have reported gender as a somewhat significant risk factor for fear of falling. Other risk factors of fear of falling in

658-413: A technique called systematic desensitization to help participants avoid "avoidance". Research results have suggested that even with a decrease in therapeutic contact, desensitization is still very effective. However, other studies have shown that therapists play an essential role in acrophobia treatment. Treatments like reinforced practice and self-efficacy treatments also emerged. There have been

705-454: A traumatic fall. A fear of falling, along with a fear of loud noises , is one of the most commonly suggested inborn or "non-associative" fears. The newer non-association theory is that a fear of heights is an evolved adaptation to a world where falls posed a significant danger. If this fear is inherited, it is possible that people can get rid of it by frequent exposure of heights in habituation. In other words, acrophobia could be associated with

752-429: Is detected among visual, kinesthetic, and vestibular sensory channels. Evidence has supported the claim that patients with anxiety and SMD rely more heavily on visual cues for postural changes. According to Sigmund Freud 's The Interpretation of Dreams , falling dreams fall under the category of "typical dreams", meaning the "dreams which almost everyone has dreamt alike and which we are accustomed to assume must have

799-494: The Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study who had been injured in a fall between the ages of 5 and 9, compared them to children who had no similar injury, and found that at age 18, acrophobia was present in only 2 percent of the subjects who had an injurious fall but was present among 7 percent of subjects who had no injurious fall (with the same sample finding that typical basophobia

846-560: The Depression Anxiety Stress Scales short form (DASS21-DS) is a self report used to examine validity of the HIQ. Traditional treatment of phobias is still in use today. Its underlying theory states that phobic anxiety is conditioned and triggered by a conditional stimulus. By avoiding phobic situations, anxiety is reduced. However, avoidance behaviour is reinforced through negative reinforcement . Wolpe developed

893-403: The absence of strong visual cues. These individuals rely heavily on vision to regulate their posture and balance. When faced with high or unstable ground, the vestibular system in these individuals senses the instability and attempts to correct it by increasing postural sway to reactivate visual balance feedback (postural sway refers to the phenomenon of constant displacement and correction of

940-411: The alternative view of acrophobia warn that it may be ill-advised to encourage acrophobics to expose themselves to height without first resolving the vestibular issues. Research is underway at several clinics. Recent studies found that participants experienced increased anxiety not only when the height increased, but also when they were required to move sideways at a fixed height. A recombinant model of

987-412: The animals displayed typical behavior by going into a posture of defense, with their front legs rigid and their back legs limp. In this state of immobility, the animals were pushed forward across the glass until their head and field of vision crossed the solid edge on the opposite side of the cliff; the goats and lambs would then relax and proceed to spring forward upon its surface. Based on the results of

SECTION 20

#1732790172818

1034-604: The animals tested, the danger and fear of falling is instilled in animals at a very young age. The postural control system has two functions: to ensure that balance is maintained by bracing the body against gravity, and to fix the orientation and position of the features that serve as a frame of reference for perception and action with respect to the external world. Postural control relies on multisensory processing and motor responses that seem to be automatic and occur without awareness. Studies have shown that people afraid of heights or falling have poor postural control, especially in

1081-399: The anxiety is both well-founded and secondary. The human balance system integrates proprioceptive , vestibular and nearby visual cues to reckon position and motion. As height increases, visual cues recede and balance becomes poorer in people without acrophobia. However, most people respond to such a situation by shifting to more reliance on the proprioceptive and vestibular branches of

1128-430: The characteristics of its species. The chicks were tested less than 24 hours after hatching. It suggested that depth perception develops quickly in chickens, as the chicks never made the "mistake" of walking off the "deep" side of the cliff. The kids and lambs were also tested as soon as they could stand on their own. During the experiment, no goat or lamb ever stepped onto the glass of the deep side. When placed there,

1175-417: The concepts about surfaces, posture, balance, and movement. Cognitive factors may also contribute to the development of acrophobia. People tend to wrongly interpret visuo-vestibular discrepancies as dizziness and nausea and associate them with a forthcoming fall. Experiencing these cognitive factors while associating them with the idea of falling may be enough to cause the same fear that would be expected after

1222-451: The conditions' overlapping symptom pools, including body swaying and dizziness. Further confusion can occur due to height vertigo being a direct symptom of acrophobia. Traditionally, acrophobia has been attributed, like other phobias, to conditioning or a traumatic experience. Recent studies have cast doubt on this explanation. Individuals with acrophobia are found to be lacking in traumatic experiences. Nevertheless, this may be due to

1269-456: The danger that accompanies falling. In May 1998, Behaviour Research and Therapy published a longitudinal survey by psychologists Richie Poulton , Simon Davies, Ross G. Menzies, John D. Langley, and Phil A. Silva of subjects sampled from the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study who had been injured in a fall between the ages of 5 and 9, compared them to children who had no similar injury, and found that at age 18, acrophobia

1316-403: The deep end, and some would cry because they couldn’t reach their mothers without crossing an apparent chasm. Some would pat the glass on the deep end, but even with this assurance would not crawl on the glass. These results, although unable to prove that this fear is innate, indicate that most human infants have well developed depth perception and are able to make the connection between depth and

1363-399: The development of acrophobia is very possible, in which learning factors, cognitive factors (e.g. interpretations), perceptual factors (e.g. visual dependence), and biological factors (e.g. heredity ) interact to provoke fear or habituation. ICD-10 and DSM-5 are used to diagnose acrophobia. Acrophobia Questionnaire (AQ) is a self report that contains 40 items, assessing anxiety level on

1410-618: The dream patterns of a group of 685 students attending secondary schools in Milan have concluded that, in dreams, fear is more frequently associated with falling, while happiness is connected with flying, and surprise with suspension and vertical movement (climbing, descent, ladder) content. In the Alfred Hitchcock film Vertigo , the hero, played by James Stewart , has to resign from the police force after an incident which causes him to develop both acrophobia and vertigo. Early on in

1457-421: The elderly include dizziness, self-rated health status, depression, and problems with gait and balance. Studies of nonhuman subjects support the theory that falling is an inborn fear. Gibson and Walk performed identical experiments with chicks, turtles, rats, kids, lambs, kittens, and puppies. The results were similar to those of the human infants, although each animal behaved a little differently according to

FOF - Misplaced Pages Continue

1504-490: The equilibrium system. Some people are known to be more dependent on visual signals than others. People who rely more on visual cues to control body movements are less physically stable. An acrophobic, however, continues to over-rely on visual signals, whether because of inadequate vestibular function or incorrect strategy. Locomotion at a high elevation requires more than normal visual processing. The visual cortex becomes overloaded, resulting in confusion. Some proponents of

1551-415: The failure to recall the experiences, as memory fades as time passes. To address the problems of self report and memory, a large cohort study with 1000 participants was conducted from birth; the results showed that participants with less fear of heights had more injuries because of falling. Psychologists Richie Poulton , Simon Davies, Ross G. Menzies, John D. Langley, and Phil A. Silva sampled subjects from

1598-467: The film he faints while climbing a stepladder. There are numerous references throughout the film to fear of heights and falling. Acrophobia Acrophobia , also known as hypsophobia , is an extreme or irrational fear or phobia of heights, especially when one is not particularly high up. It belongs to a category of specific phobias , called space and motion discomfort, that share similar causes and options for treatment. Most people experience

1645-505: The general population has acrophobia, with twice as many women affected as men. The term is from the Greek : ἄκρον , ákron , meaning "peak, summit, edge" and φόβος , phóbos , "fear". The term "hypsophobia" derives from the Greek word ύψος (hypsos), meaning "height". In Greek, the actual term used for this condition is "υψοφοβία" (Hypsophobia). " Vertigo " is often used to describe

1692-425: The intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=FOF&oldid=1146546635 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Fear of falling Studies done by psychologists Eleanor J. Gibson and Richard D. Walk have further explained

1739-414: The nature of this fear. One of their more famous studies is the " visual cliff " . Below is their description of the cliff: …a board laid across a large sheet of heavy glass which is supported a foot or more above the floor. On one side of the board a sheet of patterned material is placed flush against the undersurface of the glass, giving the glass the appearance as well as the substance of solidity. On

1786-469: The other side a sheet of the same material is laid upon the floor; this side of the board thus becomes the visual cliff. Thirty-six infants were tested in their experiments, ranging from six to fourteen months. Gibson and Walk found that when placed on the board, 27 of the infants would crawl on the shallow side when called by their mothers; only three ventured off the "edge" of the cliff. Many infants would crawl away from their mothers who were calling from

1833-418: The position of the center of gravity within the base of support). This often fails, however, resulting in a feeling of increased instability and anxiety, which is often interpreted as fear. Closely related to postural control is the sensation of vertigo : a warning signal created by a loss of postural control when the distance between the observer and visible stationary objects becomes too large, and caused by

1880-406: The renouncement of responsibility, or life experiences such as flying in an airplane. They quote another author, Gutheil (1951), who suggests a range of possible meanings subsumed under the general idea of loss of (mental) equilibrium. These include loss of temper, loss of self-control, yielding, decline of the accepted moral standard or loss of consciousness. Studies performed in recent years on

1927-467: The same meaning for everyone". In the fairly recent study, "The Typical Dreams of Canadian University Students", common dreams were investigated by administering a Typical Dreams Questionnaire (TDQ). The results confirmed that typical dreams are consistent over time, region, and gender, and a few themes can be considered almost universal: falling (73.8% prevalence), flying or soaring in the air (48.3%) and swimming (34.3%). In 1967, Saul and Curtis published

FOF - Misplaced Pages Continue

1974-494: The sensory channels (this happens even to those with normal vestibular function), and feelings of vertigo can result in people with postural control issues. Studies have shown that people with acrophobia and/or an extreme fear of falling have higher scores of SMD, or space and motion discomfort. These are physical symptoms elicited by visual or kinesthetic information that is inadequate for normal spatial orientation . Space and motion discomfort arises when conflicting information

2021-438: The situation better by manipulating the stimuli, in terms of their quality, intensity, duration and frequency; (2) VR can help participants avoid public embarrassment and protect their confidentiality; (3) therapist's office can be well-maintained; (4) VR encourages more people to seek treatment; (5) VR saves time and money, as participants do not need to leave the consulting room. Many different types of medications are used in

2068-476: The treatment of phobias like fear of heights, including traditional anti-anxiety drugs such as benzodiazepines , and newer options such as antidepressants and beta-blockers . Some desensitization treatments produce short-term improvements in symptoms. Long-term treatment success has been elusive. Approximately 2–5% of the general population has acrophobia, with twice as many women affected as men. A related, milder form of visually triggered fear or anxiety

2115-515: The window of a moving car or train). Vertigo is called height vertigo when the sensation of vertigo is triggered by heights. Height vertigo is caused by a conflict between vision, vestibular and somatosensory senses. This occurs when vestibular and somatosensory systems sense a body movement that is not detected by the eyes. More research indicates that this conflict leads to both motion sickness and anxiety. Confusion may arise in differentiating between height vertigo and acrophobia due to

2162-424: Was 7 times less common in subjects at age 18 who had injurious falls as children than subjects that did not). More studies have suggested a possible explanation for acrophobia is that it emerges through accumulation of non-traumatic experiences of falling that are not memorable but can influence behaviours in the future. Also, fear of heights may be acquired when infants learn to crawl. If they fell, they would learn

2209-804: Was present in only 2 percent of the subjects who had an injurious fall but was present among 7 percent of subjects who had no injurious fall (with the same sample finding that typical basophobia was 7 times less common in subjects at age 18 who had injurious falls as children than subjects that did not). Psychiatrists Isaac Marks and Randolph M. Nesse and evolutionary biologist George C. Williams have noted that people with systematically deficient responses to various adaptive phobias (e.g. basophobia, ophidiophobia , arachnophobia ) are more temperamentally careless and more likely to receive unintentional injuries that are potentially fatal and have proposed that such deficient phobia should be classified as " hypophobia " due to its selfish genetic consequences . For

#817182