Studies compared levels of anxiety and distress for people with SAD vs controls in various virtual social situations. Virtual public speaking tasks were conducted and people with SAD showed higher levels of distress and anxiety, and more difficulty with eye contact. SAD participants also revealed higher subjective anxiety scores, hyper vigilance, and attentional avoidance when responding to virtual agents/avatars. These show that virtual reality has the potential to assess social anxiety but some studies suggest no difference when compared to in vivo behavioral tests.