So government policy is working then!
Fear and control never fails.

jane Smith, leicester, uk

If anyone doubts our cultures capacity for paranoia they should check out the Hollywood films of the last ten years- the standard fair, that is. Every possible way that a person or situation or even inanimate object could become malevolent has been exploited to generate fear. Paranoia is big business.
Gone are the days when it was reasonable to believe that our fellow humans were decent, trustworthy and honest. Nowadays such a view is seen by writers, film directors, broadcasters, journalists (the creators of our reality) as delusional. Game theory hasn't helped. Constantly growing inequality doesn't help. An overcrowded island doesn't help.
Things won't be getting better soon...

royce, trang,

The simple fact that it's virtual reality has to skew the results. Everyone goes in there knowing for a fact that nothing is real in there and there's no way they could not know so I don't see how it can be compared to a real life situation.

Are we sure this isn't an April fool?

Lawrence, Leicester, UK

Paranoia or basic awareness? If you are not aware of your surroundings you become a potential victim, the fact that many people see potential danger where there isn't any is a simple animal defence mechanism designed to protect you from predators.

When you simply act on instinct and are aware of things going on around you, you are perfectly normal, unfortunately as soon as you tell someone else, particularly a researcher, about it you become paranoid!

Graham, Pattaya, Thailand

Compare this experiment with one where the participants are simply told to go for a tube journey and record their feelings for, say a ten minute period of it. As most comments have pointed out the key difference is that these are avatars not real people. We have be primed to find these ion games and in movies where strange and threatening behaviour is normal. The experiment is deeply flawed and probably invalid because of t his priming factor.

Richard Andrew Jefferies, Castaño del Robledo, Huelva, Spain

It's not much of a study is it? All Dr Freeman has proved is that people find virtual reality avatars a bit creepy.

Also the idea that being suspicious when travelling on the tube is evidence of some sort of mental disorder is nonsensical. I've been mugged, sexually assaulted, flashed at, harassed and followed on the tube or near to tube stations, so being suspicious of dodgy characters is hardly unreasonable. Perhaps Dr Freeman should spend a bit of time travelling around London on the tube late at night and see how "paranoid" or otherwise he becomes.

elizabeth, edinburgh,

“Are you suggesting that the paranoia displayed in these tests is due to some mass victim complex arising from the exploitative and competitive nature of humans?” (@Laurence, also Bristol)
Not exactly, but I suggest it could be partly that (and with much justification if Marx was right). Though, as with previous such studies, it’s not clear how one could either prove it, or separate that from any other partial causes.
As others have said, the London tube is an exceptional case - for many it’s a very threatening environment. So I agree with you and @Dan of Sheffield - this is something of a non-story because, whether you believe Marx or are intimidated by the tube, it’s an entirely natural and rational response. NOT a mental illness.
That said, a GENERAL “fear of public appearance and human interaction” MAY be pathological. And, in the Marxian view, much more of life IS “political . . conspiratorial” and “to do with the government, the media or capitalism” than you concede!

David, Bristol, UK

I am one of the two-thirds of tube travellers who is not fearful when travelling on the tube, but that is because I am one of the two-thirds who live their life putting possible problems and potential dangers in the 'back of our mind' and going about our lives in as positive and sensible manner as posible, and sometimes even with a smile on our face. I think that Gordon Brown, Hariet Harman and the rest of the Labour Cabinet would fall into the 'Paranoid' Group on the tube, (or when being guided around Peckham estates). Gordon and friends, in their fear of loosing the next election, have attempted to tackle all the troubles of society, but they are now running in a hundred directions having allowed many Genies to escape from their respective bottles at the same time. 100% of tube travellers should fear the fears of frightened career politicians whose greatest fear is loosing their own jobs.

Nigel Gee, London, England

My speculative conclusion is a little bit of Dan (Sheffield) and a bit of Robert Howard (London).

Perhaps some of the participants expected an extrodinary scenario to happen, because it was an experiment. No participant goes into an experiment expecting nothing to happen.

And its the London underground! Every week at least you are handed a flier warning you of pickpockets by armed policemen and several times a day you are reminded over loudspeaker to look out for terrorists. LU encourages people to be extra wary, minding the gap etc. etc.

Don't blame the participants for being paranoid, blame them for being Pavlovian.

Either way

Another million pounds literally down the tube for pseudo scientific "findings". Except for some of the paranoid delusional posters here I suspect people are pretty much level headed in evaluating risk.

Masopher, London, UK

Wonder if the "general population" all came from London? Maybe they should try a different selection, maybe the underground in Newcastle ( or other) where smiling at peopleis a regular occurance.

Lisa, Stockport, UK

So, we've discovered that a certain percentage of participants will be creeped out when put on an imaginary underground train populated by lifelike robots. This is a great leap forward for anybody who would have predicted otherwise.

_Felix, Nottingham,

@ David,Bristol
Are you suggesting that the paranoia displayed in these tests is due to some mass victim complex arising from the exploitative and competitive nature of humans?
Why does everything have to be political and conspiratorial?
I would suggest that this evident paranoia has nothing to do with the government, the media or capitalism, but instead is simply about a fear of public appearance and human interaction; this is something to which we can all relate to on some level.
This is a non-story, or at best a story about the shifting definition of what constitutes a "mental illness".

laurence, bristol,

I'd want to know how they controlled the data for the inevitable "uncanny-valley" effect of the other passengers. The present state of computer graphics and AI is such that AI characters still look somewhat odd/sinister/creepy even at the state of the art. I'd offer that this contributes to any perceived paranoia interpretations.

Alex, Bristol,

It is not paranoia if they are really out to get you!

RP, Montgomery, AL/ USA

I think David missed the point that all the Avatars were designed to be neutral or friendly.

ElliotT, London,

The subjects of the experiment had to be expecting something to happen, nervous, tense. waiting for some sort of scenario to unfurl, one way or another being put into a VR world has to raise your anxiety levels.

I would not categorise any of the comments from the bottom of the article as paranoiac, they look just like the silent risk assessment we do inside our heads all the time.

I'd call the exaggerated/distorted caution this study produces is just that, an exaggerated response to the Experiment conditions, with nothing results!

a non-story?

Dan, Sheffield, uk

Just building on David from Bristol - yes indeed. The 'movie' that we perceive as real really isn't at all, we are just told it is, repeatedly, by secretive shadow governments behind puppet governments who influence all media.. with a slim exception of the internet. False conciousness exists if you really believe that all there is to life is work, holiday and die. Look out world, here comes the Government. If you dont read the newspapers you are uninformed, if you do read the newspapers, you are misinformed. If you want a kick start, i'd suggest David Icke, or possibly Zeitgeist. Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean that people aren't out to get you.

RJL, Hatfield,

I would think 100% of normal human beings would feel paranoia travelling on the London underground. It's hardly a place to relax!

Robert Howard, London,

The nanny state blitzkrieg on the population has only compounded the sense of paranoia, especially the attacks on parenting and lifestyles. It has reached the stage now where even parents of an overweight child may feel tacit disapproval from their friends. And as for that MPV or SUV, well...

Dwight Vandryver, Scholar Green, Cheshire, UK

Since homo sapiens is such an aggressively competitive species, a numerous minority of it making a way of life out of preying on and exploiting the rest, it is surely to be supposed that the proportion feeling paranoid in consequence SHOULD be much higher than just one third?

This aberrant failure, on the part of the vast majority, to identify such undermining of their best interests, is essentially what Karl Marx labelled 'false consciousness'.

I would venture to suggest, therefore, that this 'psychiatric' study could equally well be considered as a quantitative psychological investigation to parallel qualitative sociological analyses of the distribution and exercise of 'power' in societies. The seminal works of Steven Lukes on the subject offer an excellent introduction.

David, Bristol, UK