1,720,966 research outputs found
MORAL DILEMMAS IN VR DRIVING SIMULATIONS: EFFECTS ON BEHAVIOR AND EMOTIONAL EXPERIENCE
Full text linkMoral dilemmas, such as the trolley problem and its variants, have long been used as a paradigm for studying moral decision-making. In recent times, two factors have shaken up this field: on the one hand, the diffusion of Virtual Reality (VR), a technology that has proven to be the ideal tool to study dangerous situations that cannot be safely reproduced in the real world (such as moral dilemmas) in a more realistic way. On the other hand, the introduction of the first autonomous vehicles (AVs), which has made moral dilemmas a tool to investigate user preferences in unavoidable collision situations. This Ph.D. thesis combines these lines of research, exploring behavior and emotional reactions in VR versions of moral dilemmas applied in the driving context through three studies.
Study 1 investigated the eventual presence of emotional differences between a human and an autonomous driving modality. Results showed that being the one who decides in life-death situations or experiencing the same decision made by an AV elicited a very different pattern of arousal and valence.
Study 2 explores the effect of different legal frameworks in crashes involving semi-autonomous cars. Main findings revealed that being informed that the legal liability lies with the manufacturing company when the driver has no control of the vehicle did not affect participants’ behavior but made them feel less morally responsible for accidents made by semi-autonomous cars.
Study 3 analyzes the effect of the presentation method, text or VR, on decision and emotional reactions during unavoidable accident situations, showing that people are inclined to sacrifice their lives to save pedestrians in textual moral dilemmas, but not in the realistic VR version of the same dilemmas.
The thesis begins with a presentation of the main theories of moral decision-making (chapter 1), followed by a brief description of VR technologies and work that has applied them to the study of moral dilemmas (chapter 2). Relevant literature on moral dilemmas in the driving context is then presented (chapter 3). Finally, the three studies of this thesis are described and discussed.Moral dilemmas, such as the trolley problem and its variants, have long been used as a paradigm for studying moral decision-making. In recent times, two factors have shaken up this field: on the one hand, the diffusion of Virtual Reality (VR), a technology that has proven to be the ideal tool to study dangerous situations that cannot be safely reproduced in the real world (such as moral dilemmas) in a more realistic way. On the other hand, the introduction of the first autonomous vehicles (AVs), which has made moral dilemmas a tool to investigate user preferences in unavoidable collision situations. This Ph.D. thesis combines these lines of research, exploring behavior and emotional reactions in VR versions of moral dilemmas applied in the driving context through three studies.
Study 1 investigated the eventual presence of emotional differences between a human and an autonomous driving modality. Results showed that being the one who decides in life-death situations or experiencing the same decision made by an AV elicited a very different pattern of arousal and valence.
Study 2 explores the effect of different legal frameworks in crashes involving semi-autonomous cars. Main findings revealed that being informed that the legal liability lies with the manufacturing company when the driver has no control of the vehicle did not affect participants’ behavior but made them feel less morally responsible for accidents made by semi-autonomous cars.
Study 3 analyzes the effect of the presentation method, text or VR, on decision and emotional reactions during unavoidable accident situations, showing that people are inclined to sacrifice their lives to save pedestrians in textual moral dilemmas, but not in the realistic VR version of the same dilemmas.
The thesis begins with a presentation of the main theories of moral decision-making (chapter 1), followed by a brief description of VR technologies and work that has applied them to the study of moral dilemmas (chapter 2). Relevant literature on moral dilemmas in the driving context is then presented (chapter 3). Finally, the three studies of this thesis are described and discussed
Ecocebo: how the interaction between environment and drug effects may improve pharmacotherapy outcomes
No full text: This narrative review describes the research on the effects of the association between environmental context and medications, suggesting the benefit of specific design interventions in adjunction to pharmacotherapy. The literature on Evidence-Based Design (EBD) studies and Neuro-Architecture show how contact with light, nature, and specific physical features of urban and interior architecture may enhance the effects of analgesic, anxiolytics, and antidepressant drugs. This interaction mirrors those already known between psychedelics, drugs of abuse, and setting. Considering that the physical feature of space is a component of the complex placebo configuration, the aim is to highlight those elements of built or natural space that may help to improve drug response in terms of efficacy, tolerability, safety, and compliance. Ecocebo, the integration of design approaches such as EBD and Neuro-Architecture may thus contribute to a more efficient, cost-sensitive, and sustainable pharmacotherapy
The Role of Virtual Spaces and Interactivity in Emergency Training
No full textVirtual Reality (VR) allows to re-create risky situations in a safe and realistic environment and, in recent years, it has been proposed as a versatile training tool for fire emergencies. However, there is still the need to compare VR with other training formats, to better understand when and how it is advantageous to invest in virtual systems for emergency training. In this preliminary study, we compare different formats of a training program for teaching how to extinguish office-related fires. Formats vary in the presence and realism of the spatial representation, namely an immersive and interactive VR environment, a non-interactive desktop Video and traditional paper-based material. Participants' reactions and knowledge acquisition have been measured using both quantitative (accuracy, reaction times, questionnaires) and qualitative (open questions) methods. Results show that, at performance level, all three training formats significantly improved accuracy, but only participants in VR and Video conditions became faster in choosing the correct extinguisher. In terms of participants' evaluation, the VR format was judged more positively compared to the other trainings
Emergency fire training in virtual environments: effect of immersion and interaction.
No full textAccording to statistics, during 2016 there were almost a million of structure fires worldwide. As part of the effort in responding to these kinds of emergency situation, training programs for staff and personnel are usually organized. However, training programs might not always be received the level of motivation that makes the resource investment worthwhile and effective.
In recent years, Virtual Reality (VR) has been proposed to be an enticing, versatile and relatively affordable training tool. VR allows to re-create risky situations in a safe, controlled, realistic environment where the user can experience and practice proper behaviors. However, only a few studies have been published in which the effectiveness of VR training is assessed and compared with other training formats.
In this study, we compare different formats of a training program to teach how to extinguish different office-related fires. Formats vary in their levels of immersion (Imm) and/or interaction (Int): immersive VR (high Imm and Int), 360° video (high Imm, low Int), desktop simulation (Int, low Imm), desktop
video (low Imm, no Int) and paper-based material (no Imm, no Int). Their performance in terms of knowledge acquisition and sustained motivation have been measured via both quantitative (answers accuracy, reaction time, questionnaires) and qualitative (interviews) methods. Furthermore, a fifteenday follow-up has been run to verify the long-term efficacy of the training. Results show that immersion and interaction are important variables in training and learning, highlighting when and how it is recommended to invest in virtual systems for emergency training
Virtual Reality Environmental Enrichment Effects on Craving for Cigarette in Smokers
No full text: Background: Preclinical studies suggested the exposure to environmental enrichment (EE) as an intervention able to prevent or reduce nicotine-taking and nicotine-seeking behaviors. Virtual reality (VR) may help to test the effects of EE in smokers in a reproducible and feasible manner. Materials and Methods: In the present study, 31 smokers (14 women) were divided into two groups: (1) exposure to a virtual EE (VR-EE) and (2) exposure to a virtual neutral environment (VR-NoEE). Cigarette craving was assessed as basal and evoked, at different timepoints during the session. Behavior activity during VR exposure, mood, and subjective measures were also collected. Results: EE exposure in VR significantly reduced craving scores from basal timepoint. This was not observed in the VR-NoEE group, which significantly increased craving compared with values at neutral scenario. When both groups were exposed to smoking-related VR scenario, the VR-EE group showed an increased craving compared with previous timepoint up to score values not different from those in the VR-NoEE group. A significant positive correlation between basal craving scores and interactive behavior with virtual smoking cues was observed in the VR-NoEE but not in the VR-EE group. Conclusion: These findings suggest that virtual EE might have an inhibitory effect in smokers on basal, but not on evoked cigarette craving. Noteworthily, the interactive activity correlation to craving scores in the VR-NoEE participants was not observed in the VR-EE group, adding further evidence that the enrichment simulation was nonetheless able to modify behavior in the smoking-related scenario
Virtual morality: Using virtual reality to study moral behavior in extreme accident situations
Full text linkVirtual Reality (VR) technologies are widely employed to investigate human behavior in dangerous situations that cannot be safely reproduced in the real world, allowing researchers to study in an ecological way complex scenarios such as training for risky jobs, safety procedures, emergencies and, more recently, moral dilemmas in driving context. Understanding how people act when facing severe accidents involving unavoidable collisions has extremely important implications for the design and development of the 'decisional system' of Autonomous Vehicles (AV s). However, previous studies have not focused on the differences between being the driver acting in a complex moral situation or being in a self-driving car that chooses for you. In the present paper, we described a case study that uses a first-person virtual reality simulation to investigate people's emotional reactions, perceived sense of responsibility, and acceptability of moral behavior in human and autonomous driving modalities. The main findings showed that participants experienced a high sense of presence in our simulation and react differently to the two driving conditions, showing a greater arousal, a more negative valence, and an increased sense of responsibility when faced moral dilemmas as drivers. Instead, in scenarios that did not involve killing someone (non-moral dilemmas), being in a fully autonomous vehicle was judged less pleasant than being the actual driver. These results suggest that people prefer to be in control only in common driving situations and not when their actions have deadly consequences on other people, suggesting the need to consider emotional factors in studying decision-making applied to autonomous vehicles, as a mean to reach a more complete understanding of people's reactions to this new technology, and to possibly gain insights for the design of autonomous driving systems and, more generally, AI-driven machines
Nature-based experience in Venetian lagoon: Effects on craving and wellbeing in addict residential inpatients
No full textIntroduction: It is known that exposure to the natural environment may positively modulate mental processes and behaviors; in particular, it can reduce stress, anxiety, and depressive symptoms. This suggests a potential integration of "nature experience" into the treatment for substance use disorder (SUD) since various types of addiction are associated with anxiety and depression. Considering that only one study has been reported to date in patients with alcohol use disorder, the effect of nature experience in SUD patients' needs to be further investigated. This study aimed to test the effects of exposure to a natural lagoon environment on craving and measures of wellbeing in SUD patients in comparison to exposure to an urban environment. Methods: Twenty-four SUD patients were divided into three groups of eight participants and exposed to two walking sessions (interspersed with a 1-week wash-out period) in a natural environment typical of the Venetian lagoon, an Urban walk, or staying at the residential center based on a Latin-square design. Before and after each session, drug craving, mood, wellbeing, agency, openness to the future, and restorativeness were assessed. Results: The Nature walk significantly decreased craving in participants compared to their pre-walk values, and compared to craving after the Urban walk, with the latter significantly increased vs. pre-walk values. The Nature walk significantly decreased negative mood and increased wellbeing and agency. Openness to the future and restorativeness measures showed significant improvement after the Nature walk compared to the Urban walk. On the other hand, craving scores after the Urban Walk positively correlated with negative mood and a Sense of Negative Agency values and negatively correlated with wellbeing scores. Discussion: Our results confirm that "nature experience" may improve mood, wellbeing, attention, stress relief, openness, and sense of being active in SUD patients. Moreover, we also showed a specific effect on drug craving-a key symptom of SUD
Virtual reality environmental enrichment effects on heart rate variability in healthy volunteers
No full textRationaleEnvironmental enrichment (EE) is a nonpharmacological approach widely used in preclinical studies and only recently applied to humans using virtual reality (VR). Virtual EE has been shown to decrease basal cravings for smoking and palatable food; however, little is known about what processes are affected by EE. One hypothesis is that it may affect participants' emotional state (stress- relief hypothesis).ObjectivesWe aimed to investigate whether physiological parameters of stress response are modified by virtual EE by assessing heart rate variability (HRV) in healthy volunteers. Second, we explored psychological measures of affective and mood states associated to virtual EE and assessed the correlation of HRV to measures of locomotion and interaction in the virtual simulation.MethodsTwenty healthy volunteers (11 men) were exposed to a virtual EE and Control Environment (CE), in counterbalancing order. HRV and participants' behavior were measured during VR exposure. Self-report measures of mood, arousal, pleasantness and immersion were also collected before and after VR.ResultsParticipants showed a significant increase in time-domain HRV (RMSSD), but not in frequency-domain (HF and LF/HF ratio) measures, and self-report measures (pleasantness, activation, positive mood and perception of immersion) in EE vs. CE. Positive correlations between the score of immersion in the VR simulation and HRV indexes emerged in EE scenario only.ConclusionsThe results showed an improvement in subjectively reported emotional state and an increase in parasympathetic component of HRV, suggesting that the mechanism underlying the EE effects found in this and previous work may be due to decreased stress, consistent with the "stress-relief" hypothesis
The effects of virtual reality environmental enrichments on craving to food in healthy volunteers
Full text linkRationale: Environmental enrichment (EE) is a non-pharmacological approach that has been shown to be effective in reducing food-taking in rats. Studies in human volunteers are still in their infancy, given the difficulty to translate the complexity of EE in clinical practice. Virtual reality (VR) is a promising methodological approach, but no study has yet applied it to model and test EE in humans. Objectives: The present study is the first to assess the effects of virtual EE on craving for palatable food. Methods: Eighty-one healthy volunteers (43 women) were divided into three groups: (i) exposure to a virtual EE (VR-EE), (ii) exposure to a virtual neutral environment (VR-NoEE), and (iii) without exposure to VR (No VR). Craving for palatable food at basal level and evoked by neutral and palatable food images was assessed before and after the VR simulation. Behavior during VR exposure and subjective measures related to the experience were also collected. Results: VR-EE group showed a significantly greater decrease in pre-post craving difference compared to No VR for all assessments and at basal level compared to VR-NoEE. Interestingly, an inverse correlation between craving and deambulation in the VR simulation emerged in VR-EE group only. Conclusions: The study highlighted the feasibility of exposing human subjects to an EE as a virtual simulation. Virtual EE induced effects on basal craving for food that suggest the potential for further improvements of the protocol to extend its efficacy to palatable food cues
Attentive Saliency and Photorealism in Immersive Virtual Environments
Full text linkVirtual Reality is widely used in behavioral studies, as it allows to simulate realistic experiences in environments completely controlled by the study designers. In particular, studies on visual saliency
and attention can leverage immersive graphics rendered on head-mounted displays to create custom environments and head, body, and gaze tracking systems to evaluate the participant’s behavior.
However, some aspects of the design of VR applications for attentive saliency study, especially in relation to rendering style, are poorly investigated in the literature. In our work, we created virtual environments for a study on junk food craving, and performed an experiment to assess how much the saliency of visual items is influenced by photorealism and correlated with the presence measured with questionnaires. Furthermore, we investigated the feasibility of replacing the eye-tracking-based saliency measure with approximated measurements based on head tracking
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