Virtual burglary:exploring the potential of virtual reality to study burglary in action

Objectives: This article explores the potential of virtual reality (VR) to study burglary by measuring user responses on the subjective, physiological, and behavioral levels. Furthermore, it examines the influence of individual dispositions, such as sensation seeking and self-control, on behavior during a virtual burglary event. Methods: Participants, male university undergraduates (N ¼ 77), could freely move around a virtual neighborhood wearing a VR headset and using a game controller and were instructed to burgle one of the houses in the neighborhood. Participant movement, items stolen from the house, and heart rate (HR) were recorded throughout the burglary event. Individual dispositions were measured before, and subjective user responses were measured after, the event. Additionally, we experimentally varied whether there was an alarm sounding and participants’ beliefs about the chance of getting caught (deterrence). Results: Participants reacted subjectively to the burglary event by reporting high levels of presence in the virtual environment (VE) and physiologically by showing increased HRs. In terms of behavior, high deterrence resulted in fewer items being stolen and a shorter burglary. Furthermore, sensation seekers stole more valuable items, while participants high in conscientiousness stole fewer items. Conclusions: The results suggest that VEs have substantial potential for studying criminal behavior

Proceedings of the 7th international conference on disability, virtual reality and associated technologies, with ArtAbilitation (ICDVRAT 2008)

The proceedings of the conferenc

The Peripersonal Space: A Space to INTER-ACT Action- and Social-related Modulations of the Space around Us

The zone surrounding our body is of vital importance. In neuroscience this space is captured by the concept of peripersonal space (PPS), a plastic representation integrating tactile and visual stimuli presented on/close to the body. PPS is thought to contribute to the efficient guidance of actions, yet, a clear demonstration of this function is critically lacking. In the first study we provided strong support to this hypothesis by revealing that visual and tactile stimuli interact already during action planning. Such a PPS remapping that precedes motor execution is ideally suited to guiding actions. Recently, it has been suggested a possible PPS involvement in social interactions. In social psychology, interpersonal space (IPS) is the area individuals maintain around themselves into which others cannot intrude without arousing discomfort. Because of some similarities, some authors raised the question of whether PPS and IPS share some functional features. In the second and third study we tested this hypothesis by taking advantage of PPS remapping induced by tool-use. First, we showed that “standard” tool-use ‘extends’ PPS, as measured by reaching-distance toward a peer, but does not affect IPS, as measured by the comfort-distance toward the same peer. Then, we demonstrated that a novel “social” tool-use ‘extends’ PPS and ‘reduces’ IPS. These findings clearly disconfirm the hypothesis of functional overlap between the two spaces. The last study examines the sensitivity of PPS to a fundamental social dimension: ownership. The results indicate that ownership of an object is critical for the PPS remapping to emerge. Visual stimuli strongly affected touch perception during action only when the object belonged to the participant. A similar remapping emerged when simply observing a peer acting on her own object. Taken together, these findings critically inform current models about space perception and about its function in our sensorimotor and social inter-actions

Anxiety activating virtual environments for investigating social phobias

Social phobia has become one of the commonest manifestations of fear in any society. This fear is often accompanied by major depression or social disabilities. With the awareness that fear can be aggravated in social situations, virtual reality researchers and psychologists have investigated the feasibility of a virtual reality system as a psychotherapeutic intervention to combat social phobia. Virtual reality technology has rapidly improved over the past few years, making for better interactions. Nevertheless, the field of virtual reality exposure therapy for social phobia is still in its infancy and various issues have yet to be resolved or event uncovered. The key concept of virtual reality exposure therapy in the treatment of social phobia is based on its characteristic of perceptual illusion - the sense of presence - as an anxiety-activating system, instead of conventional imaginal or in-vivo exposure techniques. Therefore, in order to provoke a significant level of anxiety in virtual environments, it is very important to understand the impact of perceptual presence factors in virtual reality exposure therapy. Hence, this research mainly aims to investigate all the aspects of the correlation between anxiety and the components of the virtual environment in a computer-generated social simulation. By understanding this, this thesis aims to provide a framework for the construction of effective virtual reality exposure therapy for social phobia care which enables anxiety stimuli to be controlled in a gradual manner as a conventional clinical approach. This thesis presents a series of experimental studies that have been conducted with a common theme: the function of 3D inhabitants and visual apparatus in anxiety-activating virtual social simulation, a job-interview. However, each study is conducted using different research objectives. The experimental results are presented in this thesis, with psycho-physiological approach, revealing a variation of the distribution of participants' anxiety states across various VR conditions. The overall conclusion of this research is that an appropriate realism of VR stimuli is essential in sustaining the state of anxiety over the course of VR exposure. The high fidelity of virtual environment generally provoke a greater degree of anxiety, but this research also shows that aspects of VR fidelity is more related to the mental representation of individuals to the context of the stressful situation rather than any technology that is being used.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Acquisition and extinction across multiple virtual reality contexts: implications for specific phobias and current treatment methods

Victor Wong studied human acquisition learning over multiple contexts using virtual reality. He found that learning an association over multiple contexts can impact subsequent extinction training. This suggests that fears acquired over multiple contexts may be more difficult to treat using exposure-based therapies and will need to be augmented for effectiveness