Fear is an evolutionary adaption to a hazardous environment, linked to numerous complex behavioral responses, e.g., the fight-or-flight response, suiting their respective environment. However, for the sake of experimental control, fear is mainly investigated under rather artificial laboratory conditions. The latter transform these evolutionary adaptions into artificial responses, like keystrokes. The immersive, multidimensional character of virtual reality (VR) enables realistic behavioral responses, overcoming aforementioned limitations. To investigate authentic fear responses from a holistic perspective, participants explored either a negative or a neutral VR cave. To promote real-life behavior, we built a physical replica of the cave, providing haptic sensations. Electrophysiological correlates of fear-related approach and avoidance tendencies, i.e., frontal alpha asymmetries (FAA) were evaluated. To our knowledge, this is the first study to simultaneously capture complex behavior and associated electrophysiological correlates under highly immersive conditions. Participants in the negative condition exhibited a broad spectrum of realistic fear behavior and reported intense negative affect as opposed to participants in the neutral condition. Despite these affective and behavioral differences, the groups could not be distinguished based on the FAAs for the greater part of the cave exploration. Taking the specific behavioral responses into account, the obtained FAAs could not be reconciled with well-known FAA models. Consequently, putting laboratory-based models to the test under realistic conditions shows that they may not unrestrictedly predict realistic behavior. As the VR environment facilitated non-mediated and realistic emotional and behavioral responses, our results demonstrate VR’s high potential to increase the ecological validity of scientific findings (video abstract: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qROsPOp87l4&feature=youtu.be).
Virtual reality (VR) has become a popular tool for investigating human behavior and brain functions. Nevertheless, it is unclear whether VR constitutes an actual form of reality or is more like an advanced simulation. Determining the nature of VR has been mostly achieved by self-reported presence measurements, defined as the feeling of being submerged in the experience. However, subjective measurements might be prone to bias and, most importantly, do not allow for a comparison with real-life experiences. Here, we show that real-life and VR height exposures using 3D-360° videos are mostly indistinguishable on a psychophysiological level (EEG and HRV), while both differ from a conventional 2D laboratory setting. Using a fire truck, three groups of participants experienced a real-life (N = 25), a virtual (N = 24), or a 2D laboratory (N = 25) height exposure. Behavioral and psychophysiological results suggest that identical exogenous and endogenous cognitive as well as emotional mechanisms are deployed to process the real-life and virtual experience. Specifically, alpha- and theta-band oscillations in line with heart rate variability, indexing vigilance, and anxiety were barely indistinguishable between those two conditions, while they differed significantly from the laboratory setup. Sensory processing, as reflected by beta-band oscillations, exhibits a different pattern for all conditions, indicating further room for improving VR on a haptic level. In conclusion, the study shows that contemporary photorealistic VR setups are technologically capable of mimicking reality, thus paving the way for the investigation of real-world cognitive and emotional processes under controlled laboratory conditions. For a video summary, see https://youtu.be/fPIrIajpfiA.
Every day our brain has to continuously deal with vast amounts of highly dynamical input. When examining cognition, neuroscientists traditionally try to isolate cognitive processes in order to exclude disturbing influences. Advances in neuroscientific technology enable us to transfer the knowledge gained in the laboratory into more ecologically valid settings and to investigate to what extent these neuronal processes occur under less controlled circumstances (Ladouce et al., 2016;Parada et al., 2020).One aspect that has been more or less neglected within this approach so far is that of performance monitoring. Successful goal-directed behaviour requires continuous assessment of ongoing actions and their consequences. Evaluation of adequacy and success of actions is essential for learning and executing appropriate and optimal behaviour (Ridderinkhof et al., 2004). Performance monitoring systems search for
There is a large scientific interest in human moral judgments. However, little is known about the developmental origins and the specific role of the primary caregivers in the early development of inter-individual differences in human morality. Here, we assess the moral intuitions of 3- to 6-year-old children and their mothers (N = 56), using child-friendly versions of five trolley dilemmas and two control scenarios. We found that children responded to moral dilemmas similar to their mothers, revealed by correlations between the responses of mothers and their children in all five moral dilemmas and a highly similar overall response pattern between mother and child across all judgments. This was revealed by a high agreement in the response pattern of children and their mothers. Furthermore, children’s overall response tendencies were similar to the response tendencies of adults. Thus, similar moral principles (e.g., the Doctrine of the Double Effect) which have been identified in adults, and describes as a universal moral grammar, may guide the moral intuitions in early childhood already. Taken together, the present findings provide the first evidence that children’s moral intuitions are closely associated with the moral intuitions of their mother.
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