Virtual Reality as a New Approach for Risk Taking Assessment

Abstract

Understanding how people behave when facing hazardous situations, how intrinsic and extrinsic factors influence the risk taking (RT) decision making process and to what extent it is possible to modify their reactions externally, are questions that have long interested academics and society in general. In the spheres, among others, of Occupational Safety and Health (OSH), the military, finance and sociology, this topic has multidisciplinary implications because we all constantly face RT situations. Researchers have hitherto assessed RT profiles by conducting questionnaires prior to and after the presentation of stimuli; however, this can lead to the production of biased, non-realistic, RT profiles. This is due to the reflexive nature of choosing an answer in a questionnaire, which is remote from the reactive, emotional and impulsive decision making processes inherent to real, risky situations. One way to address this question is to exploit VR capabilities to generate immersive environments that recreate realistic seeming but simulated hazardous situations. We propose VR as the next-generation tool to study RT processes, taking advantage of the big four families of metrics which can provide objective assessment methods with high ecological validity: the real-world risks approach (high presence VR environments triggering real-world reactions), embodied interactions (more natural interactions eliciting more natural behaviors), stealth assessment (unnoticed real-time assessments offering efficient behavioral metrics) and physiological real-time measurement (physiological signals avoiding subjective bias). Additionally, VR can provide an invaluable tool, after the assessment phase, to train in skills related to RT due to its transferability to real-world situations.

The Spheres & Shield Maze Task: A Virtual Reality Serious Game for the Assessment of Risk Taking in Decision Making

“…12,25 In addition, diverse issues in the use of survey measures have been identified, 26 as well as matching self-report measures with real-world actions may lead to low-validity conclusions. 27 To overcome these issues, an emerging research field is focusing on how psychocognitive states can be assessed in an ecological, nonintrusive, nonbiased way. The approach is termed ''stealth assessment'' 28 ; and is a process where subjects' performance data are continuously recorded during a game/serious game and, at its end, conclusions are drawn about individual competencies based on the data.…”

“… 12 , 25 In addition, diverse issues in the use of survey measures have been identified, 26 as well as matching self-report measures with real-world actions may lead to low-validity conclusions. 27 …”

Why Do We Take Risks? Perception of the Situation and Risk Proneness Predict Domain-Specific Risk Taking

“…Self-reported indexes of engagement in risky behaviours in daily life over specific periods of time (e.g., marijuana consumption during the previous year) have been used in other studies ( Lejuez et al, 2003 ), and could be included. Third, self-reported measures might involve intrinsic biases ( de-Juan-Ripoll et al, 2018 ), since individuals’ cognitive and psychological states may be different when answering the questionnaires as opposed to when they face real situations ( Kivikangas et al, 2011 ). In addition, specific self-report items might be open to different interpretations ( Lanyon and Goodstein, 1997 ), and some questions require people to possess overt knowledge of their dispositions ( Schmitt, 1994 ), which is not always possible.…”

Assessment of cognitive instrumental activities of daily living: a systematic review

“…In the future this could be of great interest for the assessment of IADLs. Virtual reality is even being considered to evaluate decision making regarding risk behaviors [107].…”