A quantitative comparison of virtual and physical experimental paradigms for the investigation of pedestrian responses in hostile emergencies.
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Date
2024-03-22
Open Access Location
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Springer Nature
Rights
(c) 2024 The Author/s
CC BY 4.0
CC BY 4.0
Abstract
Modern experiments investigating human behaviour in emergencies are often implemented in virtual reality (VR), due to the increased experimental control and improved ethical viability over physical reality (PR). However, there remain questions regarding the validity of the results obtained from these environments, and no full validation of VR experiments has yet appeared. This study compares the results of two sets of experiments (in VR and PR paradigms) investigating behavioural responses to knife-based hostile aggressors. This study quantitatively analyses these results to ascertain whether the different paradigms generate different responses, thereby assessing the use of virtual reality as a data generating paradigm for emergencies. The results show that participants reported almost identical psychological responses. This study goes on to identify minimal differences in movement responses across a range of predictors, noting a difference in responses between genders. As a result, this study concludes that VR can produce similarly valid data as physical experiments when investigating human behaviour in hostile emergencies, and that it is therefore possible to conduct realistic experimentation through VR environments while retaining confidence in the resulting data. This has major implications for the future of this type of research, and furthermore suggests that VR experimentation should be performed for both existing and new critical infrastructure to understand human responses in hostile scenarios.
Description
Keywords
Emergencies, Experiments, Pedestrian dynamics, Humans, Male, Female, Emergencies, Pedestrians, Virtual Reality, Physical Examination, Mental Processes
Citation
Shipman A, Majumdar A, Feng Z, Lovreglio R. (2024). A quantitative comparison of virtual and physical experimental paradigms for the investigation of pedestrian responses in hostile emergencies.. Sci Rep. 14. 1. (pp. 6892-).