Dialing up the danger: Virtual reality for the simulation of risk

Dialing up the danger: Virtual
reality for the simulation of risk
Verity McIntosh1,2
*
1
Bristol VR Lab, University of the West of England, Bristol, United Kingdom, 2
Digital Cultures Research
Centre, University of the West of England, Bristol, United Kingdom
There is a growing interest the use of virtual reality (VR) to simulate unsafe
spaces, scenarios, and behaviours. Environments that might be difficult, costly,
dangerous, or ethically contentious to achieve in real life can be created in
virtual environments designed to give participants a convincing experience of
“being there.” There is little consensus in the academic community about the
impact of simulating risky content in virtual reality, and a scarcity of evidence to
support the various hypotheses which range from VR being a safe place to
rehearse challenging scenarios to calls for such content creation to be halted
for fear of irreversible harm to users. Perspectives split along disciplinary lines,
with competing ideas emerging from cultural studies and games studies, from
psychology and neuroscience, and with industry reports championing the
efficacy of these tools for information retention, time efficiency and cost,
with little equivalence in information available regarding impact on the
wellbeing of participants. In this study we use thematic analysis and close
reading language analysis to investigate the way in which participants in a VR
training scenario respond to, encode and relay their own experiences. We find
that participants overall demonstrate high levels of “perceptual proximity” to the
experience, recounting it as something that happened to them directly and
personally. We discuss the impact of particular affordances of VR, as well as a
participant’s prior experience on the impact of high-stress simulations. Finally,
we consider the ethical mandate for training providers to mitigate the risk of
traumatizing or re-traumatizing participants when creating high-risk virtual
scenarios.
KEYWORDS
virtual reality, risk, simulation, training, journalism, presence, ethics
Introduction
Industry partnership
Our industry partners in this study, Head Set are an immersive learning company,
founded by journalists Aela Callan and Kate Parkinson who have a combined experience
of over 30 years covering war, natural disasters and high risk assignments around the
world. They founded Head Set to address a perceived gap in existing training provision for
journalists. In recent years, high risk environment training for media professionals has
centred around Hostile Environment and First Aid Training or HEFAT, however as
OPEN ACCESS
EDITED BY
Sebastian Oberdörfer,
Julius Maximilian University of
Würzburg, Germany
REVIEWED BY
Matti Pouke,
University of Oulu, Finland
Gabriela Ripka,
Julius Maximilian University of
Würzburg, Germany
*CORRESPONDENCE
Verity McIntosh,
verity.mcintosh@uwe.ac.uk
SPECIALTY SECTION
This article was submitted to Virtual
Reality and Human Behaviour,
a section of the journal
Frontiers in Virtual Reality
RECEIVED 31 March 2022
ACCEPTED 15 July 2022
PUBLISHED 11 August 2022
CITATION
McIntosh V (2022), Dialing up the
danger: Virtual reality for the simulation
of risk.
Front. Virtual Real. 3:909984.
doi: 10.3389/frvir.2022.909984
COPYRIGHT
© 2022 McIntosh. This is an open-
access article distributed under the
terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution License (CC BY). The use,
distribution or reproduction in other
forums is permitted, provided the
original author(s) and the copyright
owner(s) are credited and that the
original publication in this journal is
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or reproduction is permitted which does
not comply with these terms.
Frontiers in Virtual Reality frontiersin.org
01
TYPE Original Research
PUBLISHED 11 August 2022
DOI 10.3389/frvir.2022.909984

identified in a study by the Dart Centre for Journalism and
Trauma, this training has not kept pace with changes in the
industry:
“Training content remains military-and-battlefield centered,
despite journalists describing a far broader range of crisis
reporting/hostile environment assignments. Lack of training on
gender-based violence as well as other gender- and culture-related
topics are major gaps, as is gender equity among trainers.
Trauma-awareness and digital security trainings also remain
significantly limited.” (Slaughter et al., 2017).
In response, Head Set have developed a half-day learning
module entitled “Stress Management and Civil Unrest” These
sessions are designed to support journalists who might be
expected to report from high risk scenarios such as protest,
riot and revolution. Each session includes a 20-min virtual reality
experience and a range of wraparound workshop activities, group
discussion and one-to-one support sessions.
Our researchers conducted a series of interviews with
participants immediately after they had completed Head Set’s
“Stress Management and Civil Unrest” sessions.
The virtual reality experience is of a scenario in which the
participant and a virtual colleague are deployed to report on a
protest. Protesters have gathered in a Central London park in the
United Kingdom to signal their opposition to coronavirus
restrictions. The reporters are singled out and accused of
being proponents of “fake news” and the crowd becomes
hostile. The experience unfolds to include a series of high risk
and violent encounters involving the participant, police and
protesters. It has been designed to “dial up the danger,”
evoking a visceral “fight, flight or freeze” impulse which is
later discussed and examined within the wider training session.
The visual style is semi-abstract, using high-contrast colours
and with figures and environmental features rendered as mesh-
like structures against a black background (see Figures 1, 2). Use
of scale, movement, and sound are hyper-realistic, using high
quality motion capture and spatial audio techniques to enhance
the perceived authenticity of the scene.
The experience is intended to heighten participant’s sense of
presence, danger and powerlessness, and provides a common
point of reference that is used to teach strategies to protect
physical and emotional safety in future deployments.
As this use case is still novel, we chose to take an inductive
approach to the research, allowing the process of enquiry to
inform the outcomes. However, our overarching research
questions, developed with our industry partners were as
following:
RQ1: How do participants experience and communicate their
own sense of presence, safety and agency in relation to this
particular virtual reality experience?
FIGURE 1
Screen capture of characters interacting as shown in trailer video of “Stress Management and Civil Unrest” VR experience by Head Set. Video
available from https://vimeo.com/465319599.
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RQ2: What are the ethical dimensions and questions that
should be considered when producing virtual reality
simulations of unsafe environments?
Training in virtual reality
Virtual reality has long been considered an attractive
proposition for the purposes of simulation and training. In
2005, before the latest wave of head mounted displays
emerged, Sanchez-Vives and Slater theorised about the
potential of Virtual Environments (VEs):
“It allows the creation of sensory environments that can be
replicated almost identically and that are under the full control of
the experimenter, including the creation of scenarios and
conditions that are too expensive or dangerous, or even
impossible to create in physical reality” (Sanchez-Vives and
Slater, 2005).
Since then, virtual reality simulation for training has become
big business, moving out of research labs and firmly into the
private sector with PwC estimating the value to the UK economy
alone at $294.2 billion by 2030 (PwC, 2019) The same report
suggests that:
“The use of VR and AR in training boosts engagement and
knowledge retention and enables organisations to enforce
consistent, measurable standards at scale. The technology also
provides a way to train employees where it is not always
practical—or safe—to do so in the real world. For example, to
simulate emergency situations or asset maintenance in dangerous
environments.” (PwC, 2019).
Current use cases for virtual reality as a site of training cover a
broad spectrum. These include procedural training using specific
instruments or techniques e.g., decontamination procedures for
healthcare workers (Make Real, 2021), or flight simulations
allowing pilot to rehearse risky manoeuvres (EASA, 2021). VR
can also be used to simulate disaster scenarios, enabling
emergency response training such in areas such as fire safety
(Rossler, Sankaranarayanan and Duvall, 2019).
Virtual reality simulation is also increasingly being used for
more “soft skills” training such as leadership (Mursion, 2020),
customer service (Bellos, 2021) as well as in anti-bias and EDI
training (Bodyswaps, 2022).
In “Reality Check: How Immersive Technologies can
Transform your Business” Dalton (also the author of the PwC
report) suggests that “VR gives us the best of all worlds: the ability
to create a believable, engaging and repeatable emergency but
without the associated danger of the real thing” (Dalton, 2021).
In the past 20 + years there has been extensive research into
virtual reality as a site of learning that can be utilised in both
educational and professional contexts. Some suggest that the
more immersive something is, the more information trainees
retain (Alhalabi, 2016; Krokos, Plaisant and Varshney, 2019)
although others suggest the reverse (Ochs and Sonderegger,
2022). Another study suggested that the emotion elicited by
FIGURE 2
Screen capture of riot sequence as shown in trailer video of “Stress Management and Civil Unrest” VR experience by Head Set. Video available
from https://vimeo.com/465319599.
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the experience had the greatest impact on memory, whereas the
impact of presence on memory was weak (Cadet and Chainay,
2020). Dalton cautions against ascribing umbrella value
judgements to a medium when there is so much potential for
variation in content design:
“Like all tools, VR is only as effective as the person that wields it.
Poorly designed experiences or ineffective applications of the technology
can be damaging to a learning objective. Knowing when to adopt
immersive learning is as valuable as knowing when not to.” (Dalton,
2021).
Suffice to say, perspectives and results regarding the efficacy
of VR training vary significantly, however a recent meta-analysis
concluded that training delivered using a virtual reality headset
“can improve both knowledge and skill development, and
maintain the learning effect over time.” (Wu et al., 2020).
Makransky and Peterson (2021) also attempt to synthesise a
large corpus of study in order to identify the contributing factors
that can combine to maximise the apparent benefits of using
virtual reality for training and education. They propose that “(h)
eightened levels of situational interest, intrinsic motivation, self-
efficacy, embodiment, and self-regulation and lower levels of
cognitive load can have positive effects on learning outcomes”
(Makransky and Petersen, 2021).
As is so often the case in fast-moving industrial practices, some
of the most influential data regarding the efficacy of immersive
training practices has not come from peer reviewed study, but from
influential corporate players who have published results of their own
studies. A 2020 report by management consultancy firm, PwC
entitled “The Effectiveness of Virtual Reality Soft Skills Training
in the Enterprise” (PwC, 2020) is routinely quoted by training
providers as “evidence” of the effectiveness of immersive training
provision at a corporate level. The PwC report suggests that relative
to in-person or online counterparts, those training in virtual reality
(v-learners) are:
- “Up to 275%” more confident in what they have learned;
- 4x more focused during learning;
- Able to complete training 4x faster;
- 3.75x more emotionally connected to learning;
- And that “v-learning” is more cost effective at scale than
other forms of training. (PwC, 2020).
PwC do not publish their source data or methods therefore it
is difficult to comment on the accuracy of their findings, however
the influence of such firms on global investment and public
policy is well established (Kipping, 2003; Morgan et al., 2019).
Such strong advocacy is likely to have an impact on market
confidence and the subsequent growth of the sector.
Whilst there has been a significant amount of research into virtual
reality training, the emphasis thus far has been on the most
commercially salient factors such as information retention, cost
and scalability. Less is currently known about the experience of
individual participants. In this paper we aim to offer a more
participant-centred lens through which to consider ethics and
impact of this medium.
Presence
Headset based virtual reality gives participants a unique
vantage point from which to experience story worlds and
media content. Rather than observing at a distance from a
rectangular screen as with film, tv, games and mobile
experiences, the user now finds themselves at the centre of an
unfolding circumstance, a circumstance that occurs all around
them, and that they are now a part of. This sensation is often
referred to as “presence” “that peculiar sense of “being there”
unique to virtual reality” (Bailenson, 2018).
Unlike it is more quantifiable cousin, “immersion” (Sanchez-
Vives and Slater, 2005), a participant’s subjective experience of
presence can be difficult to pin down. In recent years,
psychologists and neuroscientists have offered various
approaches to support better understanding of this elusive
notion of “presence.” Some recommend segmenting
according to:
• Environmental presence, the feeling of being present in a
space
• Social presence, feeling present with other people
• Self-presence, the sensation of being a physically present
entity. (Lee, 2004; Ratan, 2012; Won et al., 2015).
Maintaining a persistent sense of presence in VR may have
similarities to the perennial notion of “flow” in games design
(Csikszentmihalyi, 1990; Chen, 2007). Chen describes designing
for “flow” as a way to “maintain and extend an interactive
experience before it is interrupted.” Breaks to flow such as
extra-diegetic menu screens, ludo-narrative dissonance, or
anything that might call attention to the non-game
circumstances of the player might be considered to work
against seemingly desirable state of “flow.” The same
philosophy is frequently encountered in VR design, where
“total immersion” is presumed to be the optimum state.
Increasingly powerful chipsets and publicly available
immersive toolsets such as Metahuman Creator for Unreal
Engine (Epic Games, 2021) and D-ID (D-ID, 2022)
demonstrate the capacity of converging artificial intelligence
(AI) and generative adversarial network (GAN) technologies
to rapidly create “high fidelity digital humans.” There appears
to be a corresponding trend in HCI research focussed on the
delivery of “virtual information that is indistinguishable from
reality” (Cuervo et al., 2018; Itoh et al., 2021).
Whilst increased “realism” in VR has not always been shown
to correlate with heightened user presence (Nunez, 2004), this
sectoral tendency is likely to further narrow the “perceptual gap”
between virtual and physical experience (Thomas and Glowacki,
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2018) in the years ahead. Slater et al. (2020) refer to this as
“superrealism” a near-future condition in which “(v)ery high
quality visual and behavioral realism of virtual humans is
becoming increasingly likely and available”.
Slater offers the following model for understanding presence:
- Place Illusion (PI)—the sensation of being in a real place
- Plausibility Illusion (Psi)—the illusion that a scenario being
depicted is actually occurring (Slater, 2009).
The latter provides useful nuance, allowing for the possibility
of an immersed participant reporting a strong sense of presence,
even eliciting “response as if real” behaviours known as RAIR
(Slater, 2009), whilst retaining firm grasp of the artifice of their
experience. Slater offers the above model with the qualifier that
“In the case of both PI and Psi the participant knows for sure that
they are not “there” and that the events are not occurring”.
For the simulation of risk, this dual consciousness, giving
cognitive priority to the virtual environment whilst retaining
awareness of the physical circumstances, might be a welcome
dynamic, enabling participants to feel present in a simulated
scenario whilst retaining a sense of personal safety as suggested
by PwC. The extent to which this dual understanding is
consistent, or insulating against potential harm, however, is
hotly contested.
Madary and Metzinger (2016) call attention the way that
those who use VR tend to recall their experiences by giving
“autophenomenological reports of the type “I am this!.”” This
is a response that seems quite different to other media
experiences such as film, television and games, where users
might refer to something they have “watched” or “played,”
rather than something they themselves have done. Madary
and Metzinger suggest that VR dissolves boundaries between a
user’s standard phenomenal self-model (PSM) and that of the
virtual persona they are embodying. They express concern
that “not only that there may be unexpected psychological
risks if illusions of embodiment are misused, or used
recklessly, but that, if we are interested in minimizing
potential damage and future psychosocial costs, these risks
are themselves ethically relevant.” (Madary and Metzinger,
2016).
A recent study indicates that, whilst participants
generally do understand that the virtual environment is
not the same as the real environment in the moment, the
spatial and relational qualities of virtual reality can make it
difficult to reliably distinguish between memories of “real”
and virtual experiences over time. They refer to this as a
blurring of “perceptual proximity” (Rubo et al., 2021)
between virtual reality and lived experience. It has been
suggested that this blurring may be even more
pronounced in younger participants (Liao et al., 2019)
who are still forming their phenomenological self-models
and sense of objective reality.
Embodiment
In virtual reality, the illusion of presence, particularly self-
presence is intrinsically linked to the concept of “embodiment.”
This partly relates to the presence or absence of an avatar, giving
the user a sense of their physicality in the virtual world.
Embodiment is also intrinsically connected to the participant’s
ability to take action within the virtual scene. At a basic level, the
embodied participant can choose where to look and for how long
in a virtual reality experience. If available, the participant in VR
may also choose to move around within a scene, to touch and
interact with objects in the environment, to make choices that
impact of the progression of the experience, to use their voice to
interact with non-playable characters, AI informed characters or
other participants in multi-person environments who have their
own agency and embodied reality to explore within the virtual
space.
Sanchez-Vives and Slater suggest that “Presence is
tantamount to successfully supported action in the
environment...reality is formed through actions, rather than
through mental filters.” They go on to suggest that “The key
to this approach is that the sense of “being there” in a VE is
grounded on the ability to “do” there” (Sanchez-Vives and Slater,
2005). This is an approach that has caused some within the
immersive sector to suggest replacing the term “storytelling” with
more experiential, user-centric language such as “story doing”
(Allen, 2017), “story living” (Connect4Climate, 2017; Robinson,
2016) or “story finding” (Uricchio, 2020) as terms that are more
indicative of the active role played by a participant within a
virtual reality story world.
Theories of embodied cognition suggest that we explore and
make sense of the world (VR or otherwise) through our bodies,
using senses like touch, taste, proprioception and kinaesthesia in
order to map and reinforce the experiential reality of our
experiences (Merleau-Ponty, 1962). Users have been shown to
demonstrate high levels of “homuncular flexibility” adapting to
unfamiliar bodies in virtual reality, rapidly accepting their own
re-embodiment, for example as a frog or a dragonfly or in “The
Eyes of the Animals” by Marshmallow Laser Feast, a ghost-like
entity without fixed corporal form “Bodyless” by Hsin-Chien
Huang. In a research context, participants have shown
remarkable aptitude for accommodating additional limbs in
VR simulations, rapidly remapping their standard body
control systems to accommodate new kinaesthetic capabilities
(Won et al., 2015).
The sensorial nature of presence and embodiment in VR has
profound consequences for users experiencing simulations of
hazardous or unsafe environments. In the infamous “Rubber
Hand Illusion” (Botvinick and Cohen, 1998) test subjects
consistently experience a rubber hand as their own and seek
to protect it when threatened. This illusion appears transferable
into virtual reality experiences, in which “VR technology directly
targets the mechanism by which human beings
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phenomenologically identify with the content of their self-
model.” (Madary and Metzinger, 2016) Even without the
tactile stimuli of the rubber hand illusion, some users report
sensations of physical touch, colloquially termed “phantom
touch,” in response to collisions with virtual elements or
avatar-to-avatar contact in social VR spaces.
In a virtual reality recreation of Milgram’s infamous
obedience tests, Slater suggests that the perception of threat
and harm in virtual reality extends beyond consequences for the
subject’s own body. Participants in Slater’s study express
concern for the safety of a virtual character, frequently
refusing to deliver electrical shocks as instructed when the
virtual character exhibits signs of distress. Slater et al. (2006)
conclude that “humans tend to respond realistically at
subjective, physiological, and behavioural levels in interaction
with virtual characters notwithstanding their cognitive
certainty that they are not real” (Slater et al., 2006). More
recently the Stanford “empty chair experiment” has
demonstrated that people will avoid sitting in a physical
chair if they have previously seen it occupied by an
augmented reality character, even after removing the headset
that would allow them to regard it as such. These experiments
suggesting a tendency for immersed participants to incorporate
a virtual character’s corporeality into their perceptual models
(Miller et al., 2019).
Emotive response
Virtual reality has been shown to have effective mood
inductive qualities “with the most common emotions elicited
being anxiety, relaxation, fear and joy” (Bernardo et al., 2020)
Studies have shown VR to be an effective tool for eliciting positive
emotions such as a sense of “awe” in participants (Chirico et al.,
2018) in support of mindfulness exercises (Chandrasiri et al.,
2020).
A study comparing gaming using a laptop and using virtual
reality headsets, Lavoie et al. (2021) observed that “those in the
VR condition reported higher levels of absorption, which in turn
increased the intensity of their negative emotional response to the
scenario.” They expressed concerned about the levels of negative
rumination observed in participants in follow up questionnaires
later in the day, connecting it to the symptoms of PTSD and
positing that “depending on the nature of the gameplay, VR use
can cause some users to experience emotional harm” (Lavoie
et al., 2021).
Virtual reality is often discussed in terms of its capacity to
elicit an empathic response in users. Claims about the potential of
virtual reality non-fiction experiences to encourage “pro-social”
behaviours (Milk, 2015; Slater and Sanchez-Vives, 2016) have
been influential in the development of the sector, with significant
support from Oculus (now Meta Quest) through their “VR for
Good” program, providing investment for content designed to
“expand our understanding of people and cultures around the
world—all through the power of virtual reality.” (Oculus, 2021).
In response to such claims, several scholars have called into
question the “pro-social” impact by challenging the replicability
of the findings (Farmer, 2019), questioning validity and
appropriateness of the claims (Nash, 2018; Rose, 2018) and
the cultural assumptions and colonial lens through which
notions of empathy and pro-sociality are being considered
(Nakamura, 2020).
Potential for harm
As alluded to above, many of the seemingly positive
affordances of virtual reality simulation contain within them
the potential for negative impact. In their proposed “code of
ethical conduct,” Madary and Metzinger (2016) offer a
comprehensive appraisal of potentially problematic issues and
offer some practicable guidance for the mitigation of risk. In
several cases, the risks identified are the inverse of elsewhere
identified positive affordances, such as eliciting empathetic
responses and inducing participants to make pro-social
choices. They reason “(j)ust as VR can be used to increase
empathy, it can conceivably be used to decrease empathy.
Doing so would have obvious military applications in training
soldiers to have less empathy for enemy combatants, to feel no
remorse about doing violence.” They also signal the risks
associated with mood induction “the power of VR to induce
particular kinds of emotions could be used deliberately to cause
suffering.” They go so far as to suggest that “Torture in a virtual
environment is still torture. The fact that one’s suffering occurs
while one is immersed in a virtual environment does not mitigate
the suffering itself.”
Perhaps anticipating a “but it is not real” response from their
readership, Madary and Metzinger assert:
“Because of the transparency of the emotional layers in the
human self-model, it will be experienced as real, even if it is
accompanied by cognitive-level insight into the nature of the
overall situation. Powerful emotional responses occur even when
subjects are aware of the fact that they are in a virtual
environment” (Madary and Metzinger, 2016).
In “Making a New Reality,” Sinclair suggests that “virtual
reality pieces that hack the user’s brain into feeling present in a
virtual space and embodied in a virtual body require a higher
level of ethical interrogation” (Sinclair and Clark, 2020) calling
for new standards and accountability protocols to be established
for this new medium.
Madary and Metzinger (2016) suggest that there are certain
“red lines not to be crossed in reality” offering “(o)bvious
candidates for such content would be sex (virtual paedophilia,
virtual rape) and violence.” These red lines cover broad terrain
and, if enacted, would shut down many of the most popular VR
titles of the moment which, at the time of writing include Gun
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Raiders, a “VR shooter for all ages” (Gun Raiders Entertainment
Inc., 2021) and Blade and Sorcery (Warpfrog, 2021), a medieval
melee fighting game in which “the combat is limited only by your
own creativity” The red lines of sex and violence would also
presumably apply to the VR porn industry, valued at
$716 million in 2021 and projected to grow to $19 billion by
2026 (Woodford, 2021), although it may be reasonably inferred
that Madary and Metzinger were referring to specific categories
of sexual content in their recommendations.
For immersive journalism pioneer, Nonny de la Peña, the
visceral, emotional and potentially upsetting nature of VR as a
storytelling device is entirely the point. She acknowledges the risk
of creating traumatic experiences and looks for approaches in her
work that prioritize “telling the truth without traumatizing
people” (Bye, 2022). De la Peña recommends the existing
journalistic practice of foreshadowing graphic content and
offering specific content warnings in advance to give people
the opportunity not to engage if they so choose. She also speaks
about the responsibility of makers to consider the ethics of
audience experience in what they choose to show and not
show, particularly in nonfiction VR.
For Bailenson too, the potential to heighten emotions and
simulate specific, high-stress scenarios is a strength of the
medium. Referencing research working with US veterans he
suggests “(i)n people with PTSD, we can use VR to bring
them closer to reality, to heighten their emotions by
programming real-seeming environments and put them in
touch with their memories” (Bailenson, 2018).
The question of what constitutes “harm” and “safety” is
complex and highly subjective, with contrasting viewpoints in
evidence across disciplines. We do not try to resolve this
complexity in this paper, but aim to contribute to an evidence
base that will support informed and responsible practice within
the sector. In recent interviews with VR industry professionals,
Lavoie et al. (2021) “highlighted a desire for and lack of
knowledge about the psychological consequences of VR.”
They shared that makers frequently expressed “concern for
the well-being of VR users” but found a vacuum of
information “limiting their ability to take steps to mitigate any
negative outcomes.” With this case study we hope to offer some
first steps towards better information in this regard and would
welcome further evidence-based study of this topic.
Influence of demographic context
One study that offers a route into these questions is a VR
audience study conducted by William Uricchio (MIT Open
Documentary Lab) at the 2019 International Documentary
Festival of Amsterdam (IDFA) DocLab. IDFA DocLab is a
festival of non-fiction immersive and interactive experiences
and a key feature of the immersive industry calendar. The
study was designed by Uricchio who was himself inspired by
the writings of psychologist Jerome Bruner (1986). In
contemporary studies, Bruner invited subjects to give “re-
tellings” of recent experiences, encouraging them to “tell us
back the story in their own words” and (something of a
linguistic red herring for our purposes), to create “a virtual
text.” Researchers would then apply close reading techniques
to explore the effect and subjectivity of each individual’s
experience.
In 2019, Uricchio and team similarly invited participants to
“re-tell” their experiences of works in the public exhibition
programme, either in verbal interviews or by completing a
written questionnaire immediately following their experience.
Uricchio explains; “Factors such as person (“I” or “you” or “he/
she”), agency, and voice were as important to Bruner’s analysis as
the world depicted and the manner of its depiction. Did the
subject “witness” a scene, or were they involved as an element of
or an actant in the scene? We adopted this close-reading
approach in order to understand how users experienced
particular immersive projects.” (Uricchio, 2020).
Following close analysis, Uricchio’s preliminary
findings suggest that a participants’ demography can
influence their use of first/second/third person. The
study found that novice users of VR were “most effusive”
and frequently “referred to themselves in action mode”
using the first person “I/we” forms, whereas those more
familiar with the form “tended to describe the projects’
effect in the second and third person but rarely first”
(Uricchio, 2020). He also notes gender-based variations,
reporting that male interviewees “tended to be evaluative
rather than experiential,” and that female respondents were
more likely to report dizziness and nausea.
Refined research questions
Based on the literature we created a series of research sub-
questions (SQ) or exploratory statements that could be further
investigated in relation to our study:
SQ1 Participants will retell their experience of the VR module
as though it were something that had happened to them
directly, engaging the PSM as predicted by Madary and
Metzinger, and evidenced by primary use of the first
person (I/we).
SQ2 Participants with prior experience of VR will be more
likely to use second or third person personal pronouns (you/
he/she/they) as predicted by Uricchio, indicating higher levels
of detachment from the subject matter.
SQ3 Participants will experience a persistent sense of presence
and embodiment, reporting RAIR (Response as if real) as
described by Slater in relation to the VR training materials.
SQ4 The simulation of risk will be reported as emotionally
impactful as predicted by Bernando, Chirico etc.
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SQ5 The simulation of risk may be reported as traumatic, as
hypothesized by Madary and Metzinger.
Materials and methods
Stress management and civil unrest
training with head set
Participants experienced the virtual reality component of
their training sessions using a Pico Neo two Eye headset (see
Figure 3), which allowed them to look and move around within
the virtual world with six degrees of freedom (6DOF) without
being tethered to an external computer.
Participants used a hand controller for interactions in-app.
Within the narrative the controller primarily appears as a mobile
phone in the participant’s hand. It allows them to communicate
with the news desk when prompted, and to capture photographs
of the unfolding scene.
Developing a methodology
The methodology used was developed in conversation with
William Uricchio from MIT Open Documentary Lab and builds
on the framework previously mentioned for the audience study at
IDFA DocLab 2019.
Our research team conducted semi-structured interviews
with 22 individuals over four sessions from April to
September 2021, each of whom had just completed the half
day training course “Stress Management and Civil Unrest” with
Head Set. Questions available on request from corresponding
author.
All of the Head Set training sessions were conducted
remotely via Zoom video conferencing software. Sessions ran
for 3 h and included a 20-min VR experience. To support remote
participation during the global pandemic, Pico Neo virtual reality
headsets were either shipped by Head Set to the participant’s
home setting or collected by participants from Bristol VR Lab at
the University of the West of England.
In addition to the VR component, the “Stress Management
and Civil Unrest” sessions included information, support and
training related to contemporary journalism, shifting public
attitudes, stress management and mental health, as well as
space for participants to share experiences and ideas with one
another. These elements were not captured. The training and
research interviews were conducted on a one-to-one basis
immediately following the training sessions and were
conducted in “breakout rooms” in the same Zoom call as was
used for the training.
In the IDFA study Uricchio observed that “spoken interviews
yielded much richer information about the users’ experience than
did the written questionnaires” (Uricchio, 2020) In response, all
of our interviews were conducted verbally.
In our choice of interview questions, we retained much of the
language used by Uricchio (2020) encouraging our respondents
to give Bruner-esque long-form retelling e.g., “describe what
happened as though you were telling a friend.” We additionally
gathered basic demographic information about the participants
to allow us to examine data in relation to potential differentiators
FIGURE 3
Pico Neo two Eye headset used by participants to experience virtual reality module. Image shared with permission from Tobii Ltd.
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identified in the literature such as age, gender, connection to the
subject matter and prior experience with virtual reality.
Sample
Training sessions were available only to industry
professionals, and all participants identified as journalist or
media professionals.
We understood from our industry partners, Head Set, that in
modern journalism, freelancers make up a significant proportion
of those currently working in the sector, as confirmed by Massey
and Elmore (2018). As they are rarely directly employed by large
media agencies, freelancers are consequently less likely to be
funded to receive the specialist training offered by Head Set in
this instance. As such, we were concerned that a key perspective
would be absent from our study.
To improve industry representation in the sample we
leveraged additional funding from Bristol and Bath Creative R
and D program to run specific sessions at no cost for freelance
journalists, ensuring that their voices were included in our study.
We partnered with three news agencies in Bristol,
United Kingdom, Bristol 24/7, Rife Magazine and The Bristol
Cable. All of these agencies work mainly or entirely with
freelancers and in partnering with them we were able to offer
two designated sessions at zero cost to their network of
freelancers.
Analysis
All interviews have been transcribed and anonymised. We
used NVivo and LIWC2015 software to support close reading
on a per-transcript basis, and trend analysis across the full
sample.
Using NVivo, we conducted thematic analysis, initially
coding for the key terms; “presence,” “safety” and “agency”
derived from our first research question. On reviewed the full
transcripts we additionally coded for “efficacy” i.e., the
effectiveness of the VR in a training context and “association”
to capture instances where participants made associative links to
memories or situations beyond the immediate context of the
training. Both additional codes were added in response to their
prevalence within the transcripts.
We closely reviewed the coded passages, looking for
recurrent or contradictory themes, and for recurrent overlap
or lack thereof between codes.
Using LIWC2015 we ran a full spectrum of linguistic analysis
and reviewed the results for points of conspicuous significance.
We gave particular focus to the use of personal pronouns as a
means to test the first two of our research sub-questions (SQ1 and
SQ2). We additionally consulted research published by LIWC
(Pennebaker et al., 2015) offering further insight into the
common use of personal pronouns in different forms of
literature.
As a means of appraising our third, forth and fifth research
sub-questions (SQ3, SQ4, and SQ5) exploring behavioural and
emotional response, we ran a word frequency query using NVivo,
noting commonly occurring descriptive terms, and reviewing
these in tandem this with the linguistic analysis provided but
LIWC 2015, particularly the specific measures of positive and
negative emotion (posemo and negemo) as well as cognitive
processing load (cogproc).
In the results below, key data points and exemplar quotes
have been chosen to illustrate general trends.
Results
Participants
All of our participants described themselves as journalists or
media professionals, with a broad range of journalistic
experience. In our sample 50% preferred “she/her” pronouns,
45% preferred “he/him” and 5% preferred “they/them.”
Participant’s ages varied with most in the 20–29 or
30–39 categories (36% of sample from each) followed by the
40–49 and 50–59 categories (14% of the sample from each). None
of our respondents were <20 or >60.
The levels of journalistic experience ranged from relative
newcomer (6 months) to veteran reporter (25 years). Only 27%
had previously received hostile environment training and 14%
had received public disorder training. We asked participants to
estimate the number of “high risk instances” they had personally
experienced during their careers to date, and responses ranged
from zero to 50+, with the most common response being
10–30 instances.
We asked about participant’s prior experience of virtual
reality to allow us to interpret the impact of headset
familiarity and novelty into our analysis. From this we learned
that 34% of participants had experienced headset-based VR prior
to their session with Head Set, the rest had no prior experience of
this medium.
Of the 22 participants, 14 attended via sessions offered
specifically to freelance journalists. It is possible the other
sessions also included freelancers but this information was not
captured by the research team.
Use of language
The majority of participants (68%) mostly or entirely used
the first person “I/we” forms when retelling their experiences.
This supports the premise of our first research sub-question
(SQ1) and that of Madary and Metzinger 2016) and Rubo et al.
(2021) suggesting that VR experiences directly engage the
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FIGURE 4
Chart illustrating study participant’s primary use of personal pronouns.
FIGURE 5
Chart illustrating comparative use of personal pronouns in different literary contexts.
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phenomenal self-model (PSM), leading participants to report
experiences as something actively experienced. The second
person “you” was mostly or entirely used by just 32% of
participants, and whilst there were sporadic uses of the third
person “she/he/they” across the transcripts, there were no
instances where it was mostly or entirely used in a single
retelling. One notable instance of third person usage occurred
when a participant adjusted their usage from third to first person
mid-sentence to emphasize their own sense of presence within
the scene “he found himself in a dead- We found ourselves in a
dead end.”
Our second research sub-question (SQ2), based on the
Uricchio IDFA study (Uricchio, 2020) predicted that
participants with prior experience with virtual reality would
be more likely to use the second and third person in their
retelling, signalling higher levels of detachment than those
new to VR. As above (Figure 4) this predicted behaviour was
not borne out in our findings. In this study the first person “I/we”
was dominant across the spectrum of novice and familiar users,
with a proportionally higher instances of second rather than first
person usage in those with no prior experience of VR, inverting
our expectations.
One interesting discovery in the data was derived from a
LIWC2015 paper offering comparative baselines for how
personal pronouns are commonly used in different literary
contexts (Pennebaker et al., 2015). In our study, the frequency
and weighting of participant’s use of personal pronouns most
closely resembled language used on social media platform, twitter
(see Figure 5).
To take an even more granular view, zooming in on use of the
first person, our participant’s use of “I” (4.58) is almost
equivalent to instances found on twitter (4.75), but
approximately half that of natural speech (7.03). Instances of
“we” in our participant’s re-tellings (1.56) were higher than any
other baseline, more than twice that of twitter (0.74), and most
closely resembling blog entries (0.91).
Although not a defined research sub-question, we did test our
data against indications from the Uricchio study that gender
would contribute to the use of effusive, evaluative and
experiential language. We did not find any significant
correlations related to gender although it may be helpful to
conduct more detailed analysis in future investigations.
Response as if real
Research sub-question 3 (SQ3) predicted that participants
would experience a persistent sense of presence and
embodiment, responding to the virtual reality scenario as
though it were real. We explore a range of emotive responses
below, however in a very physical sense, the interviews were
peppered with examples of participants bodily responding to the
unfolding scenario as though it were real, or stopping just short of
doing so. One participant reported ducking down and trying to
become inconspicuous in order to “keep my profile low.” Another
described trying to engage the charaters in conversation, and
another reported “when everything started erupting or happening,
they say “run” and for a second I almost ran. It just stopped me
feeling the sofa, in my house.” As we were not observing the VR
experiences there is a limit to how much we can infer about the
level physical response demonstrated by participants, however
participant retellings do contain frequent references to RAIR
suggesting that they felt present, embodied and physically
implicated in the scenes.
Presence and safety
To investigate research questions 4 and 5 (SQ4 and SQ5),
examining emotive response and trauma respectively, we looked
more closely at the discursive tone and language used by
participants, particularly as they relate to our research questions.
Across the sample, participants’ sense of presence and safety
seem richly intertwined. Multiple people spoke about the
sensation of being there and the curiousness of how quickly
they were convinced of being in another place. One participant
commented “I was really aware of everything happening and I was
reacting it like it was a real scenario.” Another described the
experience as something that “didn’t go through my rational
filter”.
As predicted by Slater (Slater, 2009), participants retained an
awareness that the events were not actually occurring, but that
they still felt present, exhibiting “response-as-if-real,” cognitively
prioritising the virtual reality experience over their physical
surroundings.
“It felt real, or something. I mean it is unreal but you feel
emotionally connected to the experience even though you know
that it is not real”.
“I thought I had that very clear in my head but there were
moments where I obviously reacted it like it was real life because I
jumped at something.”
Some spoke about their sense of themselves in relation to the
scenario, and the implications of “being there” for them
personally.
“even though I was not in the VR experience as (anon), I was
aware of the fact that I was (anon), a female journalist, but also a
Muslim journalist, but also a Black journalist . . . So, I was also
aware of these things that I was thinking about in the back of my
head, as to how people are going to respond to that.”
Many spoke about how visceral the experience was for them.
One participant shared “it really gives you that very physical sense
of going through something, which you can’t get from just going,
“Well, yes, there was this time when I went and did this and it was
stressful and this is why.” But you can’t really remember how it
physically felt.” Several suggested that this more embodied mode
of experience was a positive feature of the training, giving them a
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strong sense of how they might now act were they to find
themselves in a similar situation in real life.
As strong sense of presence was in evidence in the way
that many of the participants spoke about their own safety
e.g., “the dog could bite me,” “my colleague was being
assaulted very violently, and it felt like I might be next”
and “I felt very unsafe”.
Although many reported feeling personally threatened or at
risk, it is important to note that this was frequently referred to
as a strength of the virtual reality training module, as inferred
by de la Peña (Bye, 2022) and Bailenson (2018). One participant
commented on the sense of scale she experienced. “It was really
good to feel like that person behind me was someone who could
intimidate me, a lot taller, a lot bigger. That was really good.”
This in her view, enhanced the believability and thus the
efficacy of the training. Another referenced the utility of VR
identified by Dalton (2021) and others to simulate danger
without physical consequences “It was really useful to go
beyond that and into an actual violent experience without
being in any danger, that was a really helpful thing to
experience.”
One participant spoke of the compounding effect of the
intensity of the content and the experience of being in a
headset, a new experience for him “that feeling of being
surrounded is very- Like the claustrophobia of that. Especially
because you are inside this funny headset thing, which you’re not
used to being, so you are a bit unsure of yourself anyway.”
Some also spoke of an awareness of their safety outside of the
headset. “I was so worried I was going to run into the fridge or
something.” One spoke of a break in presence when they
inadvertently stepped outside of the boundaries of the
experience and gained a view of their home environment via
the headset’s pass-through cameras, prompting temporary
confusion and disorientation.
Beyond concerns for their own safety, in or out of the virtual
world, multiple participants described a strong connection to
other virtual characters, particularly “Ravi” who is introduced as
the participant’s colleague, and is the victim of physical violence
at the conclusion of the narrative. One participant related “these
big men set upon the colleague and they beat him up, and that is
very mean. And you can’t do anything about that.”
Safety and agency
The participants’ perceived sense of safety also seemed
connected to their agency, or ability to influence the
unfolding circumstances.
In the virtual reality experience, participants had six degrees
of freedom and therefore the agency to look all around and to
move within the scene. They had a virtual mobile phone which
was used to connect with the newsroom and to take photographs
at salient moments. Beyond that, the piece has been designed
with limited agency and does not contain “decision points” or
complex interactivity.
Several of the participants spoke about the frustration of not
being able to take more action. One recounted that “in this
experience we didn’t have much choices (sic) I feel very
unprotected. (. . .) Maybe in real life you have a few more
options because you can still run away but in this case we
couldn’t run.” Words like “powerless,” “helpless,” “control” and
“vulnerable” occurred frequently across the transcripts. Some
found it particularly disconcerting that circumstances ran
contrary to decisions they might have taken, “that really
stressed me out, actually, because I would not have done that
in real life”.
Some participants expressed a desire for more agency to
enable more role playing within the scene, for example “I would
have liked to have the opportunity to test in a safe environment
what my decision-making ability would have been.” Others,
however, noted the congruence to the subject matter,
suggesting “(i)t created that feeling of powerlessness that you
might have actually while working or even some of it, even in
daydreaming, it was quite effective and quite emotional.” This
maps to Head Set’s approach in the design of the experience,
choosing to simulate the “freeze response” journalists might
experience when faced with high stress environments. They go
on to discuss the “fight, flight and freeze” responses and in the
wider training session.
The impact of prior experience
Based on the IDFA study by Uricchio (2020) we explored the
potential of demographic factors such as gender, age and prior
experience to influence participant’s emotive responses. The
most significant modifier seems to have been the journalist’s
level experience “in the field” prior to participating in the session.
Interestingly, those responding in the most emotive terms seem
to be those with either the least or the most directly related
experience.
Journalists with little experience of high-risk deployments
discussed being confronted by the potential of future risks e.g.,
“The reality has really been forced on me that situations really can
turn nasty” with several confirming that they not considered the
risks shown, or what their responses to them might be prior to
the training.
We found that those with several years’ experience as a
journalist, but with low or no experience of high-risk
situations tended to describe their experience in less emotive
terms. One person reflected “I saw a simulation of a public
disorder covering gone wrong and it didn’t really make me feel
anything, to be honest.” Some in this category also suggested that
even stronger content might be desirable. “If it was somewhere
else, where maybe gun fire was used, I would want more sessions
basically. To deal with more escalated situations.”
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Many of those with significant experience in high-risk
deployments described their experience in VR in highly
emotive, visceral terms e.g., “this feeling of stress and this
feeling of helplessness. It was a very physical thing. My
heartbeat went up and I was hiding away and I felt like I froze
and I felt frustrated and all these are very real feelings that you will
not have over a Zoom session”.
For one experienced interviewee, the VR module gave them
an opportunity to reflect on their previous experience, and how
their attitudes may be changing in relation to their career
trajectory:
“And today in the protest, because it has been a long since I’ve
been in a situation like that I felt like, more scared that I would feel
before. We were talking about adrenalin. Before I would run
towards the fire, I would run towards the protest and if someone
was fighting, I would go closer to see what is going on. And maybe,
lately, which is something that I don’t really like to recognise,
because it means that I am becoming weaker in a way, for myself. I
am maybe feeling a bit, erm, trying to keep more distance from bad
situations.”
In this instance the virtual reality experience, coupled with
the workshop activities that followed appears to have given them
an opportunity to rehearse challenging scenarios and consider
their own personal and professional response.
Whilst the overall curve seems to suggest that those with low
or high experience will retell their experiences in more emotive
terms than those with moderate levels of experience, it is notable
that the outlier in this was the most experienced journalist we
spoke to who was comparatively dispassionate in his response to
the VR content. This individual had 25 years as a journalist and
had been involved in 50 + high risk deployments. He shared, “I
sort of saw it as a representation that was not within my actual
space” and “I didn’t feel a real connection with the kicking on the
floor. I was still watching it as a game.”
As an additional caveat, although prior experience appears to
have played a crucial role, several people spoke about the value of
the virtual reality module as providing a common point of
reference across the cohort “the VR experience all put us on a
level field, so we had all gone through something even if we hadn’t
experienced it in real life for years and years like other people had”.
Given the range of responses, research sub-question 4 (SQ4)
which predicted that “the simulation of risk will be reported as
emotionally impactful” has proved too general of a statement to
adequately interrogate here. It would be useful for future studies
to explore the hypothesis that close perceptual proximity
experienced in VR can result in the same simulated scenario
eliciting a range of subjective emotive responses among
participants. These responses we identified appear strongly
linked to the participant’s prior experience and personal
context. A larger sample size in future studies might offer
greater insight into the influence of direct subject-matter
contact and autobiographical experience in responses to VR
and the simulation of risk.
Risk of traumatizing/re-traumatizing.
Finally, we looked to explore our fifth research sub-question
(SQ5), based on the risk of so called “risky content” traumatizing
or re-traumatized users as raised by Madary and Metzinger
(2016). Some participants spoke about their own concerns in
this regard. One participant suggested that it was a safe space for
them to explore their own responses, but that if “you’ve got real
trauma issues, and then that’s not a very safe space in itself”.
Several participants reported that the experience was a trigger
to past memories, prompting some to revisit personal
experiences during their retellings of the VR experience. One
participant reported “For one moment, I just felt like I was in the
crowd with real people. So, I’m not sure, because I have similar
memories to this situation, so it came to me.” Another shared “it
took me back to a certain situation where I had something similar.
Not beaten, but something similar. Taken, or- Not kidnapped, in a
way, but taken, in a way.”
These reflections seem to imply an increase in the “perceptual
proximity” as discussed by Rubo et al. (2021) and a step towards
the negative rumination signposted by Lavoie et al. (2021),
testing the boundary between simulated content and memory.
Beyond the virtual
Despite our questions inviting participants to focus on the
virtual reality section in their retellings, many of them spoke at
length about the wider program of training and support
provided.
Participants were given a lot of detail about what would
unfold before putting on their headsets, including specific
content warnings about the violence that they would witness,
in line with the ethical approach recommended by de la Peña
(Bye, 2022).
In the group and individual discussions following the VR,
participants were given the opportunity to discuss their
experiences with one another and with the trainers, including
what they would do differently, and relating any upsetting or
triggering responses they had experienced. They were given
practical strategies for planning for high-risk deployments,
and managing their responses in the moment, developing
what Head Set refer to as an “emotional flak jacket” to
support emotional as well as physical safety.
When positioning this study in relation to the wider critical
context around the simulation of risk, we think it is important to
acknowledge the significant amount of “scaffolding” activity
offered by the training providers in this case study, serving to
contextualise the virtual reality experience for participants. The
full Head Set curriculum gives participants an opportunity to
explore their own responses in a professionally guided setting
and encourages them to gradually re-establish boundaries
between real and virtual threat.
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This layer of expertise and support does not always connect
well with the commercial models being recommended in
industry, particularly those suggesting that VR is cost effective
because it can remove the need for specialist training providers
(PwC, 2019). Further study might attend to the question of the
impact and ethics of simulating risk, threat and violence without
such carefully scaffolded support.
Discussion
Returning to our initial research questions:
RQ1: How do participants experience and communicate their
own sense of presence, safety and agency in relation to this
particular virtual reality experience?
RQ2: What are the ethical dimensions and questions that
should be considered when producing virtual reality
simulations of unsafe environments?
Our findings seem to suggest that participants in this virtual
reality simulation experienced the scenario in a direct and active
form. Encounters are primarily recalled and framed as though
the VR was something that the participants experienced for
themselves, rather than witnessed at a mediated distance.
We noted the connected dynamics of presence, safety, agency
and external association in this particular case study. Each factor
impacting on the participant’s personal relationship to the
content and affecting the visceral and emotive nature of their
reporting. We observed particularly strong connections between
a participant’s sense of personal safety and their experience of
presence as well as their agency, or capacity to take action within
the scenario.
In the retelling of their experiences, participants in this study
exhibited strong emotional and visceral connections to their own,
virtually present character, and to those of the wider cast of
virtual beings. Reports of feeling physically intimidated by some
and deeply concerned for the safety of others permeate the
transcripts. This seems to support claims (Slater et al., 2006;
Miller et al., 2019) that the sense of physicality, risk and threat in
VR is not constrained to the user’s own phenomenal self-model
(PSM), and should be carefully considered in the design of high-
risk scenario simulations.
We noted the positive linkage made by many participants
between heightened emotional experience and the effectiveness
of the training. This supports ideas that the enhanced sense of
presence and embodiment available to designers of VR
experiences can be leveraged for the production of impactful
training materials.
We identified that prior experience, at least within this
sample was a strong indicator of how an immersive work
would be received. In this case participants with the most and
the least direct experience of the subject matter using more
emotive language in recalling of their own experience. Whilst
these responses were generally regarded as positive and
constructive by participants, a way to rehearse one’s own
response to risk in a controlled setting, a small grouping
found that the experience triggered unwelcome or upsetting
memories related to their own histories.
Our industry partner Head Set were aware of the potential
impact of their work prior to engagement with this study. In
addition to the VR simulation under scrutiny, it should be kept in
mind that they have developed a range of “emotional scaffolding”
tools that wrap around the VR experience e.g., pre-engagement
survey, discussion forums, signposted mental health resources
and expert guidance in order to hold in balance that which de la
Peña might describe as “telling the truth without traumatizing
people” (Bye, 2022).
One such example is the way that they capture information
about each participant’s prior experience before they begin the
course. Part of their internal company language is to classify
participants on a scale:
• green, having never covered high risk;
• orange, having covered high risk but never been in a
“scrape”;
• red; having covered a lot of high risk and potentially been
in some life threatening “scrapes”.
Such pre-classification and flexibility allows Head Set to plan
and subtly adapt each session to the anticipated needs of the
participants. Based on the literature around responsible
approaches when deploying “risky content” in VR (Madary
and Metzinger, 2016; Slater et al., 2020) such safeguarding
seems entirely appropriate and may well be indicative of best
practice at this stage in the evolution of the sector.
For the purposes of this study, the adaptation may also have
partially limited our ability to gain insight into what would have
happened, were such preparation and adaptability not factored
in. It is difficult to assess whether instances of rumination or
reminiscence around prior trauma, for example, would have been
more or less pronounced were such accommodations not in
place.
From an ethical perspective, our results seem to suggest
that simulation of high-risk content should be developed, if
at all, by those with an informed understanding of the
interconnected affordances of presence and embodiment,
social dynamics and agency, as well as the impact of each on
a participant’s perception of their own safety. How that
might be implemented in an industrial context is
challenging and may require some level of legislative
intervention, the creation of a recognised qualification,
kitemark or approved provider status to support user
safety. Again, further research and collaboration with
additional industry partners and policymakers would be
highly valuable in this space.
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Early findings from this study provide a challenge to the
prevailing notion of VR training as a cost-effective business
model, imagined to replace in-person training or e-learning
modules, or to render expert supervision obsolete.
Overall, we have illustrated that the simulation of risk in
virtual reality for training purposes can offer providers and
participants a potent, impactful and distinctive platform for
experiential learning. We would suggest that training
providers simulating risk and danger have a duty of care to
those who might experience their work. This may include a
responsibility to give content warnings and to provide targeted
emotional support. Although difficult to explore in this small
study, it seems likely that the auxiliary resources provided by
Head Set made a positive contribution to the experience of their
participants, and we would welcome further study to better
understand the implications of differing approaches.
Data availability statement
The raw data supporting the conclusion of this article will be
made available by the authors, without undue reservation.
Ethics statement
The studies involving human participants were reviewed and
approved by Faculty of Arts, Creative Industries and Education
Research Ethics Committee, University of the West of England.
The patients/participants provided their written informed
consent to participate in this study.
Author contributions
VM—lead researcher and sole author.
Funding
This project received support from the University of the West
of England’s faculty Research Funding Scheme 2020–21, and
from the Bristol and Bath Creative R and D program which is a
part of The Creative Industries Clusters Programme managed by
the Arts and Humanities Research Council as part of the
Industrial Strategy. Grant number for Bristol and Bath
Creative R and D is AH/S002936/1.
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to our open, insightful and infinitely patient
industry partners, Head Set, as well as our freelance network
partners Bristol 24/7, Rife Magazine and The Bristol Cable.
Thank you to Professor Mandy Rose who provided support
and mentoring for this project, and to research interviewers
Amy Stone, Eirini Lampiri, Komal Rana, Matthias Rich, Mitchell
Wilson and Rebeka Igneczi.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the
absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could
be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Publisher’s note
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors
and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations,
or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product
that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its
manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
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