Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 4, 2026
Developing a Virtual Reality Video Game to Simulate Rip Currents
Published on: July 16, 2020
Eliciting affect via immersive virtual reality: a tool for adolescent risk reduction
Wendy Hadley1, Christopher D Houck, David H Barker
1PhD, Bradley/Hasbro Children's Research Center, One Hoppin Street, Suite 204, Providence, RI 02903, USA. whadley@lifespan.org.
Objective:
A virtual reality environment (VRE) was designed to expose participants to substance use and sexual risk-taking cues to examine the utility of VR in eliciting adolescent physiological arousal.
Methods:
42 adolescents (55% male) with a mean age of 14.54 years (SD = 1.13) participated. Physiological arousal was examined through heart rate (HR), respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), and self-reported somatic arousal. A within-subject design (neutral VRE, VR party, and neutral VRE) was utilized to examine changes in arousal.
Results:
The VR party demonstrated an increase in physiological arousal relative to a neutral VRE. Examination of individual segments of the party (e.g., orientation, substance use, and sexual risk) demonstrated that HR was significantly elevated across all segments, whereas only the orientation and sexual risk segments demonstrated significant impact on RSA.
Conclusions:
This study provides preliminary evidence that VREs can be used to generate physiological arousal in response to substance use and sexual risk cues.
