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

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Behavioral Science

Background:

• Traditional risk-taking (RT) assessments rely on self-report questionnaires, which lack real-life fidelity.
• Behavioral tasks offer better accuracy but face limitations in transferability to real-world scenarios.
• Virtual reality (VR) presents an opportunity to simulate real-life situations for more authentic behavioral assessments.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the efficacy of a gamified VR environment, the Spheres & Shield Maze Task (SSMT), for assessing risk-taking behaviors.
• To explore the relationship between implicit behavioral measures in VR and self-reported risk-related constructs.
• To determine if VR serious games can serve as a cross-disciplinary tool for stealth assessment of individual capabilities.

Main Methods:

• A pilot study involving 41 participants was conducted using the Spheres & Shield Maze Task (SSMT), a gamified VR environment.
• Implicit behavioral measures were collected within the VR simulation.
• Data from the VR task were correlated with self-reported measures of risk-related constructs.

Main Results:

• The study found significant relationships between scores obtained in the SSMT and self-reported risk-related constructs.
• Specifically, VR-based RT measures correlated with engagement in risky behaviors and marijuana consumption.
• These findings suggest VR can elicit meaningful behavioral data relevant to risk propensity.

Conclusions:

• Decontextualized Virtual Reality Serious Games, like the SSMT, are suitable for assessing risk-taking.
• VR offers a promising approach for stealth assessment of individual capabilities in a controlled, simulated environment.
• This methodology holds potential as a cross-disciplinary tool for behavioral research and assessment.