Evaluating the impact of water reuse educational videos on water reuse perceptions using EEG/event related potential

As climate change and population growth increasingly stress freshwater resources, government agencies and scientists have recognized the importance of water reuse (the beneficial use of reclaimed or recycled water). While end users (municipalities and farmers) are largely open to exploring water reuse, a barrier to using this water source is the public's negative perception, or the 'yuck factor'. Recognizing that water reuse is becoming a necessity, there is an urgent need to determine how to improve public acceptance of this water source. Increasing knowledge has been identified as a critical method for improving the adoption of sustainable practices, but to date, there has been a lack of outcome studies on the ability of water reuse education materials to change perceptions. Previous studies have relied heavily on self-reported concerns and perceptions which are limited by bias and social expectations, and their results have failed to substantially change water reuse education efforts, and by extension failed to substantially improve water reuse perceptions. We propose the integration of psychology for evaluating the effectiveness of water reuse education and outreach efforts. The purpose of this study was to determine if water reuse educational videos modulate perceptions of water reuse terms. Participants were recruited from a university campus and completed pre-intervention surveys on water reuse knowledge, willingness to use recycled water, and preferred water reuse information sources. We then measured changes in neural activity in response to multiple categories of water reuse terms pre- and post-exposure to water reuse education videos using electroencephalogram (EEG). Through EEG we measured event related potential (ERP), which assesses sustained engagement with the cues (late positive potential (LPP) amplitude), and alpha power. Participants also completed a pre/post exposure battery involving five tasks, in randomized order, presented before and after viewing videos. Sixty-eight percent of survey participants had previously heard of water reuse and 91% reported willingness to use recycled water for at least one activity. Participants reported obtaining water reuse information mostly from the internet (77%) and preferred to receive additional information mainly by watching online videos (73%). We observed significant increases in alpha power, corresponding to feelings of relaxation, in response to seven of eight water reuse term categories post-video exposure. These findings show that water reuse educational videos can change perceptions of water reuse. Our results point to the possibility of validating and increasing the effectiveness of water reuse education materials using sophisticated neurocognitive measures.