Development of an ecological, immersive approach to socio-moral reasoning assessment in virtual reality

Social problems affect many children and adolescents, especially those with neurodevelopmental disorders, mental health issues, or social disadvantage. In order to identify children at risk for poor social competence, it is important to be able to document putative difficulties in underlying social cognitive functions, such as their ability to reason and make appropriate decisions when faced with social and moral conflicts, an ability referred to as socio-moral reasoning (SMR). Immersive, dynamic digital health technologies, such as virtual reality (VR), show potential for optimizing assessment of social cognition because they provide features that enhance ecological value. However, the ecological validity of social cognition tasks is seldom formally assessed. The objective of this study was to (1) present detailed information on the design and development of a SMR VR task to support its a priori ecological validity and (2) quantitatively test two subcomponents of ecological validity: verisimilitude and veridicality. Sixty-two typically developing adolescents completed the Socio-Moral Reasoning Aptitude Level task-VR version (So-Moral-VR) and questionnaires as indicators of verisimilitude (Simulator Sickness, Presence, Immersive Tendencies), veridicality (Behavior), and social desirability. The results indicate that participants were frequently immersed in the task and perceived realism, had low levels of cybersickness, and a moderate sense of presence, supporting ecological validity through verisimilitude. In addition, a significant correlation was found between SMR and prosocial behavior, suggesting task veridicality. Social desirability effects were low. Taken together, the design principles and quantitative analyses of verisimilitude and veridicality suggest that the So-Moral-VR task demonstrates promising ecological validity and support its use as a quantitative measure of SMR. The task has potential applications in both research and in clinical settings for identifying youth with social cognition difficulties. Future work could extend its validation to clinical populations at risk for poor social competence.