Pajić Dejan, Sadiković Selka, Oljača Milan, Popović Željko, Milić Lazar, Stojanović Goran, Smederevac Snežana
Faculty of Philosophy, Department of Psychology, University of Novi Sad, Novi Sad, Serbia.
Faculty of Technical Sciences, Department of Electronics, University of Novi Sad, Novi Sad, Serbia.
PLoS One. 2025 Jan 13;20(1):e0316896. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0316896. eCollection 2025.
Virtual reality (VR) provides a unique opportunity to simulate various environments, enabling the observation of human behavior in a manner that closely resembles real-world scenarios. This study aimed to explore the effects of anticipating reward or punishment, personality traits, and physiological arousal on risky decision-making within a VR context. A custom VR game was developed to simulate real-life experiences. The sample comprised 52 students (63.46% female) from the University of Novi Sad, Serbia. The study assessed four parameters within the VR environment: elapsed game time, number of steps taken, average score, and decision-making time. Three physiological signals, heart rate, skin conductance, and respiratory rate, were recorded. Results indicated that personality traits, specifically Fight (β = -0.33, p = 0.024) and Freeze (β = 0.431, p = 0.009), were significantly related to behavior in the VR environment (R = 0.572, R2_adj = 0.227, RMSE = 23.12, F(6, 40) = 3.25, p = 0.011). However, these effects were not significant after negative feedback. Emotional arousal, measured by respiratory rate amplitude (β = 0.276, p = 0.045), showed a more pronounced role after feedback (β = 0.337, p = 0.028). These findings indicate that personality traits primarily influence behavior in a VR environment prior to the actual threat, whereas environmental characteristics become more important afterwards. The results offer valuable insights for experimental and personality psychologists by revealing how risk-taking is influenced by situational, emotional, and personality factors. Additionally, they provide guidance for VR designers in creating more ecologically valid environments, highlighting VR's potential as a tool for psychological research, while also underscoring the critical importance of selecting objective VR measures to accurately capture the complexities of human behavior in immersive environments.
虚拟现实（VR）提供了一个独特的机会来模拟各种环境，能够以与现实世界场景极为相似的方式观察人类行为。本研究旨在探讨预期奖励或惩罚、人格特质以及生理唤醒对VR环境中风险决策的影响。开发了一款定制的VR游戏来模拟现实生活体验。样本包括来自塞尔维亚诺维萨德大学的52名学生（63.46%为女性）。该研究在VR环境中评估了四个参数：游戏时长、步数、平均得分以及决策时间。记录了三种生理信号，即心率、皮肤电导率和呼吸频率。结果表明，人格特质，特别是“战斗”（β = -0.33，p = 0.024）和“冻结”（β = 0.431，p = 0.009），与VR环境中的行为显著相关（R = 0.572，调整后R² = 0.227，均方根误差 = 23.12，F(6, 40) = 3.25，p = 0.011）。然而，在负面反馈后这些影响并不显著。通过呼吸频率幅度测量的情绪唤醒（β = 0.276，p = 0.045）在反馈后表现出更显著的作用（β = 0.337，p = 0.028）。这些发现表明，人格特质在实际威胁之前主要影响VR环境中的行为，而之后环境特征变得更为重要。这些结果通过揭示冒险行为如何受到情境、情绪和人格因素的影响，为实验心理学家和人格心理学家提供了有价值的见解。此外，它们为VR设计师创建更具生态效度的环境提供了指导，突出了VR作为心理研究工具的潜力，同时也强调了选择客观的VR测量方法以准确捕捉沉浸式环境中人类行为复杂性的至关重要性。
