Short-term behavioral, physiological, and brain differences in real life and virtual reality social interactions

Alexandra Dickey*, Julie Brefczynski-Lewis, Nanda Siva, Helen Melnick, Colson Glover, and Sonia Chandi

Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV 26505

Presentation Category: Biological & Biochemical Sciences (Poster Presentation #93)

Student’s Major: Biology

Virtual reality (VR) is a relatively new tool. Because of its ability to immerse in inaccessible lab environments and control variables, it may become an important tool in medicine and research, especially for our lab’s patented VR brain imaging system. Our goal was to compare VR delivered social stressors with a live study, where participants interacted with an actor/avatar trained to give a set of negative responses in three-minute interactions, with a hypothesis of no significant difference in VR vs. Live. We chose two different simulations – confronting a messy roommate and confronting a lazy group project member – with randomized order of VR vs. Live simulations (n=52). Systolic (SBP) and diastolic blood pressures (DBP) were measured after four points – an initial 10 minute rest (R1), the first event (E1), a second rest (R2), and the second event (E2) – with heart rate (HR) continuously monitored (not yet processed). We then compared the measurements between E1-R1, R2-R1, E2-R1, and E2-R2 for both SBP and DBP for each scenario of VR vs. Live conditions. Our main results with both scenarios combined tell us that using VR did not significantly differ from Live in evoking BP increases, confirming our hypothesis. However, caution may be needed in interpretation, as when each simulation was processed separately, the Group Project yielded a significant increase in SBP for the Live vs. VR interaction. In the future, our plan is to analyze HR and consider VR brain imager uses based on these combined results.

Funding:

Program/mechanism supporting research/creative efforts: a WVU 297-level course