Cognitive Representations and Enacting Actions in Computer Simulated Environments

Computer-simulated training environments are frequently used for having people perform behaviors that pose a risk of injury in the real world. The success of such training applications is likely to be impacted by the degree to which they evoke presence. In the current work, we examined whether adding auditory components to a computer-simulated environment might increase presence, thereby leading risktaking behaviors to be more consistent with performance in an equivalent real environment. In Experiment 1, participants first observed a human or an avatar perform several cuts on a vegetable and then pause. Participants then used a mouse cursor to indicate where they wanted to see the next cut performed. Compared to participants coordinating actions on behalf of the human, those coordinating actions on behalf of the avatar chose cut locations that had a greater likelihood of producing injury. In Experiment 2, we added an auditory component associated with the expression of pain to the computer-simulated environment and found that participants chose cut locations that were comparable to those in the real environment. This curb in risk-taking was not found in Experiment 3, which used a generic sound associated with the cutting task but not associated with pain. This indicates that the effect found in Experiment 2 was not simply due to directing attention to risky portions of the event. These results suggests that adding auditory components to computersimulated environments involving risk-taking behaviors may be useful. However, more research is needed in order to effectively select and use auditory components most appropriately.