title: Eliciting affect via immersive virtual reality: a tool for adolescent risk reduction.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  A virtual reality environment (VRE) was designed to expose participants to substance use and sexual risk-taking cues to examine the utility of VR in eliciting adolescent physiological arousal.
  
  
  METHODS
  42 adolescents (55% male) with a mean age of 14.54 years (SD = 1.13) participated. Physiological arousal was examined through heart rate (HR), respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), and self-reported somatic arousal. A within-subject design (neutral VRE, VR party, and neutral VRE) was utilized to examine changes in arousal.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The VR party demonstrated an increase in physiological arousal relative to a neutral VRE. Examination of individual segments of the party (e.g., orientation, substance use, and sexual risk) demonstrated that HR was significantly elevated across all segments, whereas only the orientation and sexual risk segments demonstrated significant impact on RSA.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This study provides preliminary evidence that VREs can be used to generate physiological arousal in response to substance use and sexual risk cues.
authors.affiliation: PhD, Bradley/Hasbro Children's Research Center, One Hoppin Street, Suite 204, Providence, RI 02903, USA. whadley@lifespan.org.
authors.forename: Wendy
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Hadley
authors.forename: Christopher D
authors.initials: CD
authors.lastname: Houck
authors.forename: David H
authors.initials: DH
authors.lastname: Barker
authors.forename: Abbe Marrs
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Garcia
authors.forename: Josh S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Spitalnick
authors.forename: Virginia
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Curtis
authors.forename: Scott
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Roye
authors.forename: Larry K
authors.initials: LK
authors.lastname: Brown
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D000339:Affect; D001143:Arousal / Q000502:physiology; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D006339:Heart Rate / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D040242:Risk Reduction Behavior; D012309:Risk-Taking; D012725:Sexual Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D014584:User-Computer Interface
keywords: adolescents; physiological arousal; sexual risk; substance use; virtual reality