Breaking Risk Habituation to Occupational Hazards using Virtual Reality Interventions with Aversive Sensory Feedback

使用虚拟现实干预措施和令人厌恶的感官反馈来打破对职业危害的风险习惯

• 批准号: 2017019
• 负责人: Michael Lewis
• 金额: $ 75万
• 依托单位: Texas A&M University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2020-09-01 至 2024-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2017019&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Breaking; Risk; Habituation; Occupational; Hazards

Workers in high-risk industries such as construction encounter numerous safety hazards during their daily tasks, and such repeated exposures to a hazard without an adverse event may desensitize the worker to risks. This behavioral tendency, often called risk habituation, is one of the central causal factors in workplace accidents, and it is widely thought to reflect a consequence of learning on cognitive and perceptual processes. Overcoming risk habituation requires overriding the mental lapses that can occur when workers default to well-learned and automatic behaviors. To this end, this project will construct a virtual reality (VR) training system that detects a trainee's risk habituation and provides direct, negative sensory feedback during simulated accidents. This system will sense the development of risk habituation based on behavioral and physiological responses (e.g., body movement, eye tracking, electrodermal activity) and generate interventions by demonstrating the potential consequences of habituated behaviors via negative sensory feedback (i.e., visual, auditory, and touch). Outcomes resulting from this project are expected to transform safety training practices so that managers can deliver more direct and effective behavioral interventions to habituated workers, rather than rely on conventional training methods (e.g., classroom instruction) for safety-knowledge retention.The project will be organized in two phases. First, the project will create fully adaptive experiential learning environments wherein subjects experience VR-simulated accidents,complete with aversive sensory feedback, in response to the onset of risk habituation. This first phase will include: (1) designing and building an adaptive VR environment that provokes trainees' habituated behaviors; (2) identifying physiological signals that mark the onset/stage of risk habituation; and (3) creating a VR intervention with aversive sensory feedback to effectively reduce habituations. In collaboration with Texas A&M's Engineering Extension Service's Infrastructure Training & Safety Institute, during the second phase, this project will examine the effect of the proposed training on habituated workers in high-risk occupations. This second phase will: (1) examine the impact of the proposed training on risk habituation across road construction workers with varying levels of sensory habituation; and (2) explore the extent to which the impact of the proposed training translates to risk perception and to the safety attitudes of trainees. By pairing rigorous psychophysical assessments of sensory habituation with translational measures acquired in a VR environment, the successful completion of this project will provide a strong empirical basis for addressing sensory habituation to improve worksite safety. More importantly, this project will translate research on aversive conditioning and attention/learning to scientifically-based approaches for shaping the real-world safety behavior of people, thereby providing a foundation for creating VR safety-training modules for stimulating behavior change. Additionally, this study will produce a curriculum on the cognitive and behavioral aspects of safety management, and it will deliver such topical lessons to diverse learners,including undergraduate/graduate students and safety managers, and cultivate broader awareness about risk habituation in the workplace.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

建筑等高风险行业的工人在日常工作中会遇到许多安全隐患，这种反复暴露于危险而没有发生不良事件的情况可能会使工人对风险不敏感。这种行为倾向，通常被称为风险习惯化，是工作场所事故的主要原因之一，人们普遍认为它反映了认知和感知过程的学习结果。克服风险习惯需要克服当工人默认为良好的学习和自动行为时可能发生的精神失误。为此，本项目将构建一个虚拟现实（VR）培训系统，该系统可以检测受训者的风险习惯，并在模拟事故期间提供直接的负面感官反馈。该系统将基于行为和生理反应（例如，身体运动、眼睛跟踪、皮肤电活动）并通过经由负感觉反馈（即，视觉、听觉和触觉）。该项目的成果预计将改变安全培训实践，使管理人员能够向习惯性工人提供更直接和有效的行为干预，而不是依赖传统的培训方法（例如，该项目将分两个阶段进行。首先，该项目将创建完全自适应的体验式学习环境，其中受试者体验VR模拟事故，完成令人厌恶的感官反馈，以应对风险习惯化的开始。第一阶段将包括：（1）设计和构建一个自适应VR环境，激发受训者的习惯行为;（2）识别标志风险习惯化开始/阶段的生理信号;（3）创建具有厌恶感觉反馈的VR干预，以有效减少习惯。在第二阶段，该项目将与得克萨斯A M工程推广服务的基础设施培训安全研究所合作，研究拟议的培训对高风险职业中习惯性工人的影响。第二阶段将：（1）研究拟议培训对不同感官习惯程度的道路建筑工人的风险习惯的影响;以及（2）探讨拟议培训的影响在多大程度上转化为学员的风险感知和安全态度。通过将对感官习惯化的严格心理物理评估与在VR环境中获得的翻译措施相结合，该项目的成功完成将为解决感官习惯化以改善工地安全提供强有力的经验基础。更重要的是，该项目将把对厌恶性条件反射和注意力/学习的研究转化为基于科学的方法，以塑造人们在现实世界中的安全行为，从而为创建VR安全培训模块以刺激行为改变提供基础。此外，这项研究将产生一个安全管理的认知和行为方面的课程，它将提供这样的专题课程，以不同的学习者，包括本科生/研究生和安全管理人员，该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响进行评估，被认为值得支持审查标准。

项目成果

Using a Virtual Reality-based Experiment Environment to Examine Risk Habituation in Construction Safety

使用基于虚拟现实的实验环境检查施工安全中的风险习惯

• DOI: 10.22260/isarc2020/0161
• 发表时间: 2020
• 期刊: Proceedings of the International Symposium on Automation and Robotics in Construction (IAARC
• 作者: Kim, Namgyun;Ahn, Changbum Ryan
• 通讯作者: Ahn, Changbum Ryan