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

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，这种反复暴露在危险中而没有不良事件的情况可能会使工人对风险失去敏感度。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中学习的结果。克服风险习惯需要克服当员工默认使用经过良好学习的自动行为时可能发生的精神失误。为此，该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、负面的感觉反馈。该系统将根据行为和生理反应(例如身体运动、眼球跟踪、皮肤电活动)感知风险习惯化的发展，并通过负感觉反馈(即视觉、听觉和触觉)演示习惯性行为的潜在后果，从而产生干预措施。该项目的成果预计将改变安全培训做法，使管理人员能够向习以为常的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(如课堂教学)来保留安全知识。该项目将分两个阶段组织。首先，该项目将创建完全适应的体验式学习环境，在其中受试者体验虚拟现实模拟的事故，并伴随着厌恶的感觉反馈，以应对风险习惯化的开始。第一阶段将包括：(1)设计和构建一个激发受训者习惯化行为的适应性VR环境；(2)识别标志着风险习惯化开始/阶段的生理信号；(3)创建具有厌恶感觉反馈的VR干预，以有效地减少习惯化。在第二阶段，该项目将与德克萨斯州农工机械工程扩展服务的基础设施培训和安全研究所合作，检查拟议的培训对高风险职业习惯化工人的影响。第二阶段将：(1)研究拟议的培训对具有不同感官习服水平的道路施工工人的风险习惯化的影响；(2)探讨拟议的培训的影响在多大程度上转化为受训者的风险认知和安全态度。通过将对感觉习惯的严格心理物理评估与在虚拟现实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觉习惯问题以提高工作场所的安全性提供强有力的经验基础。更重要的是，该项目将把关于厌恶条件反射和注意力/学习的研究转化为以科学为基础的方法，以塑造人们在现实世界中的安全行为，从而为创建刺激行为变化的VR安全培训模块提供基础。此外，这项研究将制定一门关于安全管理的认知和行为方面的课程，它将向包括本科生/研究生和安全经理在内的不同学习者提供此类专题课程，并培养对工作场所风险习惯化的更广泛认识。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

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.