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CAPILANO BRIDGE VR
Role: VR design and development
Hardware: Oculus Quest 2
Software: Unity, Blender
Audience: Experiment Participants and Experimenters
Time frame: November 2021- May 2021
Team: Nicole Stern (thesis student), Randy Cornelius (thesis advisor), and Psychological Science Senior Empirical Thesis Students of 2021
Description:
In 2021, a group of psychology students at Vassar decided to replicate Dutton and Aaron’s famously known “bridge study” in VR. This study had resulted in the Misattribution of Arousal Theory, claiming that sexual attraction heightens when the human body is aroused by fear. The study was done at Capilano State Park in 1974, and my task was to recreate this scene in VR. To ease the experiment, I proposed that all the questions and scenarios be integrated into the VR experiment. This project is currently setting the foundations for a VR psychology lab at Vassar College.
Challenges:
• Replicating a real-life environment with lighting and movement
• Creating the illusion of a shaking ground
• Designing a game that is easy to use for experimenters unfamiliar with VR
• Eliminating aliasing and lags
Outcomes:
• Learned how to create a valley and a bridge for VR
• Used Side Quest to create an app and shared it across multiple headsets
• Presented a prototype to a group of researchers
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