=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-2474/shortpaper4
|storemode=property
|title='Prosocial' virtual reality as tool for monitoring engagement in intergroup helping situations
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2474/shortpaper4.pdf
|volume=Vol-2474
|authors=Francesca D'Errico,Manuel Martinez,Carmen D'Anna,Maurizio Schmid,Stella Mastrobattista,Raffaella Parlongo,Christian Massom
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/smc/DErricoMDSMPM19
}}
=='Prosocial' virtual reality as tool for monitoring engagement in intergroup helping situations==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2474/shortpaper4.pdf
‘Prosocial’ virtual reality as tool for monitoring
engagement in intergroup helping situations
Francesca D’Errico Manuel Martinez Carmen D’Anna
dept. Fil.Co.Spe Universidad de Valparaiso Department of Engineering
RomaTre University Chile RomaTre University
Rome, Italy manujamming@gmail.com Rome, Italy
francesca.derrico@uniroma3.it carmen.danna@uniroma3.it
Stella Mastrobattista
Maurizio Schmid Raffaella Parlongo and
Department of Engineering Christian Massom
RomaTre University RomaTre University
Rome, Italy Rome, Italy
maurizio.schmid@uniroma3.it
Abstract— The aim of the present work is to test a non- II. HELPING AND INTERGROUP RELATIONS
invasive procedure to test attentive and emotional resources in
in helping situations where person in need belongs to another According to psychological studies, cognitive processes
group in terms of ethnicity. At this purpose, we created a set of based on prosocial decisions are strictly associated with
virtual scenarios by crossing two main crucial variables for emotional processes [4]. Classical studies on prosocial
help decision: ethnicity (white vs black actor) and helper behaviours have tested how positive emotions like empathy
appearance (business man, casual and beggar). During the VR [5], [6] can promote these behaviours and, more generally,
session the participant’s attention, distraction and engagement how low-arousal emotions can drive other-oriented cost–
were measured by means of EEG tool. Results pointed out that benefit processing rather than automatic and more intuitive
white helpers show higher levels of attention and engagement processing, which is used when emotions are stronger and
in counter-stereotypical situations during the giving session. more difficult to regulate [7]. This in general, but what
The attention and engagement measures in VR settings shed a happens when the helpee is an immigrant or a refugee? In
light on the role played by the helper’s expectations concerning this case, the decision to help or not has been largely studied
ingroup/outgroup features and their potential effects on the with the theoretical model of intergroup helping relations as
helping decision. status relations [8], which stresses that giving help can
perpetuate the social dependency of people in need. Within
Keywords—Virtual Reality, helping relations, EEG,
Engagement, attention
this framework, outgroup people in need are perceived by
‘powerful’ helpers as people with low competency and
I. INTRODUCTION possibilities and thus they can receive a type of help since
they elicited emotions of sadness or pity. [9]. From this
The aim of the present work is to test attentive and perspective, the helping process should depend on helpers’
emotional dimensions of intergroup helping interactions expectations. Refugees and immigrants are generally
using a Virtual Environment. According to the classical described as criminals (‘crimmigration’) or on the contrary
socio-psychological literature the decision of giving and usually associated with the stigma of dependence; they are
seeking help is associated to psychological costs. In fact in perceived as dependent people (e.g. as ‘parasites’), in need of
the case of giving help it can be associated to a potential humanitarian protection. The stigma of dependence can
personal evaluation (I’m capable? It can be useful my help?) increase the perceived costs associated toward immigrants.
that can lead or not to the final decision [1]. While in the Furthermore, these representations rely on negative
case of seeking help it can correspond to an explicit expectations in terms of dominance. Thus, immigrants can be
admission of incapability, reinforcing our state of perceived as ‘dangerous’ or ‘helpless’ [10;11], and,
dependence toward the donor [2]. In particular when the therefore, they can be associated with negative emotions
helper/helpee is a person perceived dissimilar as in the case such as anger [12] or with emotions like pity and sadness.
of a person belonging an outgroup these costs usually Based on prior studies, the intergroup helping interactions
increase [3] and the decision to help or to request become are mediated by the helpees’ expectations and perception of
lower. Starting from these psychological considerations we dissimilarity which can be associated to the motivation of
plan a pilot experimental study within Virtual Reality defending the ingroup image [13; 3]. When the dissimilarity
environment where participants were inducted to seeking and is high the helper can perceive more psychological costs and
giving help to a virtual helper/helpee with three different then can avoid taking helping decision. The aim of this
type of ‘social appearance (business man, casual and preliminary study is to observe potential differences in terms
beggar). Results emerged from EEG measures (attention, attention, engagement and distraction in relation to helpee’s
distraction and engagement) pointed out that participants etnicity (black or white) and in terms of helpee relative
tend to pay attention and be engaged in every life situations autonomy-dependence.
mainly in counterstereotipic conditions. The rest of the paper
is organized as follows: Section 2- presents the classical III. HELPING AND VIRTUAL REALITY
works on helping and intergroup relations, by looking also to
the studies using VR. Section 4 illustrated the performed Schutte and Stilinovic (2017) [14] have shown that
experiment with the discussion on the results. Conclusions prosocial behavior is closely related to the degree of
and future work directions are discussed in the last section. involvement in VR, which in turn can increase user empathy.
In this regard, the experiment conducted by Groom and
colleagues (2009) [15] was significant, showing that an
Copyright © 2019 for this paper by its authors. Use permitted under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
experience in VR (job interview) with an avatar of a different track users’ position in the space, by enlarging the level of
skin color may be related to the prejudice since interaction immersion. After the instructions provided on the use of the
with a black avatar generated negative appreciation and a display and positioned the EEG sensors for Attention,
greater level of implicit bias. A more recent study by Peck et Distraction, Engagement, the participants began to see a
al. [16], on the contrary, obtained results in the opposite video, corresponding to one of the six experimental
direction. Through sophisticated technology in body transfer conditions. The video introduced the participant to the virtual
into avatars, Peck and colleagues found that when environment through a training session, appropriately
participants embodied the color of black skin, they tended to designed to familiarize him with the device and to provide
present fewer racial implicit biases than those who embodied him with the instructions necessary to interact with the actors
an avatar with white skin. Along the same lines is the study of the scenes and with the pop-up system inserted in the
by Gillath et al. [17] where participants, seated at a bus stop, sequence. During the training the participant was also shown
witness an accident involving a blind man's dog. The verbal his “travel” kit consisting of a metro pass, two metro tickets
reactions to man's request for help have shown that VR and four 50 cents coins, which he could have used during his
scenario is able to arouse positive behavioral emotions and experience. Each participant did not have anything else with
tendencies towards virtual people in need similar to those them. The training scene was followed by an environment
raised by needy people in the real world. However, the study scene in which a guiding voice was inserted, which would
done by Eastwick and Gardner [18] showed that the helping accompany the participant along the entire route. The
relationship in VR follows a certain logic. We tend to help participant then entered the heart of the experience and was
people similar helpee in the sense that in their experiments projected at the entrance of a metro station, where he met a
white helpers tended to give less help to black-colored “hurried” friend, who informed him of a party with friends
avatars than the white ones. More recently Gamberini et al. and invited him to reach the location of the appointment,
[19] have analyzed the helping behavior in a VR emergency giving him the name of the street. In the next scene, called
that generally increases the level of anxiety by showing how the “Google maps” scene, the participant met a potential
time pressure worsens the ingroup favouritism effect by helper (Ingroup Vs Outgroup x Business man / Casual /
giving less help to black victim. Beggar), who could help him find the way. Through the pop-
up system the participant made the choice to ask / not ask for
IV. THE PILOT STUDY help and provided the reasons for his choice and moved to
Research Question: The great part of the cited studies the next scene. This, called the scene “Ticket Office”,
within involved VR contexts that elicit negative emotions of presented the opposite situation (in this study we’ll focus
anxiety or concern and less attention has been paid to helping mainly on this help giving phase): the participant became a
decision within familiar contexts, where an outgroup helper in front of a potential helpee (Ingroup Vs Outgroup x
member can be in a temporary state of need. The research Business man / Casual / Beggar), who asked him for help for
goal of this pilot study is then exploring potential differences a metro ticket. In this case the participant had more
in terms attention, engagement and distraction in relation to possibilities: give a generous help (the ticket), partial help
helpee’s ethnicity (black or white) and in terms of helpee (offering to change his coins or one of the tickets available to
relative autonomy-dependence in a simulated helping him in the kit) or not give help. Again, through the pop-up
situation. system the participant go on with the scene and land to a
final scene, with the aim of leaving a positive message: the
A. Method helpee present in “Ticket Office” helped in turn a passerby
1. Participant and experimental design who had dropped his wallet from his pocket. Subsequently,
the helpee was also found to be a friend of the “hurried”
Participants were 40 (19 women and 21 men, mean age friend who appeared in the first scene which, at this point, as
23.76) equally distributed across the experimental a unifying element, would lead the participant and the helpee
conditions. The study consists of an experimental design 2 x together with the party. At the end of the VR experience, the
3 between subjects, in which we manipulated the participant was finally introduced to the third and final phase
helper/helpee ethnicity (black vs white) and the social of the experiment in which participant fulfilled some scales
appearance of helper/helpee (business man VS casual VS on immigrant attitude and prosociality. The post-test phase
beggar) as independent variables, assuming an effect on the was followed by a debriefing session.
following dependent variables: giving help (behavioral
variable), attention, engagement and distraction in giving C. Measures
help.
B. Procedure and tools EEG data were recorded (sampling rate 100 Hz) using
The experimental procedure involved three phases. In a Emotiv EPOC® helmet (www.emotiv.com). Raw EEG data
first phase, the participants were subjected to a pre-test with were stored for each virtual scenario session and for each
the aim of exploring previous experiences in VR. Later, participant and processed off-line using Matlab2019a to 1)
participants were involved in the second phase of the reject of the artefacts, 2) select automatically the channels
experiment, that corresponded to the VR session. The virtual with high SNR, 2) band-pass filter the data (frequency range
reality experience had a medium level of immersion since 3- 48 Hz), 4) estimate the spectral power density (SDP).
participants can, from their point of view, be partially present Then, to compute the EEG Index, SDP was segmented into
physically in the context (a familiar context), they can decide the following EEG bands, from which the power contained
and respond to the actors but they cannot influence the in each one was then calculated: α [8-13Hz], β [13-30Hz],
virtual scene (low level of agency of the user). For the βlow [13-15Hz], βhigh [23-30Hz], and θ [4-8 Hz].
recording, we used Ricoh Theta V monoscopic camera at 4K
by having an experience of 360 Video and audio. The 360
videos were seen by wearing HTC Vive headset that can also
2
Engagement Index (EI) condition. The decision of helping in a disinterested way
The EI index is obtained by considering alpha, beta and depends on group type. In the sense that from a chi square
theta activities (see Eq.1): an increase of beta activity is analysis emerged that while in the case of an ingroup
directly related to task engagement; an increase of alpha and participants tended to give partial help to the businessman
beta activities reflects relax, low level of alertness and a (33%) while the casual and the beggar helpee received a the
decrease of information processing [22; 23]. An increase of ‘generous’ help (the ticket given for free)
EI index reflects an increase of engagement level [24]. [c2(38)=2,90;p<0.05]. Differently in the case of the outgroup
condition helper appearance do not differ his/her behavioral
EI=β/(α+θ) Eq.1 response but they give a similar type of help regardless of
helpee appearance.
Attention Index (BBR) 35%
The BBR index is calculated considering the ratio between 30%
the upper beta band and the lower beta band (see Eq.2) [25]. 25%
In particular, it was shown that an increase of βhigh is 20%
linked to an increase of the alertness and of the brain [26], 15%
while an increase of βlow could be linked to an increase of 10%
the inattention [25]. Therefore, an increase of BBR may 5%
signal an increase of the attention level. 0%
money change free ticket money change free ticket
ingroup outgroup
BBR=β_high/β_low businessman casual beggar
Eq.2
Fig. 2. Type of help given (‘Instrumental’ vs ‘Generous’) *Experimental
Inattention index (TBR) condition
The TBR index is calculated considering the ratio between When we consider the level of attention, engagement and
the beta band and theta band (See Eq. 3) [27]. The index is distraction extracted from the EEG, group type resulted
significant factor in the Anova. The main effect of group
negatively correlated to the attention and to the anxiety [27],
type on attention [F(1, 38)=3,80;p<0.05], on engagement
conversely it increases when the level of attention decreases
[F(1, 38)=3,63;p<0.05] and distraction attested that both in
[28].
help seeking and giving higher level of attention and
% engagement and less level of distraction in outgroup
TBR = Eq.3 condition compared to the ingroup condition.
&
Fig. 1. Two conditions of the ‘Ticket office’ phase.
Fig. 3. EEG Measures*Group type in Help seeking and Giving
V. RESULTS
The interaction effects across the experimental conditions
First of all data analysis was aimed at checking how the
two manipulations, group type and helper/helpee appearance, clarified the direction of the attention [F(1, 38)=2,80;
affect the helper/helpee perception; results pointed out how p<0.05], engagement [F(1, 38)=3,40; p<0.05] and distraction
the helper appearance affect the elegance [F(1, [F(1, 38)=2,99;p<0.05] during the VR session. As showed in
38)=2,90;p<0.05] or sloppiness perception [F(1, Figure 3a and 3b the level of attention and distraction is
strongly affected by the counter-stereotypic situations: higher
38)=7,84;p<0.001] in the sense that the business man is
level of attention and lower level of distraction were detected
evaluated more elegant and less slopy than in casual and
in the condition of outgroup-businessman and in the ingroup-
beggar condition group; also the group belonginess affect the
beggar one thus pointing out that during the helping session
perception of distance is higher since in the outgroup
condition helper is perceived more distant than in the ingroup
3
participants tend to screen the helpee’s appearance mainly across conditions with no difference. This can be partially
when it is far from his/her social expectations. explained by the data on Attention, Distraction and
Engagement extracted by means of EEG measures, that
pointed out that white helpers are more attentive and less
distracted only in the counterstereotypic condition (far from
their expectations), in the case of black helpee by the
businessman status, while in the case of white by the beggar.
These two conditions were also the conditions where the
white helper was more cognitively engaged since they must
consider novelty elements in that helping situation. Future
studies will test these attentional and engagement processes
as a measures of coping with unknown and
counterstereotipical situations, even with a larger sample.
Fig. 4. Attention extracted from EEG Measures*Group type in Help ACKNOWLEDGMENT
situation (Interaction Effect) All the authors are in debt with prof. Isabella Poggi for her
suggestions and our collaborators Antonietta De Sanctis,
Dieuseul Anouleko, Valerio Contegiacomo, Giulio Ventre and
Lorenzo Federici who support this study during the experimental
phase.
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