Alcohol's Role in Sexual Assault: Development of Virtual Reality Simulation Proxy

酒精在性侵犯中的作用：虚拟现实模拟代理的开发

• 批准号: 8385389
• 负责人: Antonia Abbey
• 金额: $ 28.8万
• 依托单位: WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2012
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2012-07-10 至 2014-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/8385389
• 关键词: Acquaintances; Acute; Address; Adult; Aggressive behavior; Alcohol consumption; Alcohols; American; Anal Sex; Behavior; Characteristics; Coercion; Cognitive; Commit; Consent; Data; Development; Environment; Etiology; Evaluation; Female; Focus Groups; Forcible intercourse; Future; Goals; Healthy People 2020; Heterosexuals; Human; Intervention; Interview; Justice; Laboratories; Language; Legal; Location; Measures; Mental Health; Oral Sex; Participant; Patient Self-Report; Population; Prevention; Proxy; Randomized; Recording of previous events; Reporting; Research; Research Personnel; Review Literature; Risk Factors; Role; Series; Sex Behavior; Simulate; Surveys; Survivors; Testing; Touch sensation; Vagina; Woman; demographics; design; drinking; male; meetings; men; perpetrators; pressure; research study; response; sex; sexual assault; sexual violence; sexually active; simulation; sobriety; statistics; university student; virtual; virtual reality; willingness

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Approximately half of all sexual assaults involve alcohol consumption by the perpetrator, victim, or both. The goal of the proposed research is to develop a virtual reality simulation that can be used as a proxy for perpetration of sexual aggression in alcohol administration studies. Self-report surveys conducted with victims and perpetrators have provided a wealth of important information about alcohol's role in sexual assault; however, causality cannot be established from correlational designs. In alcohol administration studies, participants can be randomly assigned to drink conditions, thereby allowing causal conclusions to be made. The major challenge for experimentalists is to develop proxies for sexual assault that have strong construct validity and experimental realism. Virtual reality environments provide the opportunity for participants to become immersed in the simulated environment; thus, participants are expected to behave in ways and to make choices that closely relate to their behavior outside the laboratory. The Specific Aims of the proposed research involve developing a virtual reality simulation with a virtual woman (an embodied female agent) that male participants rate as realistic and involving. The script of the interaction will follow that of a prototypic acquaintance sexual assault situation, allowing male participants to make choices about sexual activities in which they want to engage and (if they choose) to repeatedly try to make the female agent engage in sexual activity despite her protests. Most participants will be young, single, sexually active, heterosexual men to correspond to the demographics of most perpetrators. Focus groups and an iterative series of pilots that include cognitive interviews will be conducted with men and women to develop the simulation. Then a preliminary assessment of construct validity will be conducted by comparing self-reports of past sexual aggression, common risk factors, and responses to another proxy with participants' responses during the simulation. Also, an initial evaluation of the simulation's usefulness in alcohol administration research will be conducted by comparing the responses and actions of intoxicated and sober participants during the simulation. The findings from this study will serve as pilot data for a R01 proposal that will formally evaluate the paradigm's construct validity and usefulness in identifying men predisposed to commit sexual assault while intoxicated. Future studies can also alter various aspects of the simulation to increase generalizability to different populations. The long-term goal is to develop prevention and treatment interventions, thereby reducing rates of sexual aggression and addressing Healthy People 2020 goals. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Sexual assault occurs at extremely high rates and more than half involve alcohol consumption. The goal of the proposed research is to develop a virtual reality simulation of a potential sexual assault situation that can be used in experimental research. This will allow the effects of alcohol consumption on sexual aggression to be examined under controlled conditions, thereby increasing confidence that differences found between drinkers and nondrinkers are due to alcohol, not other factors.

描述（由申请人提供）：大约一半的性侵犯涉及肇事者，受害者或两者兼而有之。拟议的研究的目的是开发虚拟现实模拟，该模拟可以用作酒精管理研究中性侵略的代理。与受害者和肇事者进行的自我报告调查提供了有关酒精在性侵犯中作用的大量重要信息；但是，不能从相关设计中确定因果关系。在饮酒研究中，可以将参与者随机分配给饮料条件，从而得出因果关系。实验家的主要挑战是建立具有强大结构有效性和实验现实主义的性侵犯的代理。虚拟现实环境为参与者提供了沉浸在模拟环境中的机会。因此，期望参与者的行为方式，并做出与实验室外部行为密切相关的选择。拟议的研究的具体目的是与男性参与者对现实和涉及的虚拟女性（一个具体的女性特工）进行虚拟现实模拟。互动的脚本 将遵循原型熟人的性侵犯情况，使男性参与者能够选择他们想要参与的性活动，并（如果他们选择）反复试图使女性特工进行性活动，尽管她的抗议活动进行了抗议。大多数参与者将年轻，单身，性活跃，异性恋男人与大多数肇事者的人口统计相对应。焦点小组和包括认知访谈在内的一系列迭代飞行员将与男女进行模拟。然后，将通过比较过去的性侵略，共同危险因素和对另一个代理人的反应与参与者在模拟期间的反应进行比较，对构建效率进行初步评估。此外，将通过比较模拟过程中陶醉和清醒参与者的反应和动作来对仿真对酒精管理研究的有用性进行初步评估。这项研究的发现将作为R01提案的试点数据，该提案将正式评估该范式的构造有效性和在识别易于醉酒时犯下性侵犯的男人时的构造有效性和有用性。未来的研究还可以改变模拟的各个方面，以增加对不同人群的普遍性。长期目标是制定预防和治疗干预措施，从而降低性侵略率并解决健康的人2020目标。 公共卫生相关性：性侵犯以极高的速度发生，一半以上涉及饮酒。拟议的研究的目的是开发对潜在的性侵犯情况的虚拟现实模拟，该模拟可用于实验研究。这将允许在受控条件下检查饮酒对性侵略的影响，从而提高信心，即饮酒者和非养殖者之间发现的差异是由于酒精而不是其他因素所致。