Physiological Responses to Stressful Work Situations in Low-Immersive Virtual Environments

The paper analyzes physiological responses to different visual representations of stressful work activities. A between-subject experiment was conducted to analyze differences in heart rate (HR) and electromyography (EMG) between subjects watching videos featuring real actors and virtual videos with avatars representing the same situation. Findings show that exposure to real videos is associated with greater physiological activations than exposure to virtual videos. This evidence may suggest that, by inducing less emotional involvement, low-immersive virtual environments activate different cognitive mechanisms of stress perception.