BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Virtual reality may be able to transform people into a world of fantasy, but an Illinois Wesleyan University faculty member is hoping it will lead to real-world answers to help fight the spread of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).
Assistant Professor of Psychology Natalie Smoak is co-recipient of a $1.2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, the largest grant in the history of the University, that will use virtual reality to study how people make health decisions that could lead to sexually transmitted diseases (STD), including the transmission of HIV, the virus which causes AIDS.
Recent studies from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) estimate one in four teenagers in the United States carries an STD. Smoak believes the statistics reflect an attitude of invincibility that can harm students. “Students don’t think they need to use condoms. They think they can tell by looking at someone if they have a sexually transmitted disease, which we know is rarely the case,” said Smoak. The CDC, which promotes condom use as a highly effective STD prevention method, also estimates 40,000 people become infected each year with HIV.
Smoak and Kerry Marsh, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Connecticut, will enlist the help of virtual reality to place people in social situations and study their reactions, seeing whether they make safer sex-related decisions. “Studying people’s sexual choices is not like studying fitness, where you can walk down to the local gym and observe behavior,” said Smoak of choosing virtual reality for the five-year program of research. “You can’t really follow people around at parties to observe their choices.”
One of the goals of the study is to see if risky sexual decisions are based upon environmental cues or personality. “Do young people happen to be in environments that facilitate risky decisions or is it a matter of individuals with certain personalities looking for less safe environments?” said Smoak. “This study will help us know whether it is better to intervene on an environmental or a personal level to promote safer choices.”