Development of an ecological, immersive approach to socio-moral reasoning assessment in virtual reality

Erika Neveu¹Julia Salles¹Isabelle Roy¹Evelyn Vera-Estay²Julian J. Dooley³Miriam Beauchamp^1,4*

• ¹Montreal University, Montreal, Canada
• ²Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile Escuela de Psicologia, Santiago, Chile
• ³FINLA Psychological Services, Athlone, Ireland
• ⁴Centre de Recherche du Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Sainte-Justine, Montreal, Canada

Abstract Social problems affect many children and adolescents, especially those with neurodevelopmental disorders, mental health issues, or social disadvantage. In order to identify children at risk for poor social competence, it is important to be able to document putative difficulties in underlying social cognitive functions, such as their ability to reason and make appropriate decisions when faced with social and moral conflicts, an ability referred to as socio-moral reasoning (SMR). Immersive, dynamic digital health technologies, such as virtual reality (VR), show potential for optimizing assessment of social cognition because they provide features that enhance ecological value. However, the ecological validity of social cognition tasks is seldom formally assessed. The objective of this study was to 1) present detailed information on the design and development of an SMR VR task to support its a priori ecological validity and 2) quantitatively test two subcomponents of ecological validity: verisimilitude and veridicality. Fifty-eight typically developing adolescents completed the Socio-Moral Reasoning Aptitude Level task-VR version and questionnaires as indicators of verisimilitude (Simulator Sickness, Presence, Immersive Tendencies), veridicality (Behaviour), and social desirability. The results indicate that participants were frequently immersed in the task and perceived realism, had low levels of cybersickness, and a moderate sense of presence, supporting ecological validity through verisimilitude. In addition, a significant correlation was found between SMR and prosocial behaviour, suggesting task veridicality. Social desirability effects were low. Taken together, the design principles put into place and quantitative analyses of verisimilitude and veridicality suggest that the So-Moral-VR task demonstrates promising ecological validity and support its use as a quantitative measure of SMR. The task has potential applications in both research and in clinical settings for identifying youth with social cognition difficulties. Future work could extend its validation and use in clinical populations at risk for poor social competence.