Effects of Organizational and Behavioral Reactions of Virtual Crowds on Users' Visual Attention in a Stressful Virtual Reality Simulation

Understanding visual attention in users during stressful situations with emotional crowds is crucial for the improvement of emergency response, safety, and efficiency. To explore this, we conducted a study examining how the organizational structure and reaction behavior of a virtual emotional crowd affected subjects' visual attention. Participants completed a task in a virtual reality simulation featuring a fire threat. The experiment employed two between-subjects factors (Crowd Type and Reaction Type) and one within-subjects factor (Simulation Phase). The simulation consisted of a normal phase, where participants interacted with virtual human (VHs) pedestrians and vendors in a virtual marketplace, followed by a stressful phase featuring a fire threat within the same setting. The Crowd Type varied between individuals walking alone (Individual Condition) and small groups of 3-4 members (Group Condition). The Reaction Type determined whether the virtual crowd ignored the threat or moved faster to escape. We analyzed subjects' fixation gaze across conditions, revealing that visual attention behavior was significantly influenced by Crowd Type, Reaction Type, and Simulation Phase.