Virtual Reality and its potential for evaluating warning compliance

Behavioral compliance is usually considered the best measure of warning effectiveness. Researching behavioral effects is difficult to carry out, however, due to concerns for safety, ethics, and high costs. Researchers cannot expose participants to real hazards while conducting a research. A realistic scenario that appears risky but that actually has no risk is expensive to conduct in terms of money, time, and effort. This article reflects on the potential of Virtual Reality (VR) as a technique to investigate warning effectiveness, particularly behavioral compliance. VR may help to overcome several key constraints that have limited warning compliance research, such as hazards actually being manipulated. This article focuses on two information‐processing stages that will most likely benefit from VR: attention and behavior. Increasingly realistic VR can provide high‐quality Virtual Environments (VEs) for use in warnings research. VEs can provide ecological validity and experimental control while limiting actual physical harm. Advantages and limitations are reviewed. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.