Decoding pedestrian stress on urban streets using electrodermal activity monitoring in virtual immersive reality

The pedestrian stress level is shown to significantly influence human cognitive processes and, subsequently, decision-making, e.g., the decision to select a gap and cross a street. This paper systematically studies the stress experienced by a pedestrian when crossing a street under different experimental manipulations by monitoring the Electrodermal Activity (EDA) using the Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) sensor. To fulfil the research objectives, a dynamic and immersive virtual reality (VR) platform was used, which is suitable for eliciting and capturing pedestrian’s emotional responses in conjunction with monitoring their EDA. A total of 171 individuals participated in the experiment, tasked to cross a two-way street at mid-block with no signal control. Mixed effects models were employed to compare the influence of socio-demographics, social influence, vehicle technology, environment, road design, and traffic variables on the stress levels of the participants. The results indicated that having a street median in the middle of the road operates as a refuge and significantly reduced stress. Younger participants (18–24 years) were calmer than the relatively older participants (55–65 years). Arousal levels were higher when it came to the characteristics of the avatar (virtual pedestrian) in the simulation, especially for those avatars with adventurous traits. The pedestrian location influenced stress since the stress was higher on the street while crossing than waiting on the sidewalk. Significant causes of arousal were fear of accidents and an actual accident for pedestrians. The estimated random effects show a high degree of physical and mental learning by the participants while going through the scenarios. • Measured stress using GSR sensor in immersive VR walking environment. • Large-scale experiment involving 171 respondents and multimodal data. • Modelling influence of traffic, design, environment, and social influence. • Contextualized assessment of pedestrian emotional responses.