Burning Reality: Experiencing Climate Change through Virtual Reality

This study proposes a virtual reality (VR) experience that aims at raising awareness toward climate change through the simulation of a wildfire, a natural disaster that is becoming increasingly frequent in Portugal, and promote the adoption of sustainable behaviours and mitigation strategies. Here, the feasibility of such an approach is tested implementing both subjective, with the Igroup Presence Questionnaire (IPQ) to evaluate the senses of presence, involvement and realism, and objective measures, i.e., a set of features extracted from the in-VR movement trajectories. The mean scores of IPQ items demonstrated that such devastating event is particularly effective in enhancing participants’ involvement and sense of presence within the virtual environment, reinforcing the potential of VR to foster pro-environmental attitudes. Results also highlighted that these feelings were not altered by VR familiarity, whereas presence ratings were higher for participants who visited the actual location that the virtual environment replicated. Correlation analysis also discovered significant relationships between subjective and objective parameters.