Examining the effect of level of stress on firefighters’ time-to-decision in virtual reality

Highly immersive virtual reality environments were used to examine firefighters’ decision making process and choice. We report here the effects of acute occupationally-relevant stress level on time-to-decision. When comparing low to high-stress situations, time spent on enhancing situational awareness and overall time-to-decision were significantly longer in the low stress setting. However, time spent on reviewing information that was not embedded in the environment was not statically different. Analysis indicated that stress level did not significantly affect the distribution of final choice.

We propose that when stress increases, firefighters sacrifice time available to them to enhance their situational awareness rather than sacrifice information review time; however, stress per se, did not affect their decision choice.