Humans seem have access to an extraordinary repertoire of actions to avoid or escape threat. Sometimes these actions must be selected with high precision and under extreme time pressure. This poses a significant challenge to any biological or artifical system. The current project addresses the cognitive mechanisms by which the brain decides on a course of action under threat, implements it in behaviour, monitors its success, and updates the plan. This is likely to be of importance to people who have to cope with physical hazards in their daily work, and also to clinical conditions in which people seem to over-avoid or escape harmless objects or situations.
Thus, the project will investigate: (a) what exactly are the actions and movements that humans can take to avoid, escape, or defend themselves, and (b) how are these actions planned and coordinated. Since ethical considerations prohibit exposing humans to actual threat, we build a virtual reality platform in which people can freely move and encounter various virtual threats. We record their full-body movements in different ways, and analyse the paths of different body parts in these situations. Virtual reality enables us to create a natural environment, but also to manipulate the environment in ways that are physically or biologically impossible. This allows probing the limits of the cognitive mechanisms and thus expose their inner workings. For example, we can ask to what extent can a person suppress a spontaneous action when it leads to negative consequences.
Ultimately, the knowledge garnered in this project could help improving the training that professionals receive in order to select workplace-optimal protective actions, and that patients receive in order to suppress harmful over-avoidance.
