To be eligible to take part in this study, you must be:

• aged between 18 and 24
• a full-time student at a UK university

Please do not sign up for this study if you meet any of the following criteria:

• You have been a victim of sexual assault
• You have experienced trauma following sexual harassment
• You are pregnant
• You have epilepsy
• You have undergone a neurological procedure
• You have a pre-existing vision abnormality or uncorrected vision
• You have a psychiatric disorder
• You have a heart condition
• You have a contagious eye, skin, or scalp condition
• You are at seizure risk
• You have a medical device such as a cardiac pacemaker, hearing aid or defibrillator
• You have any other serious medical condition
• You have a digestive problem
• You are suffering from cold, flu, COVID-19, headaches, migraines or earaches

We also advise that you do not take part if you:

• Are tired or exhausted
• Need sleep
• Are under the influence of alcohol or drugs
• Are feeling ill or are suffering from a hangover
• Are stressed or anxious

You will need to complete a five-minute online survey to confirm if you are eligible to take part in the 45-minute in-person laboratory study.

During the in-person session, you will be required to watch a scene in a VR headset and complete a questionnaire as part of this study. You will also be required to wear a wristband to measure your physiological responses (such as heart rate).

We will also film you during the study to help us assess and measure your responses.

You will be given £10 cash in total for completing both the five-minute eligibility survey and the 45-minute in-person session. This will be given at the end of the in-person session.

When signing up to take part in this research, you will be given a participant ID number. You are the only person (including the research team) who knows that this ID number corresponds to you and your data. After taking part in the study, if you wish, you can use this ID number to withdraw your data.

It is very important that you keep a note of your participant ID number, as there will be no way to identify, and withdraw, your data without it. Once we have collected all the data for this study, we will remove participant IDs from our datasets, meaning you will no longer be able to withdraw your data after this point.

Your data will only be analysed collectively and will not be analysed on an individual level. The only exception to this is for behavioural or verbal responses to the VR scene, where quotations or descriptions may be taken from individual responses to include in our report. However, these quotes and descriptions will remain anonymous.

Your data will only be analysed collectively and will not be analysed on an individual level. The only exception to this is for behavioural or verbal responses to the VR scene, where quotations or descriptions may be taken from individual responses to include in our report. However, these quotes and descriptions will remain anonymous.

Once the project is completed, your data will be kept safely by the University of Bath. If you give your consent, the data will be made “open data”, meaning that this anonymous data will be made publicly available so that it may be used by other researchers, with the University of Bath’s approval, under the strict rules governing the confidentiality of your information. The only exception to this is the video footage of participants, which will not be made "open data".