Information Requirements for Virtual Environments to Study Human-Building Interactions during Active Shooter Incidents

Active shooter incidents present an increasing American homeland security threat to public safety and human life. Several municipal law enforcement agencies have released building design guidelines intended to offer increased resilience and resistance to potential attacks. However, these design recommendations mainly focus on terrorist attacks, prioritizing the enhancement of building security, whereas their impact on safety during active shooter incidents, and corresponding human-building interactions (HBIs) that influence the outcomes (response performance), remain unclear. To respond to this research gap, virtual reality, with its ability to manipulate environmental variables and scenarios while providing safe non-invasive environments, could be a promising method to conduct human-subject studies in the context of active shooter incidents. In this paper, we identify the requirements for developing virtual environments that represent active shooter incidents in buildings to study HBIs and their impacts on the response performance. Key components constituting virtual environments were considered and presented. These include: (1) what types of buildings should be modeled in virtual environments; (2) how to select protective building design recommendations for active shooter incidents and model them in virtual environments; (3) what types of adversary and crowd behavior should be modeled; and (4) what types of interactions among participants, buildings, adversaries, and crowds should be included in virtual environments. Findings on the above key components were summarized to provide recommendations for future research directions.