The present study investigated if users are complacent when interacting with phishing emails because they trust automated filters to remove any potential threats. Participants were asked to examine 50 email classifications made by a simulated email filter. Participants were either assigned a high or low reliability pseudo-filter that “classified” all of the emails as legitimate, resembling an email inbox, or all of the emails as not legitimate, resembling a spam folder. Participants who believed the filter operated at the instructed reliability were more likely to make email classifications that were consistent with their assigned filter, regardless of the emails’ true nature, and demonstrated poorer classification abilities when told their filter acted with higher reliability. These results suggest that some email users may be more vulnerable to phishing emails due to their over trust in automated filters, particularly when they believe the filter operates with high reliability.

Active exploration in virtual reality (VR) involves users navigating immersive virtual environments, going from one place to another. While navigating, users often engage in secondary tasks that require attentional resources, as in the case of distracted driving. Inspired by research generally studying the effects of task demands on cybersickness (CS), we investigated how the attentional demands specifically associated with secondary tasks performed during exploration affect CS. Downstream of this, we studied how increased attentional demands from secondary tasks affect spatial memory and navigational performance. We discuss the results of a multi-factorial between-subjects study, manipulating a secondary task's demand across two levels and studying its effects on CS in two different sickness-inducing levels of an exploration experience. The secondary task's demand was manipulated by parametrically varying $n$ in an aural $n$-back working memory task and the provocativeness of the experience was manipulated by varying how frequently users experienced a yaw-rotational reorientation effect during the exploration. Results revealed that increases in the secondary task's demand increased sickness levels, also resulting in a higher temporal onset rate, especially when the experience was not already highly sickening. Increased attentional demand from the secondary task also vitiated navigational performance and spatial memory. Overall, increased demands from secondary tasks performed during navigation produce deleterious effects on the VR experience.

Cybersickness (CS) is one of the challenges that has hindered the widespread adoption of Virtual Reality (VR). Consequently, researchers continue to explore novel means to mitigate the undesirable effects associated with this affliction, one that may require a combination of remedies as opposed to a solitary stratagem. Inspired by research probing into the use of distractions as a means to control pain, we investigated the efficacy of this countermeasure against CS, studying how the introduction of temporally time-gated distractions affects this malady during a virtual experience featuring active exploration. Downstream of this, we studied how other aspects of the VR experience are affected by this intervention. We discuss the results of a between-subjects study manipulating the presence, sensory modality, and nature of periodic and short-lived (5-12 seconds) distractor stimuli across four experimental conditions: 1) no-distractors (ND); 2) auditory distractors (AD); 3) visual distractors (VD); 4) cognitive distractors (CD). Two of these conditions (VD and AD) formed a yoked control design wherein every matched pair of 'seers' and 'hearers' was periodically exposed to distractors that were identical in terms of content, temporality, duration, and sequence. In the CD condition, each participant had to periodically perform a 2-back working memory task, the duration and temporality of which was matched to distractors presented in each matched pair of the yoked conditions. These three conditions were compared to a baseline control group featuring no distractions. Results indicated that the reported sickness levels were lower in all three distraction groups in comparison to the control group. The intervention also increased the amount of time users were able to endure the VR simulation and avoided causing detriments to spatial memory and virtual travel efficiency. Overall, it appears that it may be possible to make users less consciously aware and bothered by the symptoms of CS, thereby reducing its perceived severity.