Examining context-specific perceptions of risk: exploring the utility of human-in-the-loop simulation models for criminology

To utilize a human-in-the-loop simulation methodology to examine the impact of high-risk environmental contexts on perceptions of victimization risk. Fifty-nine participants navigated a virtual environment and encountered five two-alternative forced-choice decision points, with one alternative representing a high-risk environmental context in each case. Participants risk-aware decision-making was examined as a function of sex and age, both for their decisions overall and also at each specific decision point. Overall differences in total risk-aware decisions were observed for sex (with females more risk-aware) but not age. In addition to this, variation in perceived risk was also observed across the range of high-risk environmental contexts and there was also some indication of varying influence of age and sex on specific types of risk-aware decisions. These results have interesting implications for research into context-specific perceptions of risk. These findings also support a stance that human-in-the-loop simulation modeling has good potential to contribute to criminology more broadly.