{"type":"ScholarlyArticle","title":"Studying the Effects of Robot Distraction on School Shooter Behavior Using Virtual Reality","authors":[{"name":"Christopher A. McClurg","slug":"christopher-a-mcclurg","given":"Christopher A.","family":"McClurg","affiliation":""},{"name":"Alan R. Wagner","slug":"alan-r-wagner","given":"Alan R.","family":"Wagner","affiliation":""}],"abstract":"We examine a particular adversarial human--robot interaction for which mobile robots influence the behavior of people role-playing as a school shooter. Using a high-fidelity virtual reality environment, we conducted a controlled study with 150 participants. Two autonomous robots predicted participant movement and positioned themselves to interfere and distract. The robots' approach strategy was manipulated---either moving directly into the participant's path (aggressive) or maintaining distance (passive)---along with the level of distraction, ranging from no additional cues (low), to siren and lights (medium), to siren, lights, and smoke to impair visibility (high). An aggressive, high-distraction robot configuration reduced the number of victims by 46.6% relative to a no-robot control. These results show that robot-based distraction can meaningfully alter human behavior and outcomes in adversarial settings, while also raising important ethical questions about the use of such systems in school environments.","doi":"10.24963/ijcai.2026/851","url":"https://ijcai.org/proceedings/2026/851","pdf":"https://ijcai.org/proceedings/2026/0851.pdf","markdown":"https://ijcai.org/proceedings/2026/851.md","bibtex":"https://ijcai.org/proceedings/2026/bibtex/851","volume":{"slug":"2026","title":"Proceedings of the Thirty-Fifth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence","short_title":"IJCAI 2026","url":"https://ijcai.org/proceedings/2026/","year":2026,"location":"Bremen, Germany","dates":"15-21 August 2026","editors":"Diego Calvanese","isbn":"978-1-956792-09-6","publisher":"International Joint Conferences on Artificial Intelligence Organization","doi_prefix":"10.24963/ijcai.2026"},"section":"Human-Centred AI","track":"Human-Centred AI","number":851,"pages":{"first":7658,"last":7666},"keywords":["Human-Centred AI: Humans and AI","Human-Centred AI: Machine Learning","Human-Centred AI: Robotics"],"videos":[],"references":[],"license_note":"Copyright International Joint Conferences on Artificial Intelligence."}