Wetenschappelijk onderzoek naar VR (Virtual Reality)

The Brain Science of Simulation Training with Virtual Reality

In many high-pressure situations such as emergency medicine, law enforcement, firefighting, air traffic control and the military the litmus test for success is behavioral performance.

It is one thing to know “what” to do, and to have the ability to verbalize the appropriate steps to achieve some aim, but it is another to know “how” to do it, and to generate the appropriate behaviors in the correct sequence quickly and accurately. The ability to verbalize is important for communication, but the ability to behave appropriately is often the difference between life and death.

"With experience-based learning, broad-based brain activation occurs in synchrony, and results in multiple, interconnected memory traces that are less susceptible to forgetting."

Not only does one want to master the appropriate behavioral repertoire, but one must be able to generate these behaviors under time or social pressure, when all the necessary senses are unavailable (e.g., when in a smoke-filled room), or when some of the optimal tools are unavailable (e.g., when some medicine or medical tools are absent). In other words, one wants to obtain behavioral situational awareness.

"The ability to verbalize is important for communication, but the ability to behave appropriately is often the difference between life and death."

Traditional approaches to emergency medical, law enforcement, firefighting, air traffic control and military training start with textbook and classroom study, then later introduce real-world practice, often through simulation. From a learning science perspective—the marriage of psychology and brain science—this means that you begin by training a cognitive understanding of the problem before training a behavioral understanding. This sequential approach to training, where you become proficient with the cognitive (textbooks and classroom) then become proficient with behavioral (real world or simulation) is suboptimal.

Learning science suggests that a better approach is to engage cognitive learning systems in the brain, such as the prefrontal cortex and medial temporal lobes, simultaneously with behavioral learning system in the brain such as the basal ganglia. Taken a step further, the optimal approach is to engage these cognitive and behavioral systems in the brain within an experience. To quote Albert Einstein, “Learning is an experience. Everything else is just information.” By engaging cognitive and behavioral systems within an experience, one broadly recruits the prefrontal cortex/medial temporal lobes (cognitive), basal ganglia (behavioral), and sensory experiential regions such as the occipital, temporal and parietal lobes. Critically, this broad-based brain activation occurs in synchrony, and results in multiple, interconnected memory traces that are less susceptible to forgetting.

"A sequential approach to training, where you first become proficient with the cognitive, then with behavioral, is suboptimal."

One reason for traditional, sequential approaches to training is that real-world and simulation training is expensive, time-consuming and not scalable. Thus, the reasoning is that an initial focus on cognitive training will “bootstrap” the learner and require less real-world and simulation training to achieve behavioral mastery. The problem with this reasoning is that behavioral learning systems are distinct from cognitive learning systems in the brain and they have very different processing characteristics. Cognitive learning systems in the brain are ineffective at “bootstrapping” behavioral learning systems in the brain, which explains why learners often feel like they are “starting from scratch” when they begin real-world or simulation-based behavioral training.

"By training on a broad-range of situations under different levels of emotional stress, the learner can develop the situational awareness needed to read the current situation and to anticipate future."

This is where virtual reality (VR) offers an ideal solution. With VR you can train the cognitive and behavioral learning systems in the brain within a context-rich experience. This broadly engages cognitive, behavioral and experiential learning systems in the brain in synchrony resulting in faster and more stable learning. Relative to real-world or simulation training, VR training is cost-effective, time-effective, and scalable. This allows the learner to obtain essentially limitless training on a broad array of situations. This is necessary to obtain mastery and expertise.

"A better approach is to engage cognitive learning systems in the brain, such as the prefrontal cortex and medial temporal lobes, simultaneously with behavioral learning system in the brain such as the basal ganglia."

The range of situations that can be trained is essentially infinite. One can train on routine situations such as patrolling a peaceful demonstration or takeoff and landing under ideal weather conditions and non-routine situations such as crowd control during an escalating riot or takeoff and landing during a fast-moving weather pattern. One can train safely on dangerous situations such as an emergency C-section or infiltrating an insurgent hideout. Finally, one can train in situations that would be too expensive to train extensively with simulation such as a large war exercise or a massive viral outbreak. All of these situations can be trained under time pressure or under no time pressure, in loud and chaotic environments versus those free of distraction, or with adequate or inadequate preparation and equipment.

"With VR you can train the cognitive and behavioral learning systems in the brain within a context-rich experience. "

By training on a broad-range of situations under different levels of emotional stress, the learner can develop the situational awareness needed to “read” the current situation and to anticipate future, choosing the right course of action now and being prepared to change course in an instant if need be.

"The range of situations that can be trained with immersive technologies is essentially infinite."

These high-pressure situations are ones that require preparedness before entering the workforce. One cannot afford to rely on on-the-job training in emergency medicine, law enforcement, firefighting, air traffic control, the military or any number of other jobs. They are too important for society and one wrong move can be the difference between life and death. When done right, VR offers the promise of effective training that will leave the learner job-ready from day one. The professional willing to undertake these high-stakes jobs deserves this level of preparedness and so does the public that they serve.

(Bron: Tech Trends)

Jay Quercia

Producers of virtual reality often herald it as a shortcut to empathy. For example, in February at a fundraising conference in the UK, a Greenpeace manager reported that VR experience which transports viewers into the Amazon rain forest doubled the number of people who signed up for donations. But was this just an outlier event, or does VR truly change hearts and minds?

My virtual reality lab at Stanford has been studying the relationship between empathy and VR for 15 years. So it is no surprise that when leaders from news organisations and nonprofits come to the lab — and we get visits from dozens each year — I am often asked if, scientifically, VR causes empathy.

My answer is that VR creates experiences. Experiences can cause empathy, but it depends on what you’re doing. Think about video or the written word. Neither automatically creates empathy, but each can if a piece is crafted carefully. Across dozens of studies since 2003, our research has shown that if one wants to leverage what makes VR special, physical action helps. If you want to move people, you should move them.

In a study published in 2013, half our participants imagined they were colorblind, while the other half experienced being colorblind as we altered images sent to the VR goggles.

Then, they used a system that could track their hand movements as they performed a difficult sorting task, lifting up objects in VR and putting them in piles based on color. For those in the imagination condition, the task was annoying but doable. For those who became impaired in VR, the task was brutal, almost impossible to carry out. After the study, participants who became impaired spent almost twice as much time helping others, volunteering to help find websites that would be hard to read in the real world, when asked to do so directly after the study. “It made me realise how tough it is for them to do certain things in life,” one participant wrote in a questionnaire.

In our study empathy for coral, 167 participants interacted with two versions of a virtual rocky reef – a healthy one and one devastated by climate change.

They examined coral and other marine life, swimming through the scene by waving their physical arms around in a breast-stroke motion. For eight minutes, we recorded their body movements, in particular how much they moved their hands. After the experience was over, we asked if they were willing to spend time in the real world learning about ocean conservation. We found a significant correlation—the more people physically moved around while examining the virtual reef, the more they cared to learn more about ocean conservation outside of VR. Of course, correlation does not imply causation, and it could be that people who were “green” simply were more interested in the content and were also more likely to want to learn more.

Other research demonstrates causality. In a study published in 2016, we swapped peoples’ virtual arms. When they moved their right arms physically, in VR they saw their left arm move, and vice versa. Yes, this is a very strange experience.

The goal was to disrupt a well-established pattern of liking. University of Chicago psychologist Daniel Casasanto has shown that people prefer objects on their “dominant” side. For example, right-handed interviewers are more prefer applicants displayed on the right side of a piece of paper than the left side. In our study, 154 participants either moved around with normal arms or switched arms, confusing the spatial relationship between brain and body. Then they left VR and chose items either on the left or right. In the normal condition, 67 per cent preferred their dominant side. In the swapped condition, the preference was only 56 per cent, and not different from chance. The strange experience of tweaking arm movements in was enough to change what they liked in the real world.

One of the most popular strategies that newspapers and nonprofits are using to create empathy is 360-degree video, for example, the daily experiences produced by the New York Timesor the canonical piece by the United Nations, Clouds over Sidra. In this type of VR, people can only turn their heads and look around—they cannot walk or interact with the scene. But even head-turning matters. We published a study in 2017 that explored head movements and emotions. Across dozens of 360 videos, ranging from nature scenes to war recreations, we measured just under 100 participants’ head movements as they looked around the scene, and also measured how happy they were using a standard method of self-reporting emotion. The more the viewers moved their head side to side, the happier they were.

There is no medium that magically produces empathy. As Bill Gates remarked, “content is king.” In VR, content that moves the body will also move the mind.

(Bron: Wired – By: Jeremy Bailenson, professor of communication at Stanford University)

NEW YORK, February 13, 2019 –SuperData, a Nielsen company (NYSE: NLSN), today released a finding that shows how much companies are expected to save in 2019 thanks to XR training. According to SuperData, enterprises that adopt XR training technology will save $13.5 billion that would otherwise have been spent on traditional training that includes instructors, dedicated learning spaces and traveling to remote facilities.

XR training is based on training simulations that involves virtual, mixed and augmented reality headsets, as well as mobile augmented reality applications. Trainees can learn and practice their new skills in an immersive environment without risking injury or having to temporarily relocate. For example, American Airlines uses VR to help new crew members familiarize themselves with safety procedures before their first day on the job.

According to SuperData, 71% of companies that use VR are using it for training, double the share of virtual showrooms. Walmart, for example, plans to train over one million employees across 4,000 stores using the standalone Oculus Go headset, with the program slated to kick off later in 2019. In addition to retailers, airlines, tourism, oil and gas, and finance industry are also looking to adopt the immersive technology for training purposes.

“Our finding further proves that companies using XR for training are already showing positive returns,” said Stephanie Llamas, Head of XR at SuperData, a Nielsen company. “This illustrates the technology’s importance to the future of safer and more connected solutions. Organizations that aren’t exploring virtual, augmented and mixed reality for training will soon be left behind by their competitors who are.”

Besides VR training, demands for augmented reality and mixed reality are also rising among companies. In 2019, enterprises will become the biggest client of AR and MR hardware makers, accounting for 85% of AR/MR headsets sold in 2019 and will continue to represent the majority of demand through 2022.

SuperData calculates figures using information from proprietary data sharing partnerships in our XR Data Network, consumer studies, web and search analytics, publicly announced revenue and sales figures, and information from trusted XR industry sources.

(Bron: Superdata)