• HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • CONTACT US
Sunday, June 4, 2023
BIOENGINEER.ORG
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • CONTACT US
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • CONTACT US
No Result
View All Result
Bioengineer.org
No Result
View All Result
Home NEWS Science News

Virtual humans are equal to real ones in helping people practice new leadership skills

Bioengineer by Bioengineer
April 16, 2021
in Science News
Reading Time: 3 mins read
0
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedinShare on RedditShare on Telegram

Research into the use of virtual and mixed reality technologies for training suggests a wide range of applications

IMAGE

Credit: Gonzalo Suárez, Sungchul Jung, Robert W. Lindeman

A virtual human can be as good as a flesh-and-blood one when it comes to helping people practice new leadership skills. That’s the conclusion from new research published in the journal Frontiers in Virtual Reality that evaluated the effectiveness of computer-generated characters in a training scenario compared to real human role-players in a conventional setting.

Practice-based training techniques, including role-playing, are sometimes used to help improve training outcomes. However, these methods can be expensive to implement, and often require specialized knowledge and even professional actors to create realistic training environments. In addition, some trainees can feel intimidated in these role-playing scenarios.

Researchers at the Human Interface Technology Lab New Zealand at the University of Canterbury wanted to find out if computer-generated role-players in virtual and mixed reality settings could provide similar levels of effectiveness to address some of the drawbacks to traditional training techniques.

In VR, or virtual reality, participants are completely immersed in a digital world. In mixed reality (MR), elements of the digital world are overlaid onto the physical world.

For the study, the researchers designed eight virtual humans, as well as realistic VR and MR environments using commercially available software and hardware. They recruited 30 people, split into three groups, who would undergo training using a well-known leadership model.

One group involved interactions between leadership trainees and two human role-players who acted as subordinates. The second group interacted with virtual human subordinates in a VR world, while the last group met in a MR setting where participants could see virtual humans in a real office space.

Trainees were scored on how well their leadership style matched each situation based on predefined criteria before and after they received coaching. The result: All three groups improved their performance between the pre- and post-training session, while the MR cohort had a statistically significant mean increase.

“The most remarkable finding is that virtual human role-players have been shown to be as effective as real human role-players to support the practice of leadership skills,” said Gonzalo Suarez, lead author of the paper.

Suarez said one possible reason for the better results was that the MR setting blended reality and virtuality, allowing participants to perform in a safe learning environment with known features.

“Participants were able to perceive their real bodies and characteristics of the physical room where the experiment was conducted while interacting with virtual humans,” he noted. “On the other hand, the experience provided by the VR scenario was completely new for the participants.”

Previous studies of extended reality (XR) technologies – a term that refers to all environments using computer-generated graphics and wearables – have shown that they can provide both effective technical training and development of social skills, according to Suarez. One advantage is that XR allows learners to practice their skills and knowledge in multiple scenarios that may be too dangerous or expensive to replicate in the real world.

The current pandemic is another example of how XR technologies could be applied. “Institutions such as schools and universities can greatly benefit by using these technologies,” Suarez noted.

However, there are still barriers to widespread adoption of the technology. For example, the equipment to render high-quality XR experiences can be expensive, and development could require the expertise of several different types of professionals.

Suarez said he believes those obstacles will eventually be overcome. “More sophisticated and automated content creation tools will arise over time, and their implementation will only strengthen the adoption of XR technologies for the creation of more effective and engaging learning experiences,” he said. “In fact, many of these topics are currently being worked on in projects within the HIT Lab NZ.”

###

Media Contact
Mischa Dijkstra
[email protected]

Related Journal Article

http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/frvir.2021.658561

Tags: BehaviorComputer ScienceEducationMultimedia/Networking/Interface DesignProfessionalSocial/Behavioral Science
Share12Tweet8Share2ShareShareShare2

Related Posts

Dr. Alex Herrera

Phase 3 SWOG Cancer Research Network trial, led by a City of Hope researcher, demonstrates one-year progression-free survival in 94% of patients with Stage 3 or 4 classic Hodgkin lymphoma who received a checkpoint inhibitor combined with chemotherapy

June 4, 2023
Ana Oaknin, Principal Investigator of the Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology’s (VHIO) Gynecological Malignancies Group

The promise of novel FolRα-targeting antibody drug conjugate in recurrent epithelial ovarian cancer

June 3, 2023

Carbon-based stimuli-responsive nanomaterials: classification and application

June 3, 2023

ASCO: Targeted therapy induces responses in HER2-amplified biliary tract cancer

June 3, 2023
Please login to join discussion

POPULAR NEWS

  • plants

    Plants remove cancer causing toxins from air

    40 shares
    Share 16 Tweet 10
  • Element creation in the lab deepens understanding of surface explosions on neutron stars

    36 shares
    Share 14 Tweet 9
  • Deep sea surveys detect over five thousand new species in future mining hotspot

    35 shares
    Share 14 Tweet 9
  • How life and geology worked together to forge Earth’s nutrient rich crust

    35 shares
    Share 14 Tweet 9

About

We bring you the latest biotechnology news from best research centers and universities around the world. Check our website.

Follow us

Recent News

Phase 3 SWOG Cancer Research Network trial, led by a City of Hope researcher, demonstrates one-year progression-free survival in 94% of patients with Stage 3 or 4 classic Hodgkin lymphoma who received a checkpoint inhibitor combined with chemotherapy

The promise of novel FolRα-targeting antibody drug conjugate in recurrent epithelial ovarian cancer

Carbon-based stimuli-responsive nanomaterials: classification and application

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 50 other subscribers
  • Contact Us

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • Homepages
    • Home Page 1
    • Home Page 2
  • News
  • National
  • Business
  • Health
  • Lifestyle
  • Science

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In