Talk: Measuring What Matters: Lessons Learned from Taking Virtual Patients for Training from Research to Realization

Abstract:

Did you know you’ve likely been seen by a nurse that has been trained using virtual patients to improve their critical thinking and communication skills? In this talk, we will discuss the process of how the idea training with virtual humans to improve communication skills with real people progressed from conceptualization to realization. We will explore key findings in how people train with virtual humans as well as lessons learned from creating Shadow Health to bring virtual human patients into curricula at thousands of universities and colleges. Finally, I will use the experience of getting virtual patients to impact our lives as to motivate everyone to continually reevaluate how we measure our progress and impact of our research and our careers. The goal of this talk is to provide the audience insights into transdisciplinary collaboration, developing an entrepreneurial mindset, and a metacognitive reassessment of where we are in our research careers.

Talk: Lessons Learned in Near-Field Interactions with Virtual Humans and 3D Interaction Design for Training and Education in VR

Abstract:

In this keynote, I will first discuss lessons learned from a body of research on emotion contagion and visual attention in human-virtual human interaction. In a virtual human simulation designed to educate nurses in recognizing the signs and symptoms of rapid deterioration, we investigated the effects of animation, appearance and interaction fidelity on the emotional reactions and visual attention behaviors of trainees. Our results and lessons learned have implications to the design of virtual humans in inter-personal simulations for personal space education that I will discuss as part of this talk. Next, I will also discuss a body of work investigating dimensional symmetry and interaction fidelity continuum on near-field fine motor skills training in VR for technical skills education in the aviation and automotive curriculum. We designed and evaluated the effects of interaction, dimensional and system fidelity in near-field virtual reality simulations for motor skills training and education, in domains such as precision metrology and mechanical skills acquisition. Finally, I will end the talk summarizing our contributions, and highlight the key takeaways and recommendations for the design of virtual human and virtual reality simulations for near-field fine motor skills training and inter-personal skills education.