Todd Maddox delves into the Neuroscience behind immersive technologies’ unique ability to make us experience things from another person’s perspective.

Merriam-Webster defines empathy as “the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another…without having these fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner.”

Any profession that requires interpersonal interaction, such as education, retail, food service, and call centers, is better served with strong empathy
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That is a lot to unpack, but it is clear that empathy is about much more than an explicit cognitive understanding of someone’s situation. It is more about an emotional, experiential and visceral understanding as if you have “walked a mile in someone else’s shoes” and have shared their experiences. Empathy also shows in one’s behavior. An empathetic individual uses open body language and a verbal tone that shows genuine behavioral intent. Empathy is something that you can see in another’s action.

An empathetic individual uses open body language and a verbal tone that shows genuine behavioral intent
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In this report, I review the psychology and neuroscience of learning and show that virtual reality (VR) has the potential to build empathy in individuals. As outlined above, this requires training at an emotional, experiential and behavioral level, not just at a cognitive level. Empathy building is facilitated by immersive experiences that are rich in context and emotion and allow one to “walk a mile in someone else’s shoes”. As I show below, VR meets these challenges.

Empathy is something that you can see in another’s action
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Empathy is important in life and in many professions, and it is especially important in professions that help people in need or people under duress. For example, empathy is critical in healthcare, social work, senior care, and law enforcement, to name a few. In fact, any profession that requires interpersonal interaction, such as education, retail, food service, and call centers, is better served with individuals having strong empathy. Anytime someone could “use a friend”, “someone to listen”, or “someone to care and connect with”, empathy is a must.

Although there is likely some genetic component to empathy, as there is with so many things, many believe that it can be trained
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Some people seem to naturally have empathy, and others seem not to. Although there is likely some genetic component to empathy, as there is with so many things, many believe that empathy can be trained. Empathy training is clearly challenging though because this is not a skill that requires a simple cognitive understanding. Rather, empathy is an emotional skill that requires shared experience in the sense that one can “walk a mile in someone else’s shoes, and can behave accordingly.

Empathy training is about training a person, and every person’s actions are directed by their brain. Thus, to understand how to effectively train empathy, one must understand the psychology and neuroscience of learning.

“Learning is an experience. Everything else is just information”

Albert Einstein

This is an insightful quote from Albert Einstein that is supported by the neuroscience of learning and is especially relevant to empathy training.

As outlined in the figure below, the human brain is comprised of at least four distinct learning systems. As Einstein so eloquently stated, experience is at the heart of learning. The experiential system has evolved to represent the sensory aspects of an experience, whether visual, auditory, tactile or olfactory. Every experience is unique, adds rich context to the learning and is immersive. The critical brain regions associated with experiential learning are the occipital lobes (sight), temporal lobes (sound), and parietal lobes (touch/smell). Experiential learning is especially important when it comes to empathy. The more one can vicariously experience the feelings, thoughts, and experiences of another, the more empathetic they will become. If one can literally “walk a mile in someone else’s shoes” they get this vicarious experience.

Empathy building is facilitated by immersive experiences rich in context and emotion that allow one to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes
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One can experience a situation from any vantage point; Providing empathy, watching another provide empathy or receiving empathy
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The cognitive system is the information system. It processes and stores knowledge and facts using working memory and attention. Critically, these are limited resources and form a bottleneck that slows learning with more information coming in and available to the learner (the green arrows) than can be processed (the red arrow). This system encompasses the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus. This is the “everything else” aspect of learning that Einstein alluded to. With respect to empathy, this might involve memorizing the Merriam-Webster definition, knowing explicitly that eye contact is important, or that it is important to be understanding.

The behavioral system in the brain has evolved to learn motor skills. This is an amazing system and one that builds the “muscle memory” that drives empathetic behaviors. The detailed processing characteristics of this system are fascinating but are beyond the scope of this report. Suffice it to say that the critical brain structure for behavioral learning is the striatum, and processing in the striatum is optimized when behavior is interactive and is followed in real-time (literally within milliseconds) by corrective feedback. Behaviors that are rewarded lead to dopamine release into the striatum that incrementally increases the likelihood of eliciting that behavior again in the same context.

emotional learning, when combined with context-rich experiences, builds rich repertoires of empathetic understanding and behavior
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Behaviors that are punished do not lead to dopamine release into the striatum thus incrementally decreasing the likelihood of eliciting that behavior again in the same context. This system links rich experiential contexts (represented by the experiential learning system) and emotions with the appropriate behavioral responses. It is one thing to know the definition of empathy, to know that eye contact is important, and to know that you need to show understanding, but it is completely different (and mediated by different systems in the brain) to know how to show empathy with eye contact and behaviors that demonstrate true understanding.

The more one can vicariously experience the feelings, thoughts, and experiences of another, the more empathetic they will become
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More than anything, it is the emotional learning system in the brain that builds the interpersonal understanding, awareness, and sensitivity that are at the heart of empathy and an understanding of our and others’ behaviors. The critical brain regions are the amygdala and other limbic structures. The detailed processing characteristics of this system are less well understood than the cognitive and behavioral skills learning systems, but emotional learning, when combined with context-rich experiences, builds rich repertoires of empathetic understanding and behavior.

The emotional learning system in the brain builds the interpersonal understanding, awareness, and sensitivity that are at the heart of empathy and an understanding of our and others’ behaviors
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It should be clear from this brief review of the psychology and neuroscience of learning, that training empathy is a challenge. Memorizing definitions, and an explicit cognitive understanding of empathy is not sufficient. Watching video of examples of empathetic and non-empathetic behavior is better, but even these do not represent immersive, context-rich experiences that elicit strong emotions. Empathy simulation and role-play training offer a step in the right direction because they are interactive, involve emotion-laden situations and behavior, but even here it is often difficult to suspend the reality of who you are and who your role-playing partner might be. In addition, people differ in their willingness and ability to role play. Finally, simulation and role play are time-consuming, costly, and not scalable.

This is where VR comes in. VR is time- and cost-effective, and is scalable. One can experience numerous VR scenarios and can repeat them as many times as one likes. VR has the potential to build the empathy that is so desperately needed.

VR is time- and cost-effective, and is scalable
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One can experience numerous VR scenarios and can repeat them as many times as one likes
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Consider a healthcare setting and a nurse-in-training. As any seasoned nurse will tell you, the classroom does a good job of training the technical aspects of the job, but not the interpersonal. However, suppose this nurse-in-training was given empathy training in VR, along with their traditional classroom training. Using VR, this nurse-in-training might be transported into the middle of a busy emergency room and shadow a seasoned nurse explaining a patient’s condition to their distraught spouse. Using voice-over, the seasoned nurse might explain how they are showing empathy to soothe the concerns of the spouse. The nurse-in-training is in the situation and can feel the emotions. They can combine the information provided by the seasoned nurse with the behaviors they are observing, all within an emotion-laden, realistic experience.

A nurse-in-training might be transported into the body of a patient just coming out of anesthesia following surgery
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This engages multiple learning systems in synchrony and will build empathy quickly and effectively. Analogously, the nurse-in-training might be transported into the body of a patient just coming out of anesthesia following surgery. They might experience one situation in which their nurse shows strong empathy and another situation in which their nurse does not. These behaviors are being directed at the nurse-in-training, while they embody a patient. This “walk a mile in my shoes” experience offers the first-person perspective that one needs to build empathy.

VR has the potential to build the empathy that is so desperately needed
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One can imagine similar VR empathy building scenarios for social workers, senior care professionals, law enforcement, retail, food service, and education to name just a few.

VR is immersive, and with high-quality content, one can experience almost any empathy-building situation. The experiential learning systems will be highly engaged and the learner will have a sense of presence. One can experience a situation from any vantage point, whether the one providing empathy, one watching another provide empathy or the receiver of empathy. Thus, one can obtain an emotional understanding from multiple perspectives. A cognitive understanding can emerge, but it is a byproduct and not the primary avenue of training. Emotion-laden experiential learning builds a deep emotional understanding of empathy, while simultaneously building a strong repertoire of empathy-related behaviors.

VR is immersive, and with high-quality content, one can experience almost any empathy-building situation
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For companies looking to get into Immersive technologies such as VR/AR/MR/XR our Virtual Reality Consultancy services offer guidance and support on how best to incorporate these into your brand strategy.

Todd Maddox is Science, Sports and Training Correspondent at Tech Trends, and the CEO of Cognitive Design and Statistical Consulting. Follow him on Twitter @wtoddmaddox

The post Report: VR as an Empathy Builder appeared first on Tech Trends.

Healthcare professionals are tasked with learning and retaining an enormous amount of knowledge and skills. Whether the task is to master human anatomy and physiology, the symptoms associated with a broad range of diseases and disorders, or the skills associated with performing some routine or non-routine medical procedure, healthcare professional undergo an enormous amount of training to ensure excellence when treating patients. In addition, healthcare professionals are expected to apply this knowledge and these skills under a broad range of challenging situations including time pressure, social stress, and other sub-optimal conditions.

As all healthcare professionals know, the brain is hardwired to forget
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Unfortunately, and as all healthcare professionals know first-hand, the brain is hardwired to forget. This has been known implicitly for centuries, but was formalized scientifically in 1885 when Hermann Ebbinghaus embarked on a journey to characterize and quantify the time-course of learning and memory, and in the process discovered the “forgetting curve”.

A typical forgetting curve is displayed below. The y-axis denotes the retention rate that ranges from 0 to 100%, and the x-axis denotes time. The blue dot in the upper left represents the initial level of learning. In this example, we assume that the learner obtained 100% of the knowledge initially. The red curve is the forgetting curve. Notice that the rate of forgetting is rapid initially and then tapers off over time. The retention rates of 60% after 20 minutes, 40% after one day, and 15% after a week are hypothetical but are in line with many scientific studies. Although the retention rates depend upon the nature of initial training and the type of information studied, the shape remains the same.

What this means is that you can train to perfection today, but you will immediately start to forget and ultimately will retain only a small portion of the information. This is a serious problem in any training setting, but is especially problematic in healthcare. The last thing that you want is for your healthcare professional to forget some critical piece of knowledge.

The neuroscience of information and skills retention and the problem of forgetting are fascinating. In this report, we discuss these issues and show how traditional approaches to training that rely predominantly on text, and some healthcare simulation or hands-on training exacerbate the problem. We then discuss the neuroscience of learning with immersive technologies like virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), and show why their grounding in experience is advantageous for guarding against forgetting. We show that the ability for endless study and practice enhances “Training for Retention”, and builds situational awareness in healthcare.

First, we need a brief primer on the neuroscience of learning.

“Learning is an experience. Everything else is just information”

Albert Einstein

This is an insightful quote from Albert Einstein that is supported by the neuroscience of learning. But why? What is it about experience that is so rich that it is fundamental to learning, and why is information so much less effective?

As outlined in the figure below, the human brain is comprised of at least four distinct learning systems. As Einstein so eloquently stated, the experience is at the heart of learning. Importantly, it is also at the foundation of VR and AR. The experiential system has evolved to represent the sensory aspects of an experience, whether visual, auditory, tactile or olfactory. Every experience is unique, adds rich context to the learning and is immersive. The critical brain regions associated with experiential learning are the occipital lobes (sight), temporal lobes (sound), and parietal lobes (touch).

You can train to perfection today, but you will immediately start to forget and ultimately will retain only a small portion of the information
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The cognitive system is the information system. It processes and stores knowledge and facts. Cognitive information comes in the form of text, graphics, or video and is processed using working memory and attention. Critically, these are limited resources and form a bottleneck that slows learning with more information coming in and available to the learner (the green arrows) than can be processed (the red arrow). This system encompasses the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus.

The behavioral system in the brain has evolved to learn motor skills. It is one thing to know what to do, but it is completely different (and mediated by different systems in the brain) to know how to do it. Processing in this system is optimized when behavior is interactive and is followed in real-time (literally within milliseconds) by corrective feedback. Behaviors that are rewarded lead to dopamine release into the striatum that incrementally increases the likelihood of eliciting that behavior again in the same context. Behaviors that are punished do not lead to dopamine release into the striatum thus incrementally decreasing the likelihood of eliciting that behavior again in the same context. Real-time feedback is critical because striatal activation decays quickly (within a few 100 milliseconds) following initiation of behavior. If a correct behavior is elicited, but feedback is delayed, even by a second or two, the dopamine will be released into the striatum, but striatal activation (driven by the behavior) will be so weak that no learning will occur. Similarly, if an incorrect behavior is elicited, but feedback is delayed, the striatal activation (driven by the behavior) will be so weak that the system won’t know what behavior to unlearn.

The behavioral system in the brain has evolved to learn motor skills
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The emotional learning system in the brain has evolved to facilitate the development of situational awareness — the ability to read nuance in a situation and the uncanny ability to know what comes next – as well as empathy and understanding of our and others’ behaviors. Whereas one can have all of the facts and figures available and can have a strong behavioral repertoire, in the end, one has to extract the appropriate information and engage the appropriate behavior in each distinct situation. The critical brain regions are the amygdala and other limbic structures. The detailed processing characteristics of this system are less well understood than the cognitive and behavioral skills learning systems, but emotional learning is at the heart of situational awareness, and strongly affects both cognitive and behavioral skills learning. An individual with strong situational awareness can accurately read any situation, adapts quickly and knows what to do in each situation, and has the behavioral repertoire to engage each situation with the appropriate set of behaviors.

Using anatomy and physiology training as an example, let’s explore the traditional approach to training. You start with textbook and classroom study, then transition to some hands-on training or a cadaver lab. Because of the cost associated with hands-on and cadaver lab training, invariably classroom and textbook training is emphasized.

From a neuroscience perspective, this traditional approach starts by engaging the cognitive system as you sit in class and study textbooks. The human body is a 3-dimensional structure that functions as a dynamic system. Thus, the goal is to obtain a 3-dimensional, dynamic representation in your brain. Although the best way to achieve this goal is to present the learner with a 3D dynamic training tool, instead you start with textbooks or slide shows that are filled with 2D static images. The learner must convert a series of 2D static images into a 3D dynamic mental representation in the brain that accurately reflects the human form. The cognitive effort needed to do this is enormous. Given the fact that working memory and attention are limited capacity resources, this process with is slow, challenging, and error-prone.

In the laboratory, further cognitive training occurs, and the behavioral system is also engaged as the healthcare professional practices particular tasks. At some point, the professional is deemed “ready” and they are sent out to a clinic or hospital where the real learning occurs, on-the-job. Healthcare professionals often lament at how little of their classroom and laboratory training actually transfers to the real world. The brain tells us why. All of the training has been sequential and disjointed. It would be much better to emphasize experience and to train knowledge and skills simultaneously.

The goal is to obtain a 3-dimensional, dynamic representation in your brain
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Now consider an immersive approach to the same training. Consider an AR or VR tool for teaching anatomy and physiology where a highly accurate 3D dynamic representation of the 3D dynamic human form is presented. The learner can move and rotate the virtual body and when certain body parts are “touched” a description of the part and its function is provided. Layers of virtual tissue can be removed so that the inner workings of the body can be explored.

From a neuroscience perspective, this immersive approach engages the experiential, cognitive and behavioral learning systems in synchrony. This broad-based neural activation leads to a highly interconnected, context-rich set of learning and memory traces. These highly interconnected memory traces will be slower to decay over time leading to better long-term retention. Because immersive training tools are available 24/7 the healthcare professional can have unlimited practice, and can test themselves under adverse conditions such as time pressure that will engage the emotional learning centers in the brain to begin to build situational awareness.

Immersive technology trains for retention and builds situational awareness that is critical in healthcare
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Immersive tools can also be used to train the behavioral skills necessary in healthcare. These can range from something simple like the care and maintenance of a central line, to something complex like heart surgery. Although any tool of this sort must be vetted with extensive clinical testing, the potential is clear. Imagine a VR or AR system in which a virtual patient is present. You go through the steps of central line care or heart surgery. The haptics are such that you “feel” the skin push back against your scalpel.

Much like with the anatomy and physiology training tool, this immersive approach engages the experiential, cognitive and behavioral learning systems in synchrony. This broad-based neural activation leads to a highly interconnected, context-rich set of learning and memory traces that are slow to decay and lead to better long-term retention. Because immersive training tools are available 24/7 the healthcare professional can have unlimited practice and can train and test themselves under a broad range of environmental conditions. This engages emotional learning centers and builds the situational awareness that is so critical in healthcare. Imagine training for the rare, but potentially life-threatening, situation in which an emergency medical technician needs to deliver a baby in the back of a van with minimal medical equipment available. Imagine training under chaotic conditions in which a healthcare professional must perform some medical procedure in a crowded hotel lobby with dozens of panicked onlookers. Imagine time is of the essence.

Immersive tools can be used to train behavioral skills in healthcare
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Although these may be rare situations, training under these conditions is critical for developing a broad-based knowledge and skill set. The best healthcare professional is one who is confident in their abilities and knows that they can handle almost any challenge. This instills confidence in the professional, but more importantly, this confidence shows and enhances patient satisfaction and confidence in the healthcare profession.

Gone will be the days of on-the-job training. With immersive technologies, healthcare professionals can start day 1 on the job with a strong knowledge-based and behavioral repertoire that has been honed and testing in immersive environments. Immersive technology trains for retention and builds situational awareness that is critical in healthcare.

For companies looking to get into Immersive technologies, our VR Consultancy service offers comprehensive support in the strategic deployment of Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality

Todd Maddox is Science, Sports and Training Correspondent at Tech Trends, and the CEO of Cognitive Design and Statistical Consulting. Follow him on Twitter @wtoddmaddox

The post Immersive Training for Retention appeared first on Tech Trends.

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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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.

For companies looking to get into Immersive technologies such as VR/AR/MR/XR our Virtual Reality Consultancy services offer guidance and support on how best to incorporate these into your brand strategy.

Todd Maddox is Science, Sports and Training Correspondent at Tech Trends, and the CEO of Cognitive Design and Statistical Consulting. Follow him on Twitter @wtoddmaddox

The post The Brain Science of Simulation Training with Virtual Reality appeared first on Tech Trends.

Learning Science shows that there are added benefits to using Virtual and Augmented Reality with young and elderly people.

It is well established that high-quality VR and AR technologies can be used for healthcare – in the treatment of phobias for example – and are superior tools in training adults in disciplines such as surgery. VR and AR training tools lead to better initial learning of medical procedures for adult patients and medical personnel, and greater reductions in stress and anxiety in adult patients, thus increasing patient satisfaction.

VR and AR can be used as healthcare tools
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Immersive technologies can also significantly increase retention by slowing the brain’s natural tendency to forget – something I recently wrote about here on Tech Trends. So in this article I will now move on to explain how these technologies are even more effective with children and older adults.

Immersive technologies can significantly increase retention by slowing the brain’s natural tendency to forget
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Limitations of Traditional Tools

When presenting patients with information, the most common scenario is to give them a page or two of text or printed slides from a Powerpoint deck which describe a certain medication regimen or medical procedure. The patient’s brain is then charged to convert these 2D static materials into a 3D visual representation of the actions required on their part – a mental simulation if you will.

Learning Science – the marriage of psychology and brain science – refers to this as Cognitive Processing, which requires a number of steps: First, the patient has to generate and hold in short-term memory a mental representation of each step derived from this series of 2D static mental images. Second, the patient must combine these 2D static mental representations (on the fly) to construct an accurate 3D static mental representation. Finally, the patient has to infer and impart the dynamic nature of the procedure onto this 3D static mental representation.

If a 3D dynamic representation is the ultimate goal it makes sense to utilize a 3D dynamic representation as the training tool
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To achieve this the patient recruits the cognitive skills learning system in the prefrontal cortex of the brain where working memory and executive attention processes reside. Each of these steps requires an enormous amount of cognitive capacity (in the form of working memory), and cognitive energy (in the form of executive attention). Any time working memory load and executive attentional demands are taxed, patients are more likely to make errors and generate inferior mental representations. Add stress and anxiety into the mix, as is common in such medical settings, and the likelihood of an error increases many-fold.

Augmented reality (AR) in which digital information is overlaid onto the learner’s field of view can also be utilized effectively to reduce cognitive load
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Reducing Cognitive Load

If a 3D dynamic representation is the ultimate goal, then it makes sense to utilize a 3D dynamic representation as the training tool. This is exactly how well-constructed VR training environments work. An accurate dynamic 3D representation is filmed and presented to the patient.

Critically, because the patient is fully immersed in the simulation, they have a feeling of presence in that experience. From a learning science standpoint this means that stimulation of the prefrontal cortex is optimized and cognitive load is therefore reduced. In addition, this immersion recruits other brain regions such as the visual representation areas in the occipital lobes of the brain.

Augmented reality (AR) in which digital information is overlaid onto the learner’s field of view can also be utilized effectively to reduce cognitive load. Suppose one is being trained on a medication regimen in which they are required to take specific numbers of different pills, some once and some twice each day.

One could construct a written table to guide pill taking or to facilitate loading pills into a pill box, thus engaging muscle memory as part of that process. Imagine though if the medication information was loaded into a smartphone and virtual pills were overlaid onto the pill box using the smart phone camera to guide the patient. This approach effectively scaffolds prefrontal cortical processing by significantly reducing working memory load and attentional requirements.

This approach effectively scaffolds prefrontal cortical processing by significantly reducing working memory load and attentional requirements
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Given the aging population of baby boomers hitting the healthcare industry, the time to start developing and mainstreaming this technology is now
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VR and AR for Children and the Elderly

Human development and normal aging have fascinating effects on the prefrontal cortex – the region of the brain associated with working memory and executive attention.

The prefrontal cortex is slow to develop in humans, not reaching full capacity until an individual is in their mid-20s. In addition, prefrontal cortical function declines with normal aging, in many cases starting in middle age. This means that children and older adults are generally going to be less effective learners when content is presented in text or slideshow format, leading to an increase in errors and serious medical consequences in these populations.

Given the fact that baby boomers are now older adults, this has the potential to escalate into a serious crisis. Fortunately, visual representation areas in the occipital lobes are quicker to develop and slower to decay, boosting the advantage of using immersive technologies to present this information to children and older adults.

The emerging technologies of VR and AR are ripe to disrupt the medical sector as we are already seeing with a number of creative teams developing innovative tools. This disruption will be significant in adults but has the potential to be even greater in children and older adults. Given the aging population of baby boomers hitting the healthcare industry, the time to start developing, deploying and mainstreaming this technology is now.

Visual representation areas in the occipital lobes are quicker to develop and slower to decay, boosting the advantage of using immersive technologies to present this information to children and older adults
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For companies looking to get into Immersive technologies such as VR/AR/MR/XR our Virtual Reality Consultancy services offer guidance and support on how best to incorporate these into your brand strategy.

Todd Maddox is Science, Sports and Training Correspondent at Tech Trends, and the CEO of Cognitive Design and Statistical Consulting. Follow him on Twitter @wtoddmaddox

The post Immersive Technologies Helping Children and Older Patients appeared first on Tech Trends.