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.

More businesses across every industry have come to realize that soft skills are far from a “nice to have” and actually essential in order to ensure they have a well-rounded and creative workforce capable of tackling the complex challenges that some with doing business in the digital age. “For organisations, the ability to turn employees into smart, collaborative and self-directed leaders is often the difference between thriving and surviving,” says Christophe Mallet, co-founder of Somewhere Else, a London-based innovation agency specialised in immersive technologies.

The ability to turn employees into smart, collaborative and self-directed leaders is often the difference between thriving and surviving
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Jamie Duncan, Chief Revenue Officer at CorporateDNA, adds that in training there has traditionally been a focus on knowledge, but that where it comes to soft skills, knowledge isn’t necessarily power. “It’s what you can actually do with that knowledge. Your mindset is greater than your skill set, your attitude is far more important than what you learned.”

In Virtual reality, you can take part in any imaginable simulated social interaction. This is called virtual embodiment. Virtual embodiment promotes implicit learning, which is not only more easily assimilated, but tends to be retained for longer, engendering longer-lasting and more fundamental behavioural change. Studies by the likes of the University of Barcelona or Stanford’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab have shown how embodied VR experiences can affect meaningful behavioural change from reducing implicit racism bias, to priming altruistic behavior to making domestic abusers less likely to recidivate.

In Virtual reality, you can take part in any imaginable simulated social interaction - this is called virtual embodiment.
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Alice Bonasio is a VR and Digital Transformation Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. You can follow @alicebonasio on Twitter, connect with her on LinkedIn or subscribe to her Inside VR/AR Newletter for all the latest curated immersive news.

More businesses across every industry have come to realize that training their workforce in soft skills is actually essential
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From a Learning & Development perspective, VR combines the scaling potential of e-learning with the experiential impact of face-to-face training. In other words, VR-based soft skills training effectively enables organisations to deliver workforce behavioural change at scale.

Developed by Somewhere Else, BODYSWAPS is a soft skills training platform powered by AI and Virtual Reality which claims to do just that. The first BODYSWAPS scenario deployed was the ‘David’ Project – a performance management scenario developed with Corporate DNA Consulting, a global leadership firm.

BODYSWAPS works by letting employees practice those skills through acting out a range of high-pressure workplace scenarios with AI-powered virtual humans. You can be a manager giving an employee negative feedback, a CEO pitching an idea to the Board, a young woman in a male-dominated group meeting, etc.

From a Learning & Development perspective, VR combines the scaling potential of e-learning with the experiential impact of face-to-face training
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BODYSWAPS works by letting employees practice those skills through acting out a range of high-pressure workplace scenarios
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In each scenario, you get to effectively step into a virtual body, which then takes on your own voice and natural body language during the next phase, which involves interaction with virtual characters.

The interesting thing about this format is that it’s not based on binary choice, there are many nuances that force you to think on your feet, says Mallet. The pressure to perform feels very real.

There’s a lot of talk about the experiential value of immersive technologies, but this is something that really brings it home in a very real sense
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At the end of the experience, you are given – as the name suggests – the chance to experience the whole scenario from the perspective of the person you were just interacting with.

“This approach creates empathy and self-awareness,” and those, Mallet explains, are two of the most powerful drivers of effective behavioral change. For Tom Cross, a Performance Psychologist who tested the platform, “The emotional impact of VR speeds up the cycle of behavioral change and will make people more effective as leaders moving forward”.

There’s a lot of talk about the experiential value of immersive technologies, but this is something that really brings it home in a very real sense. Swapping bodies with the character you were just having a go at gives managers the chance – in fact forces them to – empathise with their point of view in a way that would have been quite impossible under normal circumstances. The result, believes Mallet, is that it forcefully prompts those in charge to reflect upon how they act and what small adjustments and nuances can make a difference in how the same message is delivered. In other words: the true impact and importance of so-called “soft skills”.

This article was originally published on VRScout

How Changing Places In VR Can Teach Employees Soft Skills via @alicebonasio https://t.co/pzsJOhbyb0 pic.twitter.com/dPIo6u83L8

— VRScout (@VRScout) April 27, 2019

Tech Trends’  Virtual Reality Consultancy services offers support for companies looking to enhance brand strategy with immersive technologies such as Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality

Alice Bonasio is a VR and Digital Transformation Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. You can follow @alicebonasio on Twitter, connect with her on LinkedIn or subscribe to her Inside VR/AR Newletter for all the latest curated immersive news.

The post Swapping Bodies in VR appeared first on Tech Trends.

2017 was the year of the Silence Breakers. Will 2018 be the year immersive technologies help tackle harassment culture?

Soft skills are “people skills”. They also go by many other names such as 21st Century skills, and socio-emotional skills. Yet regardless of how they are labelled, these skills essentially involve understanding oneself and relating to others by showing empathy, embracing diversity and abandoning unconscious biases. They can be trained, but current approaches are ineffective.

Soft skills are also known as people skills
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An individual with strong soft skills can be an effective collaborator, leader, and good citizen. They not only know what behaviors are appropriate, and how to identify them, but also how to generate those behaviors, and do so in a highly effective manner.

Soft skills require developing self-awareness and relating to others by showing empathy and embracing diversity
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While the “Silence Breakers” and #metoo movement make glaringly clear that effective soft skills training is seriously lacking in the workplace (and in society in general) a completely independent movement toward more artificial intelligence (AI) in the workplace has led many in the C-suite to suggest that soft skills are going to become increasingly important.

2018 will likely see a spike in commercial offerings in soft skills training
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This leads me to predict that next year will see a spike in commercial offerings in soft skills training, focusing more on the science of learning during product development. This trend has already begun, and immersive technologies such as VR are at the forefront of that.

Science provides answers to difficult questions and drives innovation and success in the commercial sector. As applied to soft skills training in general – and sexual harassment awareness training in particular – psychological science suggests that two aspects are key to effective soft skills training.

The Silence Breakers and #metoo movement make glaringly clear that effective soft skills training is seriously lacking
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First, change occurs when the learner’s behavior is followed in real-time, literally within 100s of milliseconds, by feedback that rewards correct behaviors and punishes incorrect behaviors. Thus, it follows that training scenarios must be interactive.

Second, soft skills behavior change can be facilitated through first-person immersion in which you “walk a mile in someone else’s shoes”. There is nothing quite like allowing a middle-aged, heterosexual, Caucasian male to live the life, even for a few minutes, of a young female or member of the LGBTQIA community being harassed or disrespected, to help them understand the negativity associated with this experience.

As anyone who has ever tried to change their own behavior knows, it is much easier to know what to do, than learning how to do it
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The problem with most current soft skills training is that it involves reading a text, viewing slide shows and watching videos of appropriate and inappropriate interpersonal interactions. These approaches teach us the “what” – the definition of harassment, empathy, diversity and unconscious bias, as well as how to classify behaviors. What they do not teach, however, is “how” to exhibit the appropriate behaviors. As anyone who has ever tried to change their own behavior knows, it is much easier to know “what” to do, than learning behaviorally “how” to do it. Why is this the case? The science and brain basis of learning provides the answer.

Change occurs when learner behavior is followed by real-time feedback
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The human brain has evolved two distinct learning systems. One is the cognitive skills system in the brain which learns the “what” through passive observation, studying and mental repetition. The other is the behavioral skills learning system in the brain which learns the “how”.

In terms of soft skills, the latter involves such behaviors as showing empathy, embracing diversity (eye contact, attentiveness), being respectful. Although the detailed neurochemistry is beyond the scope of this article, suffice it to say that such behavioral skills are learned gradually and incrementally via dopamine-mediated, error-correction learning in the basal ganglia of the brain.

Interactive VR platforms are ideal for such soft skills behavior training because the learner is fully immersed in the situation
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When a behavior is rewarded (via a smiling face or a head nod for example) the neural connections that led to that are strengthened so is more likely to happen again. When a behavior is generated that is punished (via an angry face or a shaking head) the neural connections that led to that outcome are weakened and hence less likely to happen again. Learning in the behavioral skills system in the brain is active, which involves learning by doing, and physical repetitions.

One approach that brain science suggests should be highly effective for enhancing empathy and understanding another person’s perspective is to immerse the learner in another person’s life – to “walk a mile in their shoes”. It targets emotional processing centres in the brain and helps the learner understand at a visceral level what it is like to be in a position of weakness, and to be the direct target of harassment, prejudice or bias.

The human brain evolved two learning systems, cognitive and behavioral
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First-person immersive VR would, therefore, be relevant and effective for training employees in all commercial sectors, in particular, customer service representatives or medical personnel who routinely interact with others who are in some form of distress.

Although passive, observational, first-person immersive VR experiences offer a great tool for enhancing empathy and understanding, and likely can prime the learner for behavior change, actual change requires interactivity. Training platforms must, therefore, incorporate realistic interpersonal interaction and real-time communication into the mix.

The learner can be placed in situations in which they must interact with an individual who is poor in soft skills, or placed in situations in which their behavior is responded to in a negative manner. In other words, then can learn how to affect change in another, or affect change in themselves.

Interactive VR platforms are ideal for such soft skills behavior training because the learner is fully immersed in the situation. They have the feeling of presence. In addition, if the platform is constructed appropriately, the learner can be placed in a broad range of situations and scenarios that include small or large numbers of bystanders, a broad or narrow array of ethnicities and genders, etc.

The key is to target the behavioral skills learning system with realistic interpersonal interactions and real-time communication
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Yet regardless of the platform, whether VR or computer-based, the key is to target the behavioral skills learning system with realistic interpersonal interactions and real-time communication, and change will follow.

It is one thing to know what you should do when you interact with others, it is another to know how to behave when  doing so. The science indicates that the use of VR in soft skills training has great potential for effecting positive behavioral change. Deploying immersive technologies more widely in the training industry could, therefore, help reduce incidences of harassment, increase empathy, help people understand and embrace diversity, and increase awareness of unconscious biases. The result will be a more harmonious, effective and satisfied workforce, happier customers and clients, and a kinder society. Who wouldn’t see value in that?

Deploying immersive technologies in the training industry could reduce incidences of harassment, increase empathy, help people understand and embrace diversity, and increase awareness of unconscious biases
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For companies looking to get into VR/AR/MR our Virtual Reality Consultancy services offer guidance on how these technologies can enhance and support 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 How VR Will Change Soft Skills Training appeared first on Tech Trends.