There is an unprecedented demand for ventilators due to the coronavirus pandemic, yet the physical machines are really only part of the equation.

There is an unprecedented demand for ventilators due to the coronavirus pandemic
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In the United Kingdom, the country’s National Health Service (NHS) is having to quickly redeploy doctors and nurses from other disciplines as well as those coming out of retirement to provide support in the Intensive Care Units.

In the UK, the country’s National Health Service is having to quickly redeploy doctors and nurses from other disciplines
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To help medical staff (re)acquire the necessary skills to do that, FundamentalVR, a start-up that develops immersive simulations to train surgeons, has worked with Imperial College London and Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust to develop an online tool that allows medical professionals, to gain the key knowledge they need for ventilating patients in around 30 minutes.

The program which consists of short how-to videos and educational graphics is being rolled out at Imperial College London prior to its deployment nationally and internationally to help combat Covid-19.

“It takes years to specialise a clinician in intensive care; while this new training course is not designed to replace this expertise, it will enable health systems across the world to act now and provide the care that their patients desperately need,” says project lead Professor Ara Darzi, co-director of the Institute of Global Health Innovation at Imperial College London. “With greater capacity, we can help more people survive this illness, and prevent health systems from becoming overwhelmed during this crisis,” he added.

FundamentalVR is also helping hospitals with another impact of the COVID-19 situation, as student surgeons are seeing their studies interrupted as hospitals are reserved for essential care. With non-urgent surgeries cancelled, the company, based out of London and Boston, recently made its Fundamental Surgery platform multiuser. This allows students to exercise their skills at home while in isolation using the company’s @HomeVR system which was launched two weeks ago for standalone VR headsets such as Oculus Quest and HTC Vive Focus Plus.

Student surgeons are seeing their studies interrupted as hospitals are reserved for essential care
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Every user interaction is measured and recorded, such as surgical gaze, respect for tissue and efficiency of movement
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It allows students and teachers to join each other in the virtual OR, where they can interact, ask questions, view each other’s procedures and get feedback all done remotely and safely. This remote system is also currently live at Imperial College London and a dozen @HomeVR headsets have been sent at the request of a New York teaching hospital. The procedures available are being phased in for existing customers starting with Total Hip Arthroplasty (Anterior Approach).

Fundamental Surgery has been deployed with medical institutions around the world, including Mayo Clinic and UCLA in the U.S., UCLH in the U.K. and Sana in Germany. Their hardware-agnostic software solution fuses Cutaneous (tactile vibration) and Kinesthetics (force feedback & position) haptic technologies. The platform, which can be optimized for different stages of the learning process, mimics the physical cues of surgical actions, medical tools, and tissue variations.

Studies have shown that this aids learning in helping trainees develop the muscle memory essential for surgical skills. The platform utilizes off-the-shelf hardware (PCs/laptops, VR headset and haptic arms), making it less than a tenth of the cost of current learning practices.

Fundamental Surgery has been deployed with medical institutions around the world
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The platform’s data dashboard tracks hundreds of data points to provide a high level of analysis to course directors or trainees
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Every user interaction is measured and recorded, such as surgical gaze, respect for tissue and efficiency of movement, widely connected with surgical proficiency, to provide accurate real-time feedback all within a single display that can be accessed anywhere by any device, which again lends itself nicely to the new normal of remote learning and working which is likely to persist in the coming months.

When COVID-19 struck we were delighted to work with the team at Imperial College London on the rapid development of this important Ventilator Trainer
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“When COVID-19 struck we were delighted to work with the team at Imperial College London on the rapid development of this important Ventilator Trainer and are pleased to see it roll out to help build confidence and competence with Healthcare professionals at this challenging time,” concludes Richard Vincent, CEO and Co-Founder of Fundamental VR, saying this is a good example of how technology companies are coming together to support the work of healthcare professionals and work through the many challenges presented by the pandemic.

Tech Trends offers a broad range of Digital Consultancy services to guide companies, individuals and brands in effectively leveraging existing and emerging technologies in their business strategy.

Alice Bonasio is a XR and Digital Transformation Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter.

The post Training Healthcare Workers With XR appeared first on Tech Trends.

Virtual Reality Enhances Patient Education and Effective Communication in Healthcare

Every healthcare system must have well trained medical professionals who have competence and expertise in their chosen field. However, what sets a successful healthcare system apart from the rest is effective communication. Communication between healthcare professional (especially frontline staff, such as nurses) and patients is a major predictor of the quality of the healthcare system. Effective communication is also the most important predictor of patient satisfaction.

Effective communication is complex and challenging in healthcare because in many cases a deep understanding of a challenge facing a patient would require the patient to have a strong medical background. This is rare. Instead, the goal for the healthcare professional is to give the patient enough information that they understand the basics, know what to expect, but most importantly provide that information in a way that builds a deep trust between the patient and the healthcare professional. It is this trust that builds confidence in patients and reduces anxiety and stress.

Effective communication is complex and challenging in healthcare because in many cases a deep understanding of a challenge facing a patient would require the patient to have a strong medical background
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Trust develops when information is presented to patients in a way that they can understand and is communicated with genuine feeling and affect. As we will see shortly, people gain their best understanding through experience. Whether educating a patient about an upcoming medical procedure or training them on the use of a medical device (e.g., colostomy bag or peritoneal dialysis machine), the more they experience, the better. Thus, communicating information to patients should, as much as possible, be through experience. In addition, patients develop trust in healthcare providers who have the people skills associated with effective communication. These include empathy, compassion, and a genuine shared understanding and experience. It is the subtleties and nuances in body language and emotional tone of verbal utterances that are the difference between communicating information and communicating trust and genuine care.

In this report, I review the psychology and neuroscience of learning and show that virtual reality (VR) has the potential to enhance the effectiveness of communication in two ways. First, because VR is grounded in experiential learning, it can be used to effectively communicate information to patients about an upcoming medical procedure, or the use of a new medical device by having them experience it first-hand in VR. Second, VR can be used to train the people skills of effective communication in healthcare professionals. This requires training at an emotional and behavioural level, not just at a cognitive level. It is one thing to know what to do to communicate effectively, but it is another (and mediated by a completely different set of brain structures) to know how to communicate effectively and how to express genuine care for another. Effective verbal and more importantly non-verbal communication is facilitated by immersive experiences that are rich in context and emotion and allow one to “walk a mile in someone else’s shoes” while experiencing effective and ineffective communication scenarios.

A healthcare professional might be available to answer specific questions, but the majority of the “communication” is between the text and the patient, with all the onus on the patient
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The traditional approach to communicating information to patients is to provide them with documents that outline the various pre-operative, perioperative and post-operative instructions, procedures and risks, or documents that provide step-by-step instructions on how to use a new medical device. A healthcare professional might be available to answer specific questions, but the majority of the “communication” is between the text and the patient, with all the onus on the patient. The psychology and neuroscience of learning make clear that this is a sub-optimal, and error-prone approach because it relies exclusively on the patients cognitive processing systems to translate the 2d abstract text into a mental representation of the relevant medical procedures, or steps to follow with a medical device. The cognitive system is limited by working memory and attention load, both of which are adversely affected by stress, and by normal ageing. Thus, the patient is left with a poor understanding of the upcoming medical procedure, or the ins and outs of using a new medical device. Very little stress and anxiety are relieved, and the patient feels dissatisfied.

The patient is left with a poor understanding of the upcoming medical procedure, or the ins and outs of using a new medical device
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Although the people skills of effective communication are extremely important, surprisingly, healthcare professionals rarely get much formal training. They might get training on what effective communication entails, but rarely get training on how to evidence effective communication and the people skills that are required. For a first-hand description from a nurse’s perspective follow this link. In some case, role play and simulation are used to build the people skills of effective communication, but this approach is time-intensive, cost-intensive, and not scalable.

To understand how to best educate patients about some upcoming medical procedure, or a new medical device that they will be using we need to understand how patients’ brains learn. To understand how to train the people skills of effective communication in healthcare professionals we need to understand how healthcare professionals’ brains learn. Thus, we must understand the psychology and neuroscience of learning.

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

Albert Einstein

This is an insightful quote that neatly sums up what we know about the neuroscience of learning. The human brain is comprised of at least four distinct learning systems (see figure below). 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).

The critical brain regions associated with experiential learning are the occipital lobes (sight), temporal lobes (sound), and parietal lobes (touch/smell)
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Experiential learning is especially important when it comes to communicating the details of an upcoming medical procedure or the use of a new medical device. There is no better way to communicate this information than to have the patient visit the hospital and talk to former patients, or to observe someone using a medical device. Experiential learning is also important when training the people skills of effective communication. One of the best ways to understand the (often subtle) difference between showing genuine care, empathy and compassion for another and showing indifference is to experience both and to experience others reactions to each.

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. Cognitive processing of information is the “everything else” aspect of learning that Einstein alluded to. This is not to say that information is not important, it is. Rather information is best learned and retained when it is accompanied by rich experience.

Cognitive processing of information is the “everything else” aspect of learning that Einstein alluded to
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Behaviors that are rewarded will be more likely to occur again, whereas behaviors that are punished will be less likely to occur again
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The behavioural system in the brain has evolved to learn motor skills. This is the system that builds the “muscle memory” that drives the verbal and non-verbal people skills of effective communication. The detailed processing characteristics of this system are beyond the scope of this report. Suffice it to say that the critical brain structure for behavioural learning is the striatum, and processing in the striatum is optimized when behaviour is interactive and is followed in real-time (literally within milliseconds) by corrective feedback. Behaviors that are rewarded will be more likely to occur again, whereas behaviors that are punished will be less likely to occur again. This system links rich experiential contexts (represented by the experiential learning system) and emotions with the appropriate behavioural responses.

The emotional learning system is critical to patient education and in training the people skills of effective communication. Allowing patients to visit the clinic or hospital, and to be able to experience the preoperative, perioperative, and post-discharge steps that they will follow reduces uncertainty, anxiety and stress. In a sense, this patient experience will elicit some of the emotions that they may experience later, increasing familiarity and understanding when they receive their medical treatment at a later date. More than anything, it is the emotional learning system in the brain that will help build the interpersonal understanding, awareness, and sensitivity that are at the heart of the people skills of effective communication. 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 behavioural skills learning systems, but emotional learning, when combined with context-rich experiences, builds rich repertoires of interpersonal understanding and behaviour.

More than anything, it is the emotional learning system in the brain that will help build the interpersonal understanding, awareness, and sensitivity that are at the heart of the people skills of effective communication
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Traditional approaches to patient education that rely almost exclusively on text are sub-optimal and focus exclusively on cognitive processing. This leaves patients uncertain, anxious and stressed about upcoming medical procedures, and it leaves patients poorly equipped to care and maintain medical devices that are vital to their care

Now consider a VR approach to patient education. As a patient, you can don a VR headset and follow the journey of a fellow patient during their pre-operative, perioperative, and post-operative phase. They might walk you through the necessary changes in diet and exercise prior to the operation. Both of you might then follow as a nurse gives you both a virtual tour of the hospital setting. You see the preparation room, the surgical room, and the recovery room with all of the gadgets including your trusty call button. Finally, you might spend some time with your fellow patient while they recover at home, and assure you that they are on the road to recovery.

Now consider a VR approach to patient education. As a patient, you can don a VR headset and follow the journey of a fellow patient during their pre-operative, perioperative, and post-operative phase
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Analogously, VR is ideal for familiarizing patients with a new medical device. Using an in-home peritoneal dialysis machine as an example, suppose the patient dons a VR headset and is immersed in a 360 experience with an expert who has used a peritoneal dialysis machine for years. The patient can watch as the expert demonstrates and verbally describes the step-by-step procedures needed to care and maintain the dialysis machine. The patient can view this from a third-person perspective, but also from the first-person perspective. The expert can demonstrate common pitfalls and how to address them while describing them verbally. The expert can do all of this while demonstrating a calm demeanour. The patient can view the VR experience and can complete knowledge checks at the end to ensure that they have the requisite knowledge. They can view the experience as many times as they like until they are confident in their own skills.

With this VR approach to patient education you “learn through experience”. You engage your emotion centres, all while obtaining useful information and learning what you need to do. With VR you broadly engage multiple learning and memory systems in the brain in synchrony. This builds context-rich, and highly interconnected memory traces that leave the patient feeling confident in the medical procedure to come and in their understanding of a medical device that they will be using.

With VR you broadly engage multiple learning and memory systems in the brain in synchrony
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Training the people skills of effective communication in healthcare professionals is often left to chance. If lucky, healthcare professionals obtain some experience with role play and simulation.

Now consider a VR approach to training healthcare professionals on the people skills of effective communication. First, it would be advantageous for the healthcare professional to go through the same VR experience that the patient did. When effective virtual reality education and training of healthcare professionals is combined with virtual reality training for patients, a shared experience between patient and professional emerges. This alone will enhance the quality of communication between patient and healthcare professionals and will reduce the stress that patients feel while enhancing patient satisfaction. This will also increase the confidence and engagement in healthcare professionals.

When effective virtual reality education and training of healthcare professionals is combined with virtual reality training for patients, a shared experience between patient and professional emerges
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Second, imagine having a healthcare professional don a VR headset where they are transported into the body of a patient who is being lectured to by an indifferent healthcare professional about an upcoming procedure or new medical device. From the patient’s perspective, the healthcare professional is talking too quickly and is using too much jargon. The patient is feeling anxious and stressed and is trying to express this to the healthcare professional, but they appear not to be listening. Next, the healthcare professional is transported into a new situation with a different healthcare professional. They are explaining the exact same procedure, but are making eye contact with the patient, are talking slowly and methodically. They periodically ask the patient if they have any questions and state with genuine empathy that they understand the patient’s anxiety and stress, but they want the patient to know that they will be there for the patient. These “walk a mile in my shoes” experiences are visceral for the healthcare professional. They engage emotional and experiential learning centres in the brain and quickly demonstrate the appropriate people skills behaviours.

These “walk a mile in my shoes” experiences are visceral for the healthcare professional
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Numerous other VR experiences can be created and can be used for training. For example, a healthcare professional in training might be transported into the middle of a busy emergency room and shadow a seasoned professional explaining a patient’s condition to their distraught spouse, or they might be transported int the body of a patient coming out of anaesthesia following surgery. In both situations, they could experience the skills associated with effective and ineffective communication. Healthcare professionals can feel the emotions and experience the reactions associated with these realistic experiences that they are a part of. Critically, these VR experiences can be repeated and new more subtle experiences can be developed. Multiple vantage points can be experienced, whether patient, family member, or healthcare professional.

VR has the potential to revolutionize the quality of patient education and to help healthcare professionals hone the people skills of effective communication
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VR has the potential to revolutionize the quality of patient education and to help healthcare professionals hone the people skills of effective communication. Effective patient education and communication are what sets successful healthcare systems apart from the rest. It reduces patients’ stress, anxiety and uncertainty, enhances patient satisfaction, and increases healthcare professionals’ confidence.

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 VR Enhancing Communication in Healthcare appeared first on Tech Trends.

Todd Maddox reports on why A/B tests are sub-optimal in building and optimizing immersive training and performance tools.

As with any young science or technology, the early wins are often large, but more wins are to follow if solid research and development is conducted that leverages what we know about the brain
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I have written extensively on the potential of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) to revolutionize training and performance in healthcare, manufacturing, and corporate learning, to name a few. Learning is about the experience, and VR and AR are grounded in experiential learning. VR offers a virtual experience and AR overlays computer-generated assets onto the real world to drive learning and performance.

Learning is about the experience, and VR and AR are grounded in experiential learning
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Unfortunately, too often the primary focus is on the technology, with much less focus on optimizing the interface and the experience for the user (the UI/UX). Although computing power, specialized graphics, controllers, and the like are important, their value is diminished if they don’t engage the user’s brain in a way that is effective at achieving the desired training and performance goal. Too often the technological “wow” factor dominates when what is more important is how the user’s brain is engaged to achieve a set goal.

VR offers a virtual experience and AR overlays computer-generated assets onto the real world to drive learning and performance
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To optimize the UI/UX we must incorporate what is known about the brain and how it processes information, then apply the scientific method to test hypotheses and to identify the optimal solution. For example, one might test the hypothesis that a hands-free AR training solution leads to faster task completion than a hand-held AR training solution. To test this hypothesis, suppose that 10 workers completed the task with the hands-free AR solution, and 10 other workers completed the task with the hand-held AR training solution.

Unfortunately, too often the primary focus is on the technology, with much less focus on optimizing the interface and the experience for the user
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Under the assumption that the only difference between the two groups of workers is the type of training device, the time to completion would be noted for each of the 20 workers and a simple statistical test (called a Student’s t-test) would be conducted to compare the time to completion between the two groups. Although a detailed description of probability theory that underlies statistical reasoning is beyond the scope of this report, suffice it to say that the outcome of this statistical test allows one to claim (or not claim) beyond a “statistical reasonable doubt” that the hands-free AR solution leads to faster time to completion than the hand-held AR solution.

Too often the technological “wow” factor dominates when what is more important is how the user’s brain is engaged
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The experiment described above is referred to as an A/B test in the corporate sector. It is the simplest type of experiment that can be conducted, but it is extremely powerful and is used extensively. If you want to determine whether a new drug has the desired effect, you might conduct an A/B tests of the drug against a placebo. If you want to determine if your new technology or product is superior to the existing gold standard, you might conduct an A/B test. An A/B test allows you to test the hypothesis that one group is different from another on some outcome measure, such as time to completion.

To optimize the UI/UX we must incorporate what is known about the brain and how it processes information
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I spent 25 years teaching statistics and experimental design to University students, and during that time, I conducted 100s of experiments in my laboratory. I can count on one hand the number of A/B tests that I conducted.

An A/B test allows you to test the hypothesis that one group is different from another on some outcome measure, such as time to completion
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Why so few?

Although there is nothing wrong with an A/B test, factorial designs provide more value at no additional cost. In an A/B test there is one factor. In the example above, the factor would be the type of AR training device (hands-free vs. hand-held). Suppose a second factor was included that represented time pressure. Specifically, suppose that 5 of the workers using the hands-free device and 5 of the workers using the hand-held device were simply told to complete the task, whereas the other 5 from each group were told that they must complete the task within 15 minutes when it normally takes about 25 minutes. This factorial design has four groups of workers: hands-free/no time pressure, hands-free/time pressure, hand-held/no time pressure, and hand-held/time pressure. More importantly, it allows one to test three hypotheses.

• Hypothesis 1: Does a hands-free device speed time to completion?
• Hypothesis 2: Does time pressure speed or slow time to completion?
• Hypothesis 3: Does the presence or absence of time pressure affect time to completion differently for hands-free vs. hand-held AR training tool?

Although there is nothing wrong with an A/B test, factorial designs provide more value at no additional cost
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In the simple A/B test example, 20 workers completed the task, and Hypothesis 1 was tested. In the factorial design example, 20 workers completed the task and all three hypotheses could be tested. This is the power of a factorial design over an A/B test, and this is one reason why the overwhelming majority of experimental science, especially behavioral science, relies exclusively on factorial designs. A second reason follows from Hypothesis 3.

Hypothesis 3 is especially interesting and addresses the possibility that there is an “interaction” between time pressure and the nature of the device on time to completion. I would predict that a hands-free device is much less susceptible to the deleterious effects of time pressure than a hand-held device. Of course, this is an empirical question.

Interactions abound in the real world, especially the world of behavioral science. We have all heard of drug interactions. For example, some research suggests that a glass or two of wine can reduce stress, and a small dose of Xanax can reduce anxiety, but combining alcohol and Xanax can be fatal. That is a drug interaction. The combined effect of alcohol and Xanax is not simply the sum of the independent effects. Rather the effect is interactive, large, and potentially fatal.

Interactions abound in the real world, especially in behavioral science
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Anytime a human is involved and is physically processing something like a drug, or is mentally processing and engaging with technology, interactions are likely. This is the second reason why factorial designs are so popular. You will miss important findings if you focus exclusively on A/B tests.

The behavioral skills learning and performance system in the brain relies on the striatum and learns stimulus-response associations via incremental, dopamine-mediated reward and punishment learning
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The human brain is composed of multiple learning and performance systems. These include the cognitive learning and performance system in the brain that relies on the prefrontal cortex and is constrained by working memory and attentional limitation. The behavioral skills learning and performance system in the brain relies on the striatum and learns stimulus-response associations via incremental, dopamine-mediated reward and punishment learning. Interestingly, this system is not constrained by working memory and attention. In fact, “overthinking” hurts behavioral learning.

he emotional learning and performance system in the brain relies on the amygdala and other limbic structures
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The emotional learning and performance system in the brain relies on the amygdala and other limbic structures. This addresses issues of stress, pressure, and situational awareness broadly speaking. Finally, the experiential learning and performance system in the brain represents the sensory and perceptual aspects of the environment and relies on the occipital, temporal, and parietal lobes.

Anytime a human is mentally processing and engaging with technology, interactions are likely
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Each system has its own unique processing characteristics, and thus each system is optimized with different technologies and processes. For example, the critical bottleneck within the cognitive system is cognitive load. One almost always wants to reduce cognitive load. This means that the what, where, and when of VR or AR assets must be examined to determine the optimal combination to achieve a given goal. The best way to do this is with a factorial design.

VR and AR training and performance tools have already provided significant ROI relative to traditional training approaches
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The what, where, and when are each a separate factor that must be combined and studied factorially to optimize performance. The nature and timing of corrective feedback in the behavioral system must be examined with a factorial design, and of course the emotional and motivational aspects (stress, pressure, engagement) as well as the detailed sensory and perceptual processes must be examined.

You will miss important findings if you focus exclusively on A/B tests
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The basic science literature is full of fascinating results in each of these domains that can guide VR and AR product optimization, but in the end, one has to rely on science and factorial designs to “get it right”. The plethora of data that can be extracted from VR and AR solutions and the ease of manipulating relevant factors (what, where and when of assets or the nature of timing of the feedback) makes factorial designs straightforward to conduct.

The plethora of data that can be extracted from VR and AR solutions and the ease of manipulating relevant factors makes factorial designs straightforward to conduct
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VR and AR training and performance tools have already provided significant ROI relative to traditional training approaches. If you have a basic understanding of the breadth of neural engagement with these technologies, then you are not surprised by this ROI. Even so, these initial ROI benchmarks are a starting point. Much more ROI is awaiting those organizations who are ready to conduct the factorial design experiments necessary to find the “sweet spots” in the UI/UX, and there are many, that will show the true value of these technologies.

The nature and timing of corrective feedback in the behavioral system must be examined with a factorial design
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These immersive training and performance technologies are still in the early stage. They are reaping benefits for their users because of the way that they engage the brain relative to traditional approaches. As with any young science or technology, the early wins are often large, but more wins are to follow if solid research and development is conducted that leverages what we know about the brain, applies the scientific method, and uses factorial designs as a window onto the interactions that optimize UI/UX.

The basic science literature is full of fascinating results in each of these domains that can guide VR and AR product optimization
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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 Building Better XR Training appeared first on Tech Trends.

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.

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.

Globally, 5 Billion people don’t have access to safe surgery due to lack of trained professionals. In the U.S. alone, over $15 billion a year is spent on medical training, but much of that is wasted in antiquated, expensive, and non-repeatable methods which offer students little chance of hands-on practice.

The truth is that the way surgeons are trained
has changed very little over the past 150 years, and much of hands-on practice still relies on using cadavers, which cost $13,000 or more and can only be used to train between 4-6 students. Reusable, synthetic cadaver cost in excess of $40,000.

5 Billion people don’t have access to safe surgery
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All this adds up to the fact that currently less than 0.5% of the world’s surgeons have access to simulations. Something that FundamentalVR is on a mission to change by democratizing surgical training through low-cost, safe and immersive experiences.

The way surgeons are trained
has changed very little over the past 150 years, and much of hands-on practice still relies on using cadavers
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Users can feel the movement and interaction of tissue, muscle and bone as they would in an actual procedure
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Headquartered in London with offices in Boston, the company provides enterprise training solutions to medical device and pharmaceutical companies as well as curriculum-based immersive training experiences to medical institutions, hospitals and learning centers. So far it has raised over $2.6M in funding, capitalizing on the fact that the global MedEd is projected to
reach $38BN by 2024.

Until recently, affordable virtual reality solutions in this area had been limited to game-like experiences without the touch sensation that is so critical in surgical procedures, while current VR haptic solutions that use specialist equipment cost over $100K to purchase and thousands more to maintain, as they require specialist “Sim-Tech” staff and a dedicated space.

The FundamentalVR platform on the other hand, offers subscription licenses starting $350, and the software works in conjunction with any modern PC or laptop, a standard VR headset and two haptic arm devices that can be easily purchased online to conduct procedures.

Users can feel the movement and interaction of tissue, muscle and bone as they would in an actual procedure within a sub millimeter of accuracy of resistance, something that I experienced first-hand when “performing” a procedure at the Global Education and Skills Forum in Dubai earlier this year.

Less than 0.5% of the world’s surgeons have access to simulations
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Until recently, affordable virtual reality solutions in this area had been limited to game-like experiences without the touch sensation that is so critical in surgical procedures
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Its proprietary Surgical Haptic Intelligence Engine (SHIE) draws upon an extensive library of tools and tissue variants that mimic real life sensations which were carefully calibrated by a leading team of surgeons. Over two years of development, more than 500 surgeons have tested the system, which constantly adapted around the feedback. Just as pilots train for bird strikes or engine failure, surgeons are confronted with varying scenarios ranging from abnormal anatomy to rare complications that can happen during live procedures, such as unexpected bleeding.

The healthcare sector has been among the earliest adopters of immersive technology, as the benefits – most evident in the ability to train students and allow professionals to hone their skills in a safe and realistic environment – were clearly quantifiable. Which is why the interest they’re attracting from major players in the industry is not really surprising. FundamentalVR have just announced a three-year strategic alliance with the Mayo Clinic, one of the leading academic medical centers in the U.S. This includes a joint development agreement for its Surgical VR Simulator, Fundamental Surgery.

Healthcare has been among the earliest adopters of immersive technology
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The proof of the pudding lies in whether the use of VR simulations will eventually improve patient outcomes
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But this will go further than allowing current trainee and qualified surgeons to experience surgical procedures and will include both companies sharing clinical and technical expertise to develop new immersive training products. The objective is to create new simulation content as well as assessment criteria based on the Mayo Clinic’s substantial body of research and in partnership with its surgeons, clinical practitioners, and data scientists.

This agreement will see the two parties collaborating on a range of simulations with an initial focus on the General Surgery area. They will then move into growth areas including robotic and patient specific simulation derived from DiCom (Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine) data and 3D modeling.

The objective is to create new simulation content as well as assessment criteria based on the Mayo Clinic’s substantial body of research
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The proof of the pudding, however, lies in whether the use of VR simulations will eventually improve patient outcomes, something that Richard Vincent, FundamentalVR’s CEO believes is possible.

“Our haptic + immersive VR platform has already proven to offer a new way to allow skills development, and we share the belief that the comparative data insight and measurement will have a profoundly positive impact on the wellbeing of people around the world,“ he says.

The platform’s initial training packages are focused on Orthopedic Surgical disciplines including Spinal Pedicle Screw Placement, Posterior Hip Replacement and Total Knee Arthroplasty. Further orthopedic procedures will be added during Q4 2018 with other disciplines, including general surgery and cardiovascular slated for 2019.

This article appeared originally on VRScout

FundamentalVR Partners With Mayo Clinic To Develop Haptic VR Surgery Simulations via @alicebonasio https://t.co/yIIs1cD1IK pic.twitter.com/v07p5OPnPh

— VRScout (@VRScout) November 2, 2018

Want to leverage Augmented, Virtual and Mixed Reality to take your brand to the next level? Tech Trends offers comprehensive Immersive Technologies Consultancy to help you get there.

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. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter.

The post Cutting Edge VR appeared first on Tech Trends.

It might seem counter-intuitive, but the greatest threat to the cybersecurity of your business is likely to come from the inside.

And we’re not talking infiltrated spies eithe. The ones most likely to compromise your security are actually your trusted employees. Without any malicious intent at all, they are often just a few careless mouse clicks away from costing your business a fortune.

Your trusted employees are just a few careless clicks away from costing your business a fortune in cybersecurity breaches
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Employees harm your business by visiting infected websites, responding to phishing emails, using business email through public Wi-Fi on an unencrypted connection, or something as simple as having one password for access to all business assets and personal accounts. Neglecting cybersecurity can cost companies tens of thousands of dollars, hours of downtime and loss of customers. The most alarming fact is, that cyber attacks happen more than 4000 times each and every day, and can strike the same company several times per year!

Employees harm your business by visiting infected websites, responding to phishing emails or using business email through public Wi-Fi
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Such attacks are often financially motivated – ransomware, for example – or sometimes directed at obtaining specific data. Confidential business information at stake would include company finance records, customer and employee personal data, or highly valuable (and vulnerable) intellectual property assets.

Preventing cyber attacks is a sound investment considering the high risk and costs involved in recovery from damages
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Preventing cyber attacks is a sound investment considering the high risk and costs involved in recovery from damages. EveryCloud Spam Filtering has compiled this infographic to provide some insight into how cyber attacks can harm their business and what they can do about it.

The guide explains the main targets of cybercriminals, the role employees play in cybersecurity and the benefits of Cybersecurity Awareness Training. By regularly training your employees, your company will benefit from a security-first awareness that emphasizes prevention, detection, reporting and learning from mistakes.

By regularly training your employees, your company will benefit from a security-first awareness
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Types of training include

• Classroom training
  Instructors will teach your employees in person, which has the advantage of stronger engagement and the ability for them to ask questions of the instructor, raising relevant concerns and addressing them.
  

• Online training
  The fastest and most convenient, way, these are effective as long as fully completed by employees.

• Visual Aids
  Interactive assistants installed on your employee’s computers. These will actively protect your company and make employees aware of key points where threats can be detected and prevented.

• Phishing campaigns
  Best way to see the current state of security awareness in your business?
  Test your employees with simulated attacks. These will give you and your employees great insight into how to detect attacks, where to report them and learn from mistakes in a controlled manner.
  

Alice Bonasio is a VR Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio and @techtrends_tech on Twitter.

The post Infographic: Cybersecurity Training 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

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Recent events in Philadelphia show why Starbucks should use immersive technologies like Virtual Reality to train employees on empathy skills.

On Thursday April 12, 2018 two black men were arrested in a Philadelphia Starbucks while waiting for a colleague. Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson issued an immediate apology, met and apologized to the two men, and announced that all U.S. Starbucks will be closed on the afternoon of May 29, 2018 for racial-bias education for its employees.

My worry is that a half-day of training focused more on words, and less on actions will be ineffective
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Starbucks should be praised for strongly condemning this action and for embracing the need for implicit (racial) bias training. From a science of learning perspective, however, the crucial question that arises is this:

“What can be learned in a half-day and will that training be effective in changing the workplace culture and employee’s behavior in the long-term?”

I have spent the last 30 years studying the psychological and brain science of learning. I have shown that people skills, such as embracing diversity, effective interpersonal interactions, and checking unconscious (racial) biases, are about behavior. They are about what we “do”, “how” we do it, and our “intent”. True behavior change occurs only when training engages the behavioral skills learning system in the brain. This system learns through incremental, dopamine-mediated changes in neural connections in the basal ganglia that drive behavior. Learning occurs when behavior is following in real-time, literally within 100s of milliseconds, by feedback that rewards correct behaviors and punishes incorrect behaviors. Behavior change can begin in a half-day of training, if delivered effectively, but the training must target the behavioral skills learning system.

Starbucks should be praised for strongly condemning this action and for embracing the need for implicit (racial) bias training
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Training that leads to true behavior change can be contrasted with training that recruits the cognitive skills learning system in the brain and the prefrontal cortex, in particular. This type of training focuses on knowing the definition of unconscious (racial) bias, knowing what constitutes appropriate and inappropriate behaviors and providing verbal guidance on what one should do. This system focuses on knowing the “what” whereas the behavioral skills learning system focuses on knowing “how”. The cognitive aspects of unconscious bias can be trained in a half-day.

Observational VR can allow one to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes
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Although knowing “what” to do and being able to identify it is important, this is not the same as knowing “how” to behave. I worry that Starbuck’s half-day training will focus more on the “what” and less on the “how” and will not target effective behavior change.

What can be learned in a half-day and will that training be effective in changing the workplace culture and employee’s behavior?
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My hope is that training based on virtual reality will become embedded in the corporate world and will be available to employees essentially 24/7. This will allow true behavior change training and has the potential to revolutionize the workplace. The psychological and brain science suggests that two types of virtual reality offerings can be used to effectively train people skills.

I hope VR training will become embedded in the corporate world and will be available to employees essentially 24/7. This will allow true behavior change training and has the potential to revolutionize the workplace
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First, passive observational VR can be utilized to allow one to “walk a mile in someone else’s shoes”. Although not the same as living a lifetime of racial bias, there is value in the empathy and emotional reaction to seeing oneself as someone else and experiencing some trauma. There is nothing quite like allowing a middle-aged, heterosexual, Caucasian male to live the life, even for a few minutes, of a transgender youth, an African American man, or a disabled child being harassed or disrespected, to help them understand the negativity associated with this experience. Although this involves passive, observational learning it targets emotional processing centers 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. This type of experience leaves the learner poised for true behavior change.

Interactive VR can be used to train behavior in a safe and protected setting
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Second, interactive VR can be used to train behavior in a safe and protected setting. Whether live actors or artificial intelligence drives the behavior of avatars, the idea is that learners can be placed in real-time interactive settings in which feedback rewards correct behaviors and punishes incorrect behaviors. The learner can be placed in situations in which they must interact with an individual who is poor in people skills so that they learn how to deal with situations like those, or they can be placed in situations in which their behavior is responded to in a negative manner. More importantly, 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. Broad-based training enhances generalization and transfer and trains the individual to be prepared for any situation.

The psychological and brain science suggests that two types of virtual reality offerings can be used to effectively train people skills
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I applaud Starbucks for taking the initiative to train their employees and I believe their CEO when he says that this is not about public relations but rather about real behavior change. My worry is that a half-day of training focused more on words, and less on actions will be ineffective. Further training will be needed to change behavior and virtual reality may hold that key.

Behavior change can begin in a half-day of training, if delivered effectively, but the training must target the behavioral skills learning system
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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 Training Against Bias with VR appeared first on Tech Trends.