Incorporating Affective Stressors in Virtual Training Environments

Affective environments may be developed using VE technology to further enhance learning and training transfer to real-world tasks. However, training in such environments has shown limited transfer effects for emotionally-charged tasks, which may be due to inadequate representation of the appropriate affective environment. Thus, there is a need to determine how multisensory information can be used to create stress and invoke affective responses similar to responses experienced in live operations. The Affective Virtual Environment Training System (A-VETS) proposed software tool addresses this identified opportunity by guiding system designers and trainers through the process of adding negative affective components to VE training systems to enhance trainee performance, decrease training time and enhance training transfer of cognitive and psychomotor learning objectives. A complimentary effort proposed by VRSonic will develop the Real-time Affective Detection Induction System (RADIS). A-VETS will provide affect scenario design, including upfront scenario settings and a matrix for real-time adaptation based on emotion state and performance to RADIS, which will interact directly with the VE training system to capture emotional state of teams of up to 4 trainees affect during training. Captured emotional state will be compared to expected state, and RADIS will respond to mismatches in states by adjusting affective parameters for individual team members as guided by A-VETS training strategy matrix.