Perceptually-informed Virtual Environment (VE) (PerceiVE)

One of the major questions simulation designers must address is "which components of fidelity have the greatest impact on transfer of training?" In theory, the notion is that the higher the simulation fidelity, the more likely an operator is to behave in a similar fashion within the simulation as they would in the real world, thus resulting in a higher degree of transfer of training (Martin, 1981). However, developers are limited in terms of practical restrictions such as cost, time, and development resources (e.g. developers, researchers, etc). Thus, trade-offs are necessary. We propose to overcome some of the simulation fidelity issues previously mentioned, we propose the use of physiological measures to support the determination of simulation fidelity requirements that lead to a higher level on transfer of training. Many of the approaches used to date have focused on attempting to maximize the transfer of training during simulations based on the ability to elicit desired behaviors from operators during simulations with the notion that these behaviors would transfer to the real world applications. Our approach hypothesizes that transfer of training will be maximized and VE fidelity requirements best determined by matching operator's physiological responses in the simulated environment with those collected in the real environment.