Interactive Virtual Training

Virtual agents and immersive VR for social-skills training

Interactive Virtual Training explores how virtual humans, immersive environments, and intelligent tutoring systems can support the practice of social and professional skills. Low-cost virtual reality equipment has made VR systems more accessible, and virtual intelligent social agents can simulate human social behavior in ways that help people rehearse socio-emotional interactions.

The work applies to training contexts such as public speaking, empathic communication with patients, classroom behavior management, and the recognition of emotional signals by people with autism spectrum disorder.

Research Themes

• Virtual humans
• Social-skills training
• Affective interaction
• Human-computer interaction
• Immersive virtual reality
• Social behavior modeling

Virtual classrooms and social agents support applied practice in immersive training settings.

Source: Cyberlearning and Training on Social Skills in Virtual Reality