Impact of Full-Body Avatars in Immersive Multiplayer Virtual Reality Training for Police Forces

Recent advancements in virtual reality technology contributed to the development of immersive games and simulations of any kind. Simulations are a valuable tool for police forces to practice specific skills within threatening, dangerous, and stressful situations without dangerous real-world implicat...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE transactions on games 2022-12, Vol.14 (4), p.706-714
Main Authors: Caserman, Polona, Schmidt, Philip, Gobel, Thorsten, Zinnacker, Jonas, Kecke, Andre, Gobel, Stefan
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Avatars
Computer & video games
Educational software
Full-body motion reconstruction
Heart rate
Heart rate variability
immersive virtual reality
Kinematics
Law enforcement
multiplayer training simulation
Police
serious games
Simulation
Solid modeling
Stress
Threat evaluation
threat response
Threats
Training
Virtual reality
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Recent advancements in virtual reality technology contributed to the development of immersive games and simulations of any kind. Simulations are a valuable tool for police forces to practice specific skills within threatening, dangerous, and stressful situations without dangerous real-world implications. Effective virtual simulations need to be realistic in terms of actions and also need to elicit emotion, engagement, and stress. To this end, we developed a multiplayer virtual reality training simulation for police forces to explore the effect of full-body avatars, especially regarding the stress level and response to threats. We analyzed the statistical significance and effect sizes of the data from 32 police officers under two conditions: either they could see an assailant with a full-body avatar or only a head and hands. The results reveal an increase in stress level and threat during the immersion with the full-body avatar. This was shown objectively by analyzing the heart rate variability and subjectively by examining a questionnaire in response to a threat to the assailant's virtual body. These findings indicate that an assailant with a full-body avatar is beneficial during training for police forces, as it increases the feeling of a threat and contributes to a more realistic training experience.
ISSN:2475-1502
2475-1510
DOI:10.1109/TG.2022.3148791