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The future of interpersonal skills development: Immersive virtual reality

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Article  in  Human Resource Development Quarterly · January 2018

DOI: 10.1002/hrdq.21307

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Interpersonal Skills Development and Immersive Virtual Reality Training 1

This is the manuscript version of the following publication:

Schmid Mast, M., Kleinlogel, E. P., Tur, B., & Bachmann, M. (2018). The future of
interpersonal skills development: Immersive virtual reality training with virtual
humans. Human Resource Development Quarterly, 29, 125–141.
doi:10.1002/hrdq.21307

Note that there might be slight differences between this and the published version.
Interpersonal Skills Development and Immersive Virtual Reality Training 2

The Future of Interpersonal Skills Development:

Immersive Virtual Reality Training with Virtual Humans

Marianne Schmid Mast

Emmanuelle P. Kleinlogel

Benjamin Tur

University of Lausanne, Switzerland

Manuel Bachmann

University of Applied Sciences, Bern, Switzerland

Author Note

Marianne Schmid Mast, Department of Organizational Behavior, Faculty of Business

and Economics (HEC), University of Lausanne, Switzerland.

This research was supported in part by a grant from the Swiss National Science

Foundation. We thank Jörg Dietz and Pierre Millasson for their helpful comments on earlier

versions of this article.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Marianne Schmid Mast,

Department of Organizational Behavior, University of Lausanne UNIL-Dorigny, Internef,

CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland, E-mail: marianne.schmidmast@unil.ch

Interpersonal Skills Development and Immersive Virtual Reality Training 3

Abstract

We present how Immersive Virtual Reality (IVR) technology can be used for interpersonal

skills training in organizations by bringing together two strands of research: Virtual Reality

Exposure Therapy (VRET) (Powers & Emmelkamp, 2008) and the information,

demonstration, practice, and feedback (I-D-P-F) training effectiveness framework

(Bedwell, Fiore, & Salas, 2014). We present a new interpersonal skills training model that

identifies the main advantages of using IVR for training of interpersonal skills and posits

how these affect opportunities and motivation for practice, two key elements for training

transfer. The paper links existing IVR training to the domain of human resource

development and provides a look into the future of IVR interpersonal skills training from a

practical as well as from research perspective.

Keywords: interpersonal skills training, virtual reality, training transfer

Interpersonal Skills Development and Immersive Virtual Reality Training 4

The Future of Interpersonal Skills Development:

Immersive Virtual Reality Training with Virtual Humans

Companies spend enormous amounts of their budgets on training. In 2013, corporate

training cost over $ 130 Billion worldwide with the lion share going into management and

leadership development training (35%) (O'Leonard, 2014). An important element of these

trainings is the development of interpersonal skills (Brotheridge, Lee, Riggio, & Reichard,

2008; Crosbie, 2005; Riggio & Lee, 2007). Klein, DeRouin, and Salas (2006, p. 81) define

interpersonal skills as an umbrella term that refers to “goal directed behaviors, including

communication and relationship-building competencies, employed in interpersonal

interaction episodes characterized by complex perceptual and cognitive processes, dynamic

verbal and nonverbal interaction exchanges, diverse roles, motivations, and expectancies.”

Interpersonal skills development in management programs revolve around training of

leadership, negotiation, and communication skills (Hunt & Baruch, 2003). Meta-analyses

show that the training effect is most pronounced for interpersonal skills training (Arthur Jr,

Bennett Jr, Edens, & Bell, 2003). Given this success, companies will continue to invest in

interpersonal skills training, but what is the future of interpersonal skills training?

The traditional way of training interpersonal skills is via role-play of specific

interpersonal situations (e.g., give a short presentation in front of the other trainees) with

feedback (e.g., watching one’s videotape from practice, peer trainee, or instructor feedback)

(Agboola Sogunro, 2004; Salas, Wildman, & Piccolo, 2009). In the present article, we

present a new and innovative approach for interpersonal skills training: The use of

Immersive Virtual Reality (IVR) technology with virtual humans as training partners.

Virtual reality can be defined as a fully controlled computer-simulated environment

Interpersonal Skills Development and Immersive Virtual Reality Training 5

replicating the basic features of a real situation, including its psychological processes

(Pierce & Aguinis, 1997). We focus on immersive 3D virtual reality environments for

training (Kapp & O'Driscoll, 2009). Immersion means that the user has a first person

perspective (Salamin, Tadi, Blanke, Vexo, & Thalmann, 2010) and sees the virtual world

through a pair of 3D goggles, called Head Mounted Display (HMD). The virtual world

completely surrounds the users allowing them to encounter and interact with virtual humans

(Figure 1).

The goal of this article is to provide an overview of the potential of IVR technology

for interpersonal skills training in organizations and to develop a new interpersonal skills

training model that brings together theoretical considerations from the field of clinical

psychology and from organizational training. In clinical psychology, virtual reality training

is already established under the name of Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy (VRET)

(Powers & Emmelkamp, 2008) and is mostly used for the clinical treatment of anxiety

disorders. In organizational training research, the information, demonstration, practice, and

feedback (I-D-P-F) training effectiveness framework (Bedwell, Fiore, & Salas, 2014) is the

predominant theoretical approach used for skills training. We propose the IVR

interpersonal skills training model that integrates both approaches in order to understand

how IVR training with virtual humans can enhance social skill development.

IVR Technology for Training

Training by using IVR technology is part of the so-called simulation-based training

methods (Psotka, 1995). Simulation-based training intends to develop specific

competencies (knowledge, skills, and attitudes) by giving trainees the opportunity to

practice in an artificial or simulated environment mirroring real world situations (Salas et

Interpersonal Skills Development and Immersive Virtual Reality Training 6

al., 2009). As new technologies continue to evolve, training tools continue to change and to

open new horizons for training (Salas et al., 2009). While different simulation trainings use

computers, so called computer-based trainings (CBT) (Bedwell & Salas, 2010; Kraiger &

Jerden, 2007), interpersonal skills training necessitates practice with another person in the

form of a role-play (Agboola Sogunro, 2004; Salas et al., 2009). We show how

interpersonal skills training can become a computer-based training by using IVR

technology to train with one or several virtual humans.

Virtual humans are 3D representations of humans. These virtual humans can move

around in the virtual world and interact with the trainee by, for instance, looking at the

trainee and approaching him or her, and talking to the trainee. Virtual humans speak with a

human (prerecorded) voice while moving their lips in synchrony with what they say. They

can either be agents in which case they are entirely preprogrammed and nothing else than a

computer algorithm; or they can be avatars, meaning that a real human controls what the

virtual human is doing in the social interaction (Fox et al., 2015). We focus on the use of

agents in the current article.

Different IVR training solutions are available. There are walking IVR settings

(Ruddle & Lessels, 2009) in which the trainees wear an HMD and are tracked in the 3D

environment allowing for moving around in IVR like in the real world (e.g., presenting a

project during a work meeting, Figure 1). There is also the possibility to use desktop IVR

settings (Lee, Wong, & Fung, 2010) in which trainees sit in front of a computer with the

HMD and encounter agents to, for instance, train to deliver a pep talk to an

underperforming employee or to train answering specific job interview questions (Figure

2). These scenarios can be downloaded to the trainee`s personal computer at home to train
Interpersonal Skills Development and Immersive Virtual Reality Training 7

in privacy. The trainee practices short interpersonal exchanges (e.g., reply to a job

interview question about his or her strengths and weaknesses) as many times as he or she

wants and each of the short interpersonal exchanges is automatically video and audio taped

for possible later review. For the desktop IVR settings, their cost-efficiency becomes

evident because millions of users can use the scenario at the same time. The entire training

is self-directed and self-paced. The trainee decides freely on what to train, how many

repetitions, and whether or not to watch the recordings.

How IVR Training Works

In educational science, IVR technology has been used and has shown promising

results. Mostly, the role of virtual teachers has been explored (Bailenson et al., 2008;

Mikropoulos & Natsis, 2011). Our approach is different; we focus on training of difficult

social interactions at work with collaborators, superiors, subordinates, and clients. The

emphasis is on the active engagement in a social interaction by reacting to the virtual social

interaction partner and/or soliciting a reaction in the agent. This is very close to how IVR is

used in clinical psychology. There, Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy (VRET) has proven

to be an effective treatment of anxiety disorders (Parsons & Rizzo, 2008; Powers &

Emmelkamp, 2008). Some of the VRETs are geared towards social interactions as, for

instance, treatment of social anxiety. Social anxiety is a marked and persistent fear of being

exposed to unfamiliar people or to possible scrutiny by others. The individual fears that he

or she will act in a way (or show anxiety symptoms) that will be humiliating or

embarrassing (Acarturk, Cuijpers, Van Straten, & De Graaf, 2009).

Virtual reality enables the trainees to be exposed to social situations that elicit

progressively more stress or anxiety. The level of tolerable stress depends from one
Interpersonal Skills Development and Immersive Virtual Reality Training 8

individual to the next. This exposure occurs step-by-step, meaning only when the trainees

master to control their fear with respect to a relatively low anxiety-provoking social

situation, will the situation be replaced by a “stronger” one. This approach is known as

exposure therapy (Feske & Chambless, 1995; Meyerbröker & Emmelkamp, 2010).

Training in IVR functions in the same way and thus enables trainees to progress according

to their individual training goals and dispositions. Individual tailoring of the training

scenario positions each trainee in an optimal learning zone: as close as possible to the

actual workplace interaction that he or she wants to train for (Blume, Ford, Baldwin, &

Huang, 2010) and at an optimal level of challenge without it being threatening (Drach-

Zahavy & Erez, 2002).

The most challenging social interactions are those that include social evaluation such

as the job interview or public speaking. Social evaluation situations elicit a stress response

in the individual with physiological symptoms of stress (Al'Absi et al., 1997; Kirschbaum,

Pirke, & Hellhammer, 1993) as well as observable nervous behavior (Schmid & Schmid

Mast, 2013). Other types of difficult social situations are those that are emotionally taxing

such as firing an employee or providing negative performance feedback to an employee.

IVR interpersonal skills training for organizational training is in its infancy (Gorini &

Riva, 2008; Harris, Kemmerling, & North, 2002). Research has shown that IVR is

successful for public speaking training (Anderson, Zimand, Hodges, & Rothbaum, 2005;

Gorini & Riva, 2008; Harris et al., 2002; Klinger et al., 2005; Parsons & Rizzo, 2008). In

the present article, we go beyond public speaking training and show how IVR can be

beneficial for training an array of different interpersonal skills.

Training Transfer in Social Skills Training

Interpersonal Skills Development and Immersive Virtual Reality Training 9

The ultimate goal of any educational program is to create training transfer, that is, to

deliver competencies that subsequently foster individuals’ workplace performance (Burke

& Hutchins, 2007). Research highlights four crucial components for training transfer to

happen: 1) information, 2) demonstration, 3) practice, and 4) feedback, forming the I-D-P-F

training effectiveness framework (Bedwell et al., 2014; Salas & Cannon-Bowers, 2001).

These four components constitute an optimal combination of teaching methods leading to

transfer of the newly acquired skills to the work environment. They map on to the factors

identified to be important by Behavior Modeling Training (BMT) (Taylor, Russ-Eft, &

Chan, 2005), the method of choice for interpersonal skills training.

Information refers to the traditional teaching methods through lecture and supporting

material (e.g., readings, case studies) with trainers delivering both declarative and

procedural knowledge to their trainees. Demonstration means the act of showing (e.g.,

through video clips showing a role model performing the skills) how to apply the

theoretical concepts exposed during the information phase. Through practice, trainees try

out and apply the newly learned skills with the aim of integrating them for future use.

Practice fosters training transfer through a learning-by-doing process. Not only the

acquisition of new skills but also the maintenance and perfection of acquired skills need

practice. The way towards becoming an expert in a given domain leads through practice.

The deliberate practice model by Ericsson, Krampe, and Tesch-Römer (1993) underscores

that continued deliberate practice is key for attaining expert status and to maintain

professional performance in various domains. Providing the opportunity to practice, also

called experiential learning, is thus a core element of all skills trainings (Decker, 1982),

including interpersonal skills development (Blanch-Hartigan, Andrzejewski, & Hill, 2012).

Interpersonal Skills Development and Immersive Virtual Reality Training 10

Finally, feedback is a critical component for training success. By receiving feedback

on both successes and failures during the practice phase, trainees can reflect on their

performance and on how to improve it. Meta-analytical research has demonstrated that

receiving feedback on one’s practice is one of the most important components in

interpersonal skills training, next to practice (Blanch-Hartigan et al., 2012).

Interpersonal Skills Training Model

How IVR interpersonal skills training leads to training transfer is depicted in the IVR

Interpersonal Skills Training Model (Figure 3). The model brings together the exposure

therapy framework (Meyerbröker & Emmelkamp, 2010; Powers & Emmelkamp, 2008) as

well as the two core elements of social skills training in an I-D-P-F training framework

(Bedwell et al., 2014; Salas & Cannon-Bowers, 2001): Practice and feedback. Moreover, it

identifies the 5 distinct advantages of IVR training with virtual humans for social skills

development over traditional methods such as role-play with real social interaction

partners: (1) ease of access to a training partner, (2) double reality, (3) variability of

training scenarios, (4) possibility for new experiences, and (5) implicit feedback, and puts

them in relation to the theoretical elements of exposure therapy and practice and feedback

from organizational training.

Practice

The core aspect of social skills training is practice (i.e., role play with a social

interaction partner). To increase practice, we need to provide opportunities for practice to

the trainee (opportunities for practice) and we need to motivate the trainee to practice as

much as possible with as many repetitions as possible (motivation for practice). These are
Interpersonal Skills Development and Immersive Virtual Reality Training 11

the two components of practice depicted in the IVR Interpersonal Skills Training Model

(Figure 3).

Opportunities for practice. The opportunities for practice in interpersonal skills

development depend on the ease of access to training partners (Agboola Sogunro, 2004;

Salas et al., 2009). This can be a challenging endeavor for certain training situations such

as, for instance, giving a talk in front of a large audience. The logistics and costs of

organizing a room full of people to represent the audience and the challenge of finding

motivated people who endure one trainee presentation after the other, are daunting. Here

IVR training has a distinct advantage: The virtual humans are available 24/7 and once they

are programmed, they do not need to be trained, scheduled, or paid. The unlimited

availability of the virtual social interaction partners for training is a key advantage of IVR

training. Moreover, virtual humans have endless patience and stamina. Unlike flesh and

blood social interaction partners, virtual training partners will not want to go home at the

end of the day and they will also not get bored or annoyed by trainees repeating over and

over the same sequence of behaviors. This means that once the training is available, there is

essentially no limit as to how many trainees and how many times each of them can use a

given scenario.

Because the scenarios and the virtual social interaction partner are constantly

available, the trainee can practice as much as needed and repeat the entire training or parts

of it how often he or she sees fit. Given the importance of providing opportunities to

practice for trainees (Bedwell et al., 2014; Ericsson et al., 1993), IVR training is optimal

because there are almost no barriers (other than the availability of the training facility if it is

a walking IVR setting and the personal motivation of the trainee) to how often the trainee
Interpersonal Skills Development and Immersive Virtual Reality Training 12

can practice (Sitzmann, 2011). Trainees or their trainers decide how many times they need

to repeat the same scenario to meet their training goals.

Motivation for practice. Exposure therapy works because the trainee is exposed to

his or her individually tolerable level of anxiety or stress and only after habituation to this

level is the difficulty increased (Rothbaum, Hodges, & Kooper, 1997). The tolerable level

of difficulty and the speed and type of difficulty increase all vary from one individual to the

next. Therefore, optimal learning is tailored to each individual. Only when the trainee is in

a challenging but not threatening situation is he or she motivated to practice and go further

in learning. This is described through the link between individual tailoring of difficulty

level and motivation for practice in the IVR Interpersonal Skills Training Model.

Individual tailoring of difficulty level. Individual tailoring of the difficulty level in

training is possible thanks to IVR putting trainees in a situation of double reality, offering

easy to achieve variability of the training scenarios, and the possibility for new experiences

(see IVR Interpersonal Skills Training Model, Figure 3).

Double reality. Trainees experience co-presence with the virtual humans in IVR. Co-

presence means being aware that other individuals are present and perceive us; there is a

psychological connection between the trainee and the virtual humans (Bulu, 2012).

However, at the same time, trainees perceive the virtual social interaction partner as

artificial enough to alleviate the stress normally experienced in social evaluation situations.

When interacting with virtual agents, trainees practice in a socially risk-free environment.

They can experience mistakes and failures without implying costly social consequences:

They are not judged by the virtual humans. Trainees thus feel encouraged to try out new,

different, and also extreme behaviors.

Interpersonal Skills Development and Immersive Virtual Reality Training 13

By using IVR we expose trainees to what we call double reality: Knowing that the

virtual humans are not real and that there is no risk of being judged by them and therefore

providing a save space to try out any new behavior and at the same time being present and

feeling engaged as one would be in a real social interaction. Indeed, Meyerbröker and

Emmelkamp (2010) posit that there need to be two conditions met for VRET to be efficient

in treating anxiety disorders: (1) The trainee has to experience anxiety meaning that the

virtual simulation needs to be perceived with some degree of reality but at the same time,

(2) there must be information available that is incompatible with the experienced fear

reaction, which is the knowledge that one is simply in a virtual reality training session and

that the anxiety-triggering stimulus is not real. Such psychology-safe aspects are crucial for

training success (Blume, Baldwin, & Ryan, 2013; Salas et al., 2009).

The double reality nature of the IVR training permits the trainee to tolerate situations

in which he or she would be much more stressed if the situation was encountered as such in

reality. This enables to push the training even further, meaning experience mastery in a

(virtual) situation that might even be much more stressful than the actual real situation for

which the trainee trains.

Variability of training scenarios. Training transfer is increased when the simulation

situation is closest to the situation the trainee will be faced when back at work (Baldwin &

Ford, 1988; Blume et al., 2010). Given that any environment and social constellation can be

programmed in IVR, the training scenario can be matched to any real environment.

Moreover, virtual humans can be programmed to have a large repertoire of interaction

behaviors available to challenge the trainees in order to help them progress.

Interpersonal Skills Development and Immersive Virtual Reality Training 14

IVR differentiates itself from traditional training methods in that trainers and trainees

can choose among different scenarios and behaviors and switch easily from one simulation

to the other. Trainees can experience different social interactions within or between

sessions. To illustrate, in a scenario in which a leader practices to provide negative

performance feedback to an employee, the trainer can choose whether to train with a female

or a male employee, with a younger or older employee, or with an employee from African,

Asian, or European descent. Moreover, the user can choose between different employee

reactions: The employee can become defensive, aggressive, or depressed. Trainees in a

public speaking scenario might want to gradually increase the size of the virtual audience or

might want to train with an uncooperative audience in which agents talk among each other

or leave the room while the trainee delivers his or her speech. Such variability in agents and

scenarios is an undeniable advantage to broaden and optimize learning and to keep the

trainee interested and motivated.

Possibility for new experiences. Interestingly, the definition of IVR focuses on

copying the reality and making the virtual as real as possible (Pierce & Aguinis, 1997).

There is nothing wrong with this. However, we argue that in order to leverage the potential

of IVR training, we need to immerse trainees in uncommon scenarios and environments, to

allow for out-of-the-ordinary experiences. In IVR any environment can be created –

fictitious or real. Moreover, combinations of realistic elements in a way that is very

unlikely to occur in reality are possible. For instance, it is possible to use an audience in a

public speaking training scenario, however the trainees do not find themselves in a

conference room or an office but instead they stand on a plank over a huge precipice to face

their audience (Figure 4). This adds another stressor: fear of heights. There is also the
Interpersonal Skills Development and Immersive Virtual Reality Training 15

possibility to decrease stress with an uncommon scenario. It would, for instance, be

possible to give a presentation while being submerged in an aquarium full of colorful fish

swimming around and sunlight beaming through the water providing a serene and peaceful

environment. Uncommon scenarios can be helpful to tailor the stress level to each

individual trainee (see IVR Interpersonal Skills Training Model, Figure 3).

Trainees can experience physically impossible scenarios such as flying in IVR.

Imagine the trainee flies like a superhero over buildings (Rosenberg, Baughman, &

Bailenson, 2013), lands on a platform from which to talk to an audience who looks up to

the speaker. Trainees might feel almighty which can liberate behaviors that are beneficial

for being up on stage.

There is also the possibility to simulate socially impossible encounters. We can

model virtual humans to resemble real people. This opens the possibility that trainees can

encounter people they know. It would be possible, for instance, to train for a specific

encounter say with the CEO of the company and train this very specific situation with a

virtual human that looks exactly like the CEO. Another possibility is that the trainee can

encounter him- or herself in IVR. A virtual human that looks like the actual self who

possesses the facial features rendered from digital photographs but behaves independently

of the self is called a doppelganger (Bailenson, 2012). Male trainees who see their

doppelganger giving a public speech while hearing a guided visualization of the talk report

less public speaking anxiety compared to a group only hearing the guided visualization

without seeing their doppelganger (Aymerich-Franch & Bailenson, 2014). Whether

encountering one’s doppelganger really improves the trainee’s presentation competence

remains to be tested. This way, trainees become their own role model which is only
Interpersonal Skills Development and Immersive Virtual Reality Training 16

possible with a doppelganger in IVR. It would also be possible that the doppelganger

coaches the trainee during training, which might be a more effective form of coaching

(Ahn, Fox, & Hahm, 2014). Another avenue for the use of doppelgangers would be training

of empathy and perspective taking in that the trainee sees his or her doppelganger in a

difficult situation which could then increase empathy for other people in such a situation

(e.g., the trainee fires him- or herself, meaning his or her doppelganger).

The novelty and surprise elicited by the unexpected or the uncommon triggers an

emotional response that can affect learning (Pekrun, 1992). It can be surprise, curiosity,

elevation, anxiety, stress, or awe, to mention just a few possibilities. By using out-of-the-

ordinary experiences instead of realistic scenarios and environments for leader

interpersonal skills training, the full potential of IVR is used. Trainees find the training

experience interesting; they are emotionally more involved because, if nothing else, they

are surprised. This will increase motivation to train and thus augment the number of

practice trials and most likely also adherence to the training. In the IVR Interpersonal Skills

Training Model, this is depicted by the arrow going from the possibility for new

experiences to the motivation for practice (Figure 3)

Feedback

Meta-analytical research shows that receiving feedback on one’s practice is one of the

most important components in interpersonal skills training, next to practice (Blanch-

Hartigan et al., 2012). Feedback can be built into the IVR training session in different ways.

For instance, feedback can be provided in an implicit manner by programming certain

reactions of the virtual humans depending on what the trainee does or does not do. As an

example, for public speaking training, the audience can start to be distracted and not paying
Interpersonal Skills Development and Immersive Virtual Reality Training 17

attention to the speech any more if the quality of the trainee’s speech is not good (Batrinca,

Stratou, Shapiro, Morency, & Scherer, 2013). The virtual audience can start to yawn, start

to talk with the neighbor, or even leave the room if the trainee does not look at them or

speaks in a monotonous voice. This way, the trainee obtains immediate feedback via the

behavior of the virtual interaction partners.

Such implicit feedback can be provided in different ways. The training program can

foresee different reactions of the agent and the trainer can choose which one fits best.

However, this requires an active input of the trainer in the computer while the simulation is

running. An example would be that the trainee provides a negative feedback to a

collaborator and then the trainer chooses whether the virtual collaborator will get angry,

burst into tears, or show any other preprogrammed reaction.

More automated systems exist. These involve social sensing, meaning sensors in the

environment (e.g., camera, microphone, Kinect) and adapted computer algorithms that

extract the desired information from the sensors (e.g., speaking time duration, eye gaze)

(Pentland & Heibeck, 2010; Schmid Mast, Gatica-Perez, Frauendorfer, Nguyen, &

Choudhury, 2015). The sensed behavior of the trainee can then trigger certain reactions in

the simulation, for instance, how the virtual human reacts. These reactions then represent

(rather implicit) feedback to the trainee (Schmid Mast et al., 2015). As an example, the

trainee obtains feedback on how to change his or her behavior directly during a virtual

reality job interview training (e.g., the trainee is explicitly instructed to smile more during

the job interview) (Baur, Damian, Gebhard, Porayska-Pomsta, & André, 2013; Gebhard et

al., 2014; Hoque, Courgeon, Martin, Mutlu, & Picard, 2013).

Interpersonal Skills Development and Immersive Virtual Reality Training 18

Another example is a virtual therapist that is used to interview patients in the context

of therapies or screening (Morency et al., 2015). The limitations of these systems are that to

date, they are still in development and typically not yet available for a larger pool of users.

Moreover, because all agent behaviors need to be programmed in advance, there is a

restricted repertoire of possible agent behavior available while the simulation is running.

This hinders spontaneity in the social interaction and the virtual social interaction partner’s

reaction is not always well adapted to what the trainee does or says.

Challenges and Future Directions of IVR Interpersonal Skills Training

The main limitation of IVR is the still limited interactivity with the virtual humans

(Bombari, Schmid Mast, Canadas, & Bachmann, 2015). Virtual humans can be

preprogrammed to do almost all a real person can do but in order to simulate a real social

interaction, there needs to be spontaneous adaptability of the virtual human to what the

trainee does or says. Asking the virtual social interaction partner a question, for instance, is

a real challenge for the simulation. There is speech recognition that can help the computer

understand the question and select an adequate preprogrammed answer for the virtual

human, but unless the interaction occurs in a very well defined environment on a very

specific topic, the challenge prevails.

Involvement in the training and motivation to train might be boosted by gamification

strategies, meaning the inclusion of game-design elements in non-game contexts (Simões,

Redondo, & Vilas, 2013). Gamification strategies typically use rewards for trainees for

having accomplished a certain task or a certain number of repetitions. These rewards can

include points or achieved performance levels, for instance. The fact that repetition is a key

element of IVR training lends itself to the use of gamification. As an example, after having
Interpersonal Skills Development and Immersive Virtual Reality Training 19

accomplished several repetitions of a given training in IVR, the trainee might reach a level

on which he or she is awarded the possibility to choose the virtual social interaction partner

with which to train (e.g., a man or a woman, a friendly or an unfriendly recruiter).

Although IVR systems were around for the past ten years or so, this technology has

gained momentum recently with the widespread availability and reasonable costs of HMDs

through which participants perceive the 3D virtual world surrounding them (e.g., Oculus

Rift or HTC Vive). This opens new and exciting avenues for applications such as, for

instance the desktop IVR training. The trainee can download the program on his or her

computer at home and either train on a 2D version on the screen or plug in an HMD and

then train in a 3D environment. This means that the desktop IVR training will become

readily available for download in the near future and there will be a vast choice of scenarios

available.

Going beyond training, IVR interpersonal skills scenarios can also be used for

assessment rather than for training. Even if the social interaction partner in a role-play is

instructed and trained to behave in exactly the same way with each and every trainee,

showing exactly the same interaction behavior is not completely possible because in social

interactions, we always react to the other person albeit it very subtlety. For instance, when a

social interaction partner takes an expansive body posture, we tend to fold ourselves in and

take a more constrictive posture and vice versa (Tiedens, Unzueta, & Young, 2007). This

happens on an unconscious level. Using IVR and virtual human agents circumvents such

standardization problems which makes IVR an interesting tool for behavior-based

assessments as, for instance, in recruitment (e.g., assessment centers).

Interpersonal Skills Development and Immersive Virtual Reality Training 20

A Research Agenda to Investigate IVR Interpersonal Skills Training Effectiveness

and Mechanisms

To date, we only have evidence from clinical psychology and some from educational

science suggesting the effectiveness of IVR interpersonal skills trainings. There are still

many open questions research needs to address: Do we achieve better results with IVR

training than with the traditional methods? Do we achieve the same results but with less

costs for training? And, what are the mechanisms of learning? Are trainees more motivated

because of the novelty? Is the learning mechanism different altogether?

Training effectiveness

In the clinical realm, IVR training shows promising results for anxiety disorders,

including public speaking anxiety (Gerardi, Cukor, Difede, Rizzo, & Rothbaum, 2010). To

evaluate the effect of organizational training, Kirkpatrick’s (1967) four levels of training

evaluation is used widely: reactions (e.g., whether the trainees liked the training), learning

(e.g., what the trainees learned from the training), behavior (e.g., whether what was learned

can be transferred to the job – training transfer), and results (e.g., whether the training

affects performance on the job). Phillips (1996) added another level which is the one about

comparing the 4th level of Kirkpatrick with the cost of training. We believe that IVR

training will impact level 3 and 4 of Kirkpatrick’s taxonomy and particularly Phillips’s

additional level of factoring in the training costs.

Training motivation

There is some evidence showing that training in a virtual reality environment might

boost training motivation. In a study that compared traditional therapy methods for treating

public speaking anxiety with IVR treatment, the effects were similar but the dropout rate
Interpersonal Skills Development and Immersive Virtual Reality Training 21

was lower in the IVR treatment condition (Wallach, Safir, & Bar-Zvi, 2009). This hints to a

motivational factor. However, a more recent meta-analysis did not confirm that there was a

dropout difference between traditional anxiety therapy methods and IVR treatments (Opriş

et al., 2012).This meta-analysis focused on different anxiety disorders, not just public

speaking anxiety. For interpersonal skills training, the novelty or surprise of the virtual

scenario and especially of the virtual human, as well as introducing out-of-the-ordinary

experiences as mentioned above, might trigger a strong motivation for training and practice.

Whether and how the factors posited by the IVR Interpersonal Skills Training Model affect

motivation for practice and ultimately training transfer remains to be tested.

Learning mechanism

Training interpersonal skills is challenging because most behaviors, and particularly

nonverbal behavior (e.g., eye contact, smiling, close interpersonal distance, speech

duration), are under poor conscious control (Ekman & Friesen, 1969; Mehrabian, 2008).

Motor learning is often unconscious. Think about how a kid learns to ride the bike. As a

parent you typically have to tell your kid not to look at how the feet pedal, but instead to

look straight on. The feet will learn to pedal on their own – they do not need visual

supervision. Learning how to pedal and balance typically come from a learning-by-doing

approach in which the simple fact of practicing and repeating the same behavior creates the

necessary neural circuits for sustainable motor learning. What is the analogy with IVR

training? IVR immerses the trainee in the virtual world so that the outside real world

becomes less present. This not only shields from social evaluation of bystanders (e.g., the

trainer or other fellow trainees), it also lets trainees forget about their own motor behavior.

In the IVR settings in which the trainees do not see their hands or limps represented, there
Interpersonal Skills Development and Immersive Virtual Reality Training 22

is no visual inspection of, for instance, gestures, possible. To the extent that nonverbal

behavior and especially gestures, body postures, and locomotion are all motor behaviors,

this helps implicit learning. The trainee does not have to deal with the visual feedback

about his or her arms when training more open body gestures in public speaking; the body

will learn implicitly which frees up cognitive capacity that can be used to focus on the

content of the speech. We as trainers observe that the trainees’ nonverbal behavior in IVR

typically is more “liberated” than when training in front of a camera or with a real social

interaction partner. Whether indeed, there is implicit motor learning involved in IVR

interpersonal skills training remains to be tested empirically.

Conclusion

Interpersonal skills training can use the new technologies available and in particular

IVR technology with virtual humans as social interaction partners with which trainees can

practice. We introduce the IVR Interpersonal Skills Training Model (Figure 3) which

summarizes the main advantages of using IVR for interpersonal skills training and posits

how these affect opportunities and motivation for practice, two key elements for training

transfer. The model combines the exposure therapy framework from clinical psychology

and the I-D-P-F framework from human resource development. The model presents at the

same time a bouncing board for future empirical research in this area. While IVR is widely

used for therapeutic interventions in a clinical setting and has also proven to be effective as

a therapy method, IVR is only beginning to emerge for social skills training in a human

resource development context. Our paper summarizes the possibility for using IVR for

social skills training, provides an outlook for future applications, and proposes a research

agenda for the domain.

Interpersonal Skills Development and Immersive Virtual Reality Training 23

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Figure 1. Participant wearing an HMD and giving a presentation in front of an audience of

virtual humans in a conference room (the participant, depicted on the left upper corner, is

completely immersed in the conference room environment).

Interpersonal Skills Development and Immersive Virtual Reality Training 32

Figure 2. Participant wearing an HMD and sitting in front of a computer and practicing a

job interview question the virtual human avatar asked (chosen from the menu on the right).
Interpersonal Skills Development and Immersive Virtual Reality Training 33

Figure 3. IVR Interpersonal Skills Training Model.

 Interpersonal Skills Development and Immersive Virtual Reality Training 34

Figure 4. Participant wearing an HMD and giving a presentation in front of an audience of

virtual humans while standing on a plank over a precipice and looking down on the

audience (scenario adapted from WorldViz).

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