Using virtual reality to teach special populations how to cope in crisis: the case of a virtual earthquake

Tarnanas, Ioannis; Manos, George C. (2001). Using virtual reality to teach special populations how to cope in crisis: the case of a virtual earthquake. Studies in health technology and informatics, 81, pp. 495-501. IOS Press 10.3233/978-1-60750-925-7-495

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The unique characteristics of special populations such as pre-school children and Down syndrome kids in crisis and their distorted self-image were never studied before, because of the difficulty of crisis reproduction. This study proposes a VR setting that tries to model some special population's behaviour in the time of crises and offers them a training scenario. The sample population consisted of 30 pre-school children and 20 children with Down syndrome. The VR setting involved a high-speed PC, a VPL EyePhone 1, a MR toolkit, a vibrations plate, a motion capture system and other sensors. The system measured and modelled the typical behaviour of these special populations in a Virtual Earthquake scenario with sight and sound and calculated a VR anthropomorphic model that reproduced their behaviour and emotional state. Afterwards one group received an emotionally enhanced VR self-image as feedback for their training, one group received a plain VR self-image and another group received verbal instructions. The findings strongly suggest that the training was a lot more biased by the emotionally enhanced VR self-image than the other approaches. These findings could highlight the special role of the self-image to therapy and training and the interesting role of imagination to emotions, motives and learning. Further studies could be done with various scenarios in order to measure the best-biased behaviour and establish the most natural and affective VR model. This presentation is going to highlight the main findings and some theories behind them.

Item Type:	Journal Article (Original Article)
Division/Institute:	10 Strategic Research Centers > ARTORG Center for Biomedical Engineering Research > ARTORG Center - Gerontechnology and Rehabilitation
UniBE Contributor:	Tarnanas, Ioannis
Subjects:	500 Science > 570 Life sciences; biology 600 Technology > 610 Medicine & health
ISSN:	0926-9630
Publisher:	IOS Press
Submitter:	Ioannis Tarnanas
Date Deposited:	25 Aug 2014 14:41
Last Modified:	05 Dec 2022 14:31
Publisher DOI:	10.3233/978-1-60750-925-7-495
PubMed ID:	11317797
URI:	https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/47758