Radboudumc

Often, a lack of rapport between health care professionals and patients exists. When rapport is high, patients experience less pain and consultation times are lower. Verbal and non-verbal psychological techniques can improve rapport. For Radboudumc, we develop a Virtual Reality application to train health care professionals in applying such techniques. Players learn to apply both verbal and non-verbal techniques.

Dutch Railways

Dutch Railways service employees assist wheelchair users getting on and off the train. The employees should communicate effectively with the person they are helping and with other travelers, even under stressful circumstances. We are developing an application in which the railway employees train their communication skills. We increase stress levels by gradually adding more complexity, such as more passengers, more time pressure and messages over the station’s public address system.

HAN University of Applied Sciences

Communication skills are essential for students of behavioral and societal study programmes. In their future jobs, they will need these skills to build relations with their clients. Together with HAN University of Applied Sciences, we developed The Virtual Client. In The Virtual Client, players conduct an initial interview with a client at a health care institution. Players need to get to know the client and find out some basic information about him. The learning goal is to make contact in the right way, using both verbal and non-verbal communication.

Artificial Intelligence

Our Virtual Persona characters are driven by an elaborate Artificial Intelligence system. Based on an emotional state and a great number of behaviorrules, they react naturally.

Natural speech input

Players communicate with our Virtual Persona through natural speech. This creates very high levels of immersion. We use natural speech processing technology to determine player’s intentions.

Non-verbal communication

Players’ non-verbal communication, such as gaze direction, nodding and gestures are tracked and analyzed. The Virtual Persona also shows non-verbal behavior based on player actions. As such, we provide a very rich environment for communication training.

Learning Analytics

Our Virtual Persona applications come with an insightful Learning Analytics system. This can be used to track players’ progress. Moreover, user management is included.