It used to be that the only way to have an experience was to live it, however, virtual reality (VR) has changed that. Now people can experience a multitude of realities in a virtual setting–making it possible for someone to put themselves in unique situations and learn from their reactions. This is especially helpful for first responders, particularly during moments of stress, crisis, and trauma. VR offers a way to train for challenging or dangerous situations, using the latest technology.
Modernized empathy training
The reality is, as funding for mental health has declined across the nation, people struggling with this issue have ended up in prisons and hospitals, instead of in long-term care facilities focused on psychiatric care.1 And first responders are often the first people that interact with these individuals during a crisis.
This is where training via virtual reality can come in. VR allows first responders to experience a situation through the eyes of someone with autism or someone who is experiencing a mental health crisis. If done right, this could even create empathy, which can be defined as vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another.
The hope is that by learning how certain actions can escalate a situation, while other actions do the opposite, the first responders will be better prepared for certain types of interactions. The military has used VR training for some time, both to teach tactical training and to help active-duty soldiers, as well as veterans, handle traumatic experiences.3
Growing demand for empathy
But empathy isn’t just in demand in law enforcement. Health care is also experiencing an increasing call for providers to display more emotion. Again, VR is stepping up to help. One of the reasons that VR is so appealing to this wide array of industries that interact with the public is the technology’s scalable nature.
While some argue that VR can’t change a person’s perspective, it may well change their brain.4 How exactly does this happen? A 2019 behavioral health review explained that neuroscience has shown how the brain creates its own simulation to help an individual predict actions or emotions, very similar to how VR works by providing a scene and predicting the sensory consequences of how the person moves throughout that space.5
One of the leaders in VR training is Axon. Their training covers both emotional and physical situations, from empathy and coping skills to preparedness and tactics, through immersive, real-world content. The next step is to further personalize the scenarios and provide first responders with real-time feedback to help them learn, all with an end goal of fostering mutually beneficial outcomes for both law enforcement and the communities they serve.
One way Axon is helping first responders is with their recently announced VR simulator training, which will provide immersive virtual reality content to help develop critical thinking, de-escalation and tactical skills. According to Rick Smith, Axon CEO and founder, “Through the use of this breakthrough simulator, we are able to fully immerse officers into common situations, helping prepare them for a number of different variables with an emphasis on de-escalation.”
While VR has been making a bigger and bigger impact in recent years, particularly in gaming, its impact on other areas has yet to be fully realized. As the technology continues to make gains, especially as a training tool, more industries are recognizing its efficacy and its potential to reduce risk–particularly for any training that could be perceived as dangerous–from learning to use complex machinery to helping first responders engage with citizens in stressful scenarios. We have yet to discover the ways VR can fully impact our reality and it’s exciting to visualize what the future holds in this arena.
Sources:
- Raphelson, Samantha; “How The Loss Of U.S. Psychiatric Hospitals Led To A Mental Health Crisis”; NPR; November 30, 2017; npr.org/2017/11/30/567477160/how-the-loss-of-u-s-psychiatric-hospitals-led-to-a-mental-health-crisis
- “Media Missing the Story: Half of All Recent High Profile Police-Related Killings Are People with Disabilities”; Ruderman Foundation; March 8, 2016; rudermanfoundation.org/media-missing-the-story-half-of-all-recent-high-profile-police-related-killings-are-people-with-disabilities/
- Pasternack, Alex; “VR is training cops to empathize with the people they might kill”; Fast Company; June 17, 2019; fastcompany.com/90353647/police-virtual-reality-empathy-training-mental-health
- Hunter, Tatum; “How Companies Use Virtual Reality for Empathy Training”; BuiltIn; March 22, 2021; builtin.com/healthcare-technology/empathy-training-VR
- Riva, Giuseppe et al; “Neuroscience of Virtual Reality: From Virtual Exposure to Embodied Medicine”; Cyberpsychology, behavior and social networking; January 1, 2019; ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6354552/