HCC-Medium: Mixed Reality Virtual Humans for Training

这个研究项目将把触觉和设备结合到“虚拟人”中，以研究医学生和这些模拟病人之间的人际互动。先前的虚拟人工作已经确定，学生的参与度降低和缺乏触觉阻碍了虚拟人体验的保真度和适用性。为了增强人-虚拟人的体验，该项目将开发和评估混合现实人类。 该项目中的混合现实人类（MRH）将整合触觉，物理对象和生理监测，以形成模拟的对话伙伴。 MRH将在一系列与卫生专业学生的研究中进行评估。 作为课程的一部分，学生将体验一系列的人类MRH互动。 MRH对人际患者情景的影响将通过行为，生理和自我报告的措施进行评估。开发的MRH将被整合到医学，护理和医师助理学生的课程工作中。 这些学生将有新的机会练习与亲密考试相关的人际关系场景。亲密的检查往往是高度焦虑的互动，包括乳房，骨盆和前列腺的检查。提高学生在亲密考试中的沟通技巧有可能直接影响患者护理质量和患者结局。很难用现有技术提供这些检查的技术经验;因此，通过MRH的开发和研究，有很好的影响潜力。这项技术也将被集成到科学与工业博物馆在坦帕，佛罗里达州的健康展览。展览将有成千上万的游客与虚拟人医生和病人互动，以接收重要的健康信息，同时与虚拟人互动，体验虚拟人的情感能力。

This research project will incorporate haptics and devices into "virtual humans" to investigate interpersonal interactions with medical students and these simulated patients. Prior virtual human work has identified that the lowered engagement level of students and the lack of haptics hampered the fidelity and applicability of virtual human experiences. To enhance human-virtual-human experiences, this project will develop and evaluate mixed reality humans. Mixed reality humans (MRH) in this project will integrate haptics, physical objects, and physiological monitoring to form simulated conversational partners. MRHs will be evaluated in a series of studies with students in the health profession. As part of coursework, students will experience a series of Human-MRH interactions. The impact of MRHs on interpersonal patient scenarios will be evaluated with behavioral, physiological, and self-report measures.The developed MRHs will be integrated into course work of medical, nursing, and physician assistant students. These students will be provided new opportunities to practice interpersonal scenarios associated with intimate exams. Intimate exams tend to be high-anxiety interactions, and include exams of the breast, pelvic, and prostate. Improving student communication skills in intimate exams has the potential to directly impact patient care quality and patient outcomes. It is difficult to provide technology-based experience with these exams with existing technologies; thus there is good potential for impact through development and research of MRHs. This technology will also be integrated into a health exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry in Tampa, FL. The exhibit will have thousands of visitors interacting with virtual human doctors and patients to receive important health information while interacting with and experiencing the affective capabilities of virtual humans.