The previous virtual-reality simulation component of “My Voice, My Choice” utilizes a software program developed by Jouriles and McDonald in conjunction with SMU’s award-winning Guildhall video gaming program. Jouriles and McDonald are clinical psychologists in the SMU Psychology Department. Jouriles is professor and chair. McDonald is a professor and associate dean of research and academic affairs for Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences.
Virtual simulations “seem to be more immersive than face-to-face role plays,” said clinical psychologist Lorelei Simpson Rowe, the study’s lead author. “The participant is not thinking any more about being in a room in a psychology study with other people around,” she is “focused on what she is seeing through the glasses and what she’s hearing.”
Results of their study found teen girls were less likely to report being sexually victimized after learning to assertively resist unwanted sexual overtures and practicing resistance in a realistic virtual environment.
The effects persisted over a three-month period following the training.
The picture below show the previous user flow:
The program starts with the facilitator giving lectures to participants about assertive resistance for 30 minutes.
Then participants will practice what they have learned using role-plays in a VR headset for 60 minutes. A trained actor will control the character in the VR by puppeting its gestures and giving a real-time dialogue based on participants’ reactions.
The facilitator will wrap up the entire session by sharing skills learned at the end.
Problems we find for the previous my voice my choice project
First, actor performance. Actors are hired among graduate school students. They need to be trained for at least 20 hours to be qualified. They are not working for the program permanently. Sometimes actors are reluctant to be fully aggressive to girls because they are personally feeling bad about it. For these reasons, the client want to replace the actor by recorded actings and let facilitators to conduct the program by themselves.
Second, the interface of low usability. It is extremely complicated to use when selecting scenes, and the hot key system for puppeting the avatar is not efficient at all.
Below are pics for the interface and the hot key system.
Third, the 3d model is really traumatic with the uncanny valley effect.
Thus, we are going to solve these problems.
- We’re making a VR assertive resistance training tool
- We’re shooting six scenarios worth of content
- We’re solving challenges and improving on the design of the previous version