OU faculty use VR to study empathy

Zexin Ma, an assistant professor in the Department of Communication, Journalism, and Public Relations, is a health communication scholar. Her primary research goal is to understand the use of media and messages to promote public health. 

“My research develops message strategies to effect changes in human health behavior. 例如, 在COVID-19大流行期间, I have been exploring ways to encourage mask-wearing and vaccination,马说。. 

Ma was drawn to virtual reality (VR) during her graduate studies at the University of Maryland. She was interested in how VR could influence the persuasive effects of stories in the health and prosocial contexts. Since joining 韦德体育app官网 in 2018, she has been continuing to explore the 虚拟现实的影响. Using the e-Learning and Instructional Support VR lab, Ma and assistant professor of nursing Lan Yao tested the feasibility of a role-playing video game to promote empathy in nursing students, focusing on immersiveness and perspective. 

“The basic idea of this study is to see if playing a role-playing video game in VR would improve nursing students’ empathy when breaking bad news to patients,马说。. 

Ma and Yao invited 69 nursing students to play "That Dragon, 癌症," a narrative-focused video game that was produced by two parents who lost their young son to cancer. The study focused on chapter seven of the game, “对不起，伙计们, 这并不好,” which was a moment when the parents were told their child’s cancer was terminal. 有四个角色(1).e., dad, mom, doctor, and nurse) in the game, and each student played one role. They were able to hear the conversation from their assigned perspective and also experience the character’s inner thoughts. They also played the game either on VR headsets (high immersiveness) or laptops (low immersiveness). 

“What we found is that playing this game on VR headsets led to higher levels of empathy than on laptops. And this increased empathy was caused by the enhanced spatial presence, which referred to feelings of being immersed in virtual environments.” 

This finding is important because it suggests the promising use of VR to improve empathy in healthcare settings. 

They also found that participants who played the game on laptops reported greater empathy in the healthcare providers’ role than in the patients’ family’s role;  however, those that played on VR headsets experienced no difference in empathy across the two perspectives.

“I’m intrigued by this finding. It seems to suggest that differences in character perspective seem to flatten as the gaming immersiveness increases,马说。. 

Ma and Yao published their findings in Cyberpsychology, 行为, 和社交网络, a premier peer-reviewed journal in social networking and VR. Ma said that the study sample was relatively small and hoped to recruit more people and do more testing once in-person research can continue. 

Ma and her colleagues also teach the application of VR in journalism, 公共关系, 和广告. 

“在我们的入门课上, we provide students with VR headsets and ask them to experience storytelling in VR,马说。. “The feeling of being there is really powerful. Students are constantly amazed by the immersive experience that made them feel as if they were there, 在事件的中间.”

Ma said immersive stories were promising to provide vivid and engaging narrative experiences to promote important social causes. 特别是, immersive technology could help vividly tell the story of foreign issues, 难民的挑战, and poor and devastating living conditions, even from thousands of miles away. She said that VR allowed people to see and experience stories in a very real way. 

To read more about Ma and Yao’s findings, read the 他们发表的研究.