More on Emotion and VR

My colleague in class, Will, brought up a great point about my last post that was on creating emotional impact in VR learning. 

Will wrote:

I have seem emotionally informed trauma response trainings as having a major impact in building empathy but it still seems to lack the ability to get in the head of the actual person experiencing the trauma - which is why I would love to know more about your work could measure emotional brain reading as they participate in this VR experience! 

He brings up a good point . . . How would we moderate and help the learner deal with the emotions? I can say that we will be allowing them the opportunity to retake the exercise and do a better job a second time after the video designed to help them understand the impact of their decisions in the real world. 

This training is modeled on a virtual reality training I took years ago. It was on Fall Protection standards. The idea was that the learner was to select the correct fall protection system then go onto a construction site several stories up in the air and walk across a beam.  When selecting the fall protection harness the learner had to inspect it for rust or debris, ripped fabric or frayed edges on the material and ensure that it had the correct manufacture date and was within the life limits of the system. Once the fall protection harness was selected and put on . . . the learner was taken to a construction site several stories up in the air. At some point the learner endured a fall.  If they had selected the correct fall protection system then the learner would be safe and survive the fall. If the learner did not select the correct fall protection system then it ended with a long fall followed by a darkening red field and the chance to try again. It was an incredibly moving experience and I can say to this day I still pay attention to these criteria when selecting life saving equipment. I'm sure many other people who took that training had the same response and the same memories. This was a far deeper experience and an emotional experience than could be elicited from hands-on instruction or instructor-led training much less computer based training.

I suppose to answer his question I would say that the chance to try again, and reprocess the information and the exercises with the newly formed emotional understanding is how we are helping the learner deal with the emotions of the learning. But, we want that emotional response as I believe it will help them form long term memories of that learning and hopefully of the objectives within the training.