Public Speaking Training and Virtual Worlds

According to experts from universities, consultancies and public authorities, Immersive Technologies and Virtual Worlds (VWs) offer huge opportunities to transform society by enhancing education. A qualified workforce is indeed key to a long-term socio-economic development and VWs can help to reach this objective. Public Speaking Skills (PSS) are particularly sought after since required in numerous management contexts (pitching a product to investors, interacting with customers/collaborators…). Despite its societal impact, PSS training using Virtual Reality (VR) has received few attentions in the literature.
Our project aims to fill this gap by considering the development process of efficient PSS training modules: from theory to practice, with a complete field-tested solution. Tailor-made state-of-the-art environments are developed. Although focused on PSS training using VR, it will contribute to broader research by addressing unanswered questions about the use of immersive technologies. The creation of virtual crowds is an essential step in this project since crucial in any VW and even more in the context of PSS. Such environments should display a virtual audience which interacts appropriately with the users by adopting realistic social behaviors.
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In our daily lives, we are often asked to speak in front of an audience, whatever its size and the nature of the interaction. It can however provoke apprehension, affect performance1, and even be critical in our professional lives. Fortunately, PSS can be trained. Recent studies have shown that teachers can learn to manage disruptive behavior, entrepreneurs can improve the persuasiveness of their speech, and the stress during presentations can be reduced1. In each of these examples, the speakers improved thanks to a virtual environment with a virtual audience, in front of which they practiced. VR is indeed an exceptional tool for training. By wearing a VR headset, users are immersed in a 3D computer-generated VW that becomes their new "reality", providing the user with a scalable, safe and customizable simulation. The use of VR for training is then particularly relevant and its value has been proved in a variety of fields. In the context of PSS, the virtual environment can simulate public speaking contexts (Figure 1) and display a virtual audience in front of which the user can practice, building confidence and speech readiness. Practicing in front of a real audience indeed helps to reduce stress and improve speech performance. When hardly feasible in the real world, the audience in VR can be controlled (size, behavior, appearance), resulting in much more efficient results. Customization constitutes a huge advantage of VR over traditional training methods. In this sense, XR and VW-based education are considered by experts in the domain as strategic topics with huge societal impact

Papers:
Perception of avatars nonverbal behaviors in virtual reality
A Systematic Review on the Socio-affective Perception of IVAs' Multi-modal behaviour