Learning in Affectively Intense Virtual Environments - LITE

1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. OVERVIEW
With the support of the U.S. Army’s Tank-automotive and Armaments Command
(TACOM, grant # DAAE07-02-C-L068), a virtual reality system is being developed by
the University of Missouri-Rolla (UMR) to help train first responders in dealing with
terrorist attacks involving the use of weapons of mass destruction. The participating
factions at UMR are Virtual and Rapid Prototyping Laboratory (VRPL), which provides
hardware and infrastructure support, the Virtual Environment and Object Modeling
(VENOM) lab, which provide software and system integration facilities and the
Laboratory for Information Technology Evaluation (LITE), whose role is to evaluate the
impact of the system on learners. An important evolving component of this project is a
focused and systematic examination of the basic factors that account for learning within
affectively intense learning environments.
The purpose of this research is to examine basic psychological and physiological
processes associated with virtual reality based training for learning in affectively intense
environments. Affectively intense learning refers to learning in which the task to be
learned is to be performed in a highly stressful, emotionally intense environment (such as
first responders to weapons of mass destruction) (Hall et al., 2004). There is very little
research on the factors that contribute to effective learning in these types of
environments. The main goal of this research was to examine the optimal degree of
affective intensity within the virtual environment that lead to the most effective learning
in a “real world” affectively intense performance environment. The research used a first
responder scenario for training and testing. An experimental environment was developed,
based on a virtual model of the University of Missouri – Rolla’s Computer science
building, adding special affectively intense effects that would be associated with a
terrorist attack to facilitate this research. Both the scenario and experimental environment
are described in more detail below.