Forging Stronger Bonds Through Technology: How Virtual Reality Can Instill Empathy

Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social NetworkingVol. 23, No. 9 EditorialFree AccessForging Stronger Bonds Through Technology: How Virtual Reality Can Instill EmpathyBrenda K. WiederholdBrenda K. WiederholdBrenda K. Wiederhold, Editor-in-ChiefSearch for more papers by this authorPublished Online:8 Sep 2020https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2020.29193.bkwAboutSectionsPDF/EPUB Permissions & CitationsPermissionsDownload CitationsTrack CitationsAdd to favorites Back To Publication ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmail For many, the word technology brings to mind circuit boards and pixelated screens, or robots that move haltingly and speak in tinny monotone voices. Years ago, these images were fairly accurate; early technology often created a rough and incomplete approximation of real life. However, recent advances have improved to the point that it can effectively do the things we ask of it, sometimes even better than we could imagine at the outset. Researchers began to wonder: What if the machinery of technology could be used like art? What if it could reproduce the human experience with such fidelity that people might learn from it, creating understanding and increasing our empathy for each other's lived experiences?Although the idea of generating empathy by “trying out” others' experiences (i.e., taking a walk in their shoes) existed long before the arrival of advanced technologies, the introduction of media such as virtual reality (VR) has revolutionized the concept. Owing to VR's ability to immerse a user in an experience, providing sensory stimuli from all directions, it is an ideal platform for recreating real-world situations. For example, if a person without a particular condition, such as chronic migraines, has the opportunity to experience the symptoms of a migraine headache in a virtual world, they might come away from the exposure better able to understand those with migraines and to feel more empathy toward those with the condition.The first studies on VR in the field of behavioral health and work using VR to create empathy emerged in the mid-1990s.1 Over the intervening decades, the field has continued to expand, with the use of VR in health care forecast for significant growth.2 Some programs have investigated increasing empathy between two users by having them cooperate to complete a task within the same virtual environment. Yet, increasingly, virtual environments are being created to allow the family, friends, and community of those suffering from a condition to experience the struggles that the patient faces, in turn sensitizing them to the complications of specific disorders. This increased empathy can ease the strain and helplessness of caregiving by helping both parties to understand what the other is dealing with. It can also serve to destigmatize mental health conditions and, during cognitive behavioral therapy, help treat patients with specific disorders.3I first utilized VR as a tool to enhance empathy in the mid-1990s using a VR world built around the experiences and symptoms of those with panic disorder and agoraphobia. It featured both visual and auditory stimuli to simulate the physical symptoms associated with panic attacks (i.e., rapid heart rate, dizziness, and tunnel vision). When friends and family of patients with these conditions were exposed to the VR (and thus the symptoms) firsthand, they began to more fully appreciate and understand the challenges and discomfort that their loved one faced. Seeing the power of VR, I have also had the opportunity to use it to provide family members of those with posttraumatic stress disorder unique insight into their loved one's pain, furthering compassion and decreasing feelings of helplessness.4 For the past two decades, numerous researchers and clinicians have continued to develop and test environments to help destigmatize and build empathy for a wide range of mental health conditions, including autism,2 dementia, eating disorders,5 schizophrenia, and psychosis.6Another area of growth features environments that help caregivers understand the effects of physical challenges, such as the profound anemia often caused by chemotherapy. The environment for this condition provides a first-person point of view, and users struggle to move through the environment by pushing on resistant pedals and hearing a heartbeat grow faster and louder as the avatar fatigues. After using this VR simulation, 60 percent of physicians said that it had changed the way they would view and treat patients suffering from side effects of ongoing chemotherapy.7 Other virtual environments that have shown promise include those for addiction and smoking,8 wheelchair navigation, aging,9 macular degeneration,4 and caregiver burnout.5 Finally, VR has proven its ability to increase empathy between those of different genders,10 races, ethnicities,10 and economic situations, demonstrating that technology has the ability to help break down barriers between groups and forge stronger connections among us all.So, why is VR so effective at generating and enhancing empathy in these situations? The answer is multifaceted. First, social aggression, an extreme form of nonempathy, has been associated with a reduced ability to see things from another's perspective.11 VR allows a user to experience another person's point of view without having to rely on imagination. Instead of asking an individual to visualize or create another person's perspective from a blank slate, the VR provides a framework of input to draw upon to help the user both cognitively and affectively understand the situation. In other words, instead of having to imagine the other person's mindset and experience from a third person perspective, the user is provided the information from a first-person point of view. They can, almost literally, walk in the other person's shoes. Research shows that this experience actually activates the user's brain in the same areas as the person with which they are trying to empathize.12In addition, VR shares certain mechanisms with the human brain. Both use what has been called “embodied simulations.”12 According to neuroscience, to regulate and control the body in the world effectively, our brains create an embodied simulation of our bodies in the world. This simulation is used to represent and predict actions, concepts, and emotions. VR works in a similar way: it tries to predict the sensory consequences of an individual's movements, providing to them the same scene he or she would see in the real world. To achieve this, the VR system, similar to the human brain, maintains a model (simulation) of the body and the space around it. If the presence in the body is the outcome of different embodied simulations, concepts are embodied simulations, and VR is an embodied technology.Finally, VR is fully immersive, providing users with vivid sensory information that enables them to embody another person's perceptual experiences. Research has shown that the heightened sense of realism provided by VR leads to greater self-other merging.13 These same studies show that the effect of VR in these situations transfers to the physical world, leading users to perform greater acts of empathy subsequent to their VR empathy experiences.Today, technology is a main source of human connection. Whether e-mail, social media, or text, humanity has ubiquitously woven technology into our essential modes of communication. It makes sense, then, that we look to technology such as VR to enhance our human bonds, to work in tandem with the human brain to create a new understanding of the human experience.References1. Lee S. Virtual Reality Video Shows What It's Like to Be Autistic. https://www.newsweek.com/virtual-reality-video-shows-what-its-be-autistic-468644 (accessed Aug. 3, 2020). Google Scholar2. Press release: Virtual Reality (VR) in Healthcare Market Analysis 2020–2028 by Latest Trends, Technology, Top Companies, Future Growth With Impact Analysis of COVID-19, Revenue, Demand Forecast. https://www.marketwatch.com/press-release/virtual-reality-vr-in-healthcare-market-analysis-2020-2028-by-latest-trends-technology-top-companies-future-growth-with-impact-analysis-of-covid-19-revenue-demand-forecast-2020-06-02?mod=mw_more_headlines&tesla=y (accessed Aug. 3, 2020). Google Scholar3. 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First-Person Virtual Embodiment Modulates the Cortical Network that Encodes the Bodily Self and Its Surrounding Space during the Experience of Domestic Violence. https://www.eneuro.org/content/7/3/ENEURO.0263-19.2019 (accessed Aug. 3, 2020). Google Scholar12. Riva G, Wiederhold BK, Mantovani F. Neuroscience of virtual reality: from virtual exposure to embodied medicine. Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking 2019; 1:82–96. Link, Google Scholar13. Ahn SJG, Le AMT, Bailenson J. The Effect of Embodied Experiences on Self-Other Merging, Attitude, and Helping Behavior. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15213269.2012.755877 (accessed Aug. 3, 2020). Google ScholarFiguresReferencesRelatedDetailsCited byIntelligent Construction of Landscape Environment Monitoring System Based on Virtual Reality Technology (VRT)Innovation for Positive Sustainable Legacy From Mega Sports Events: Virtual Reality as a Tool for Social Inclusion Legacy for Paris 2024 Paralympic Games21 April 2021 | Frontiers in Sports and Active Living, Vol. 3Embodiment Empowers Empathy in Virtual Reality Brenda K. Wiederhold6 November 2020 | Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, Vol. 23, No. 11 Volume 23Issue 9Sep 2020 InformationCopyright 2020, Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishersTo cite this article:Brenda K. Wiederhold.Forging Stronger Bonds Through Technology: How Virtual Reality Can Instill Empathy.Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking.Sep 2020.577-578.http://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2020.29193.bkwPublished in Volume: 23 Issue 9: September 8, 2020Online Ahead of Print:August 24, 2020PDF download