# Virtual Reality as a Reflection Technique for Public Speaking Training
## 8 Conclusions  
In this paper, the design and evaluation of a VR public speaking training system with VR refection is described. In this system, a virtual avatar is used and some information is chosen to display. Although video recording shows the most factual information and is preferred by individuals confident with their public speaking skills, the experiment result shows that the individuals with low self-confidence in their public speaking skills could change their self-evaluation more positively and objectively in VR reflection with HMD, and individuals with negative self-bias could reduce more anxiety by using an avatar for self-reflection. In addition, it requires few devices, which would not obstruct the presentation much and could easily be added into other VR training systems based on Virtual Reality Exposure Therapies (VRET). Since the reflection is a basic part of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) [46], and both VRET [47,48] and CBT could help with public speaking anxiety and social anxiety. However, some information was lost in the VR recordings, such as facial expression and precise hand movements, and some people believe these should also be important in presentations. Extra cameras and some other motion capture with hand and finger movement system may be helpful to improve the performance of the avatar as well as the system, but the obstruction to the presentation of these devices should be considered carefully. The lost information also makes people think the recording is not completely true, so they may doubt how much they can improve from the VR reflection. As we mentioned, there were some tracking errors in some cases especially from the occlusion on the body; this also enhances the feeling of unnaturalness. Our idea to improve that is to increase the number of Kinects so that the tracking would get better and we would not need to worry about the occlusion. Considering all performances of VR reflection, for individuals who get used to the video recording and do not have problems with low self-confidence or negative self-bias, a video recording with cheaper cameras could still be better. This study is the first step to understanding how VR reflection can be effective for public speaking training based on the individual differences in the training result. Though the result shows the possible target users of VR reflection, our experiment just shows the outside performance of the system for different kinds of individuals. We did not measure the psychological changes of the presenter's during playback; for example, how much they thought the avatar was themselves or how long they take to recognize that the avatars are themselves. There are only two kinds of avatar, according to gender, the effects of changing the avatar and the voice are also unclear, so further evaluations are required. All of the participants in this study are also graduate students, and the number of participants is limited to 24. Our original target users also included people who have great anxiety about public speaking, such as individuals with ASD. The same experiment with a broader range of participants and a larger number of participants is required to generalize the findings from this study. In addition, since the current user study is based only on one trial, it is important to explore the efficacy of continuously using this system. The experimental system is designed to understand the state of the presentation and to identify the problems; however, solving the problem relies on each user's skills. We believe that it is important to combine this system with an automatic and real-time assessment of the presentation quality and feedback provision to improve it in a VR setting in the future. Conceptualization, H.Z., Y.F. and H.K. ; formal analysis, H.Z. and Y.F. ; investigation, H.Z. ; writing--original draft preparation, H.Z. and Y.F. ; writing--review and editing, M.K. and H.K. ; supervision, Y.F. and H.K. ; project administration, Y.F. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.