Se perfectionner grâce à la réalité virtuelle: Deux étapes empiriques et leur implication pour la pratique

Immersive Virtual Environment Technology (IVET) immerses participants in illusory physical and social environments. Participants can look and walk around and converse with a virtual human, is a three-dimensional digital human representation, who looks and acts like a real person although he / she is entirely controlled by the experimenter by means of a computer program. IVET is an economically efficient method to (a) conduct research on interpersonal interactions and to (b) offer the possibility to train physicians in their communication skills and to improve the candidate's self-presentation in a job interview. We found, for instance, that physician communication style (dominant and caring) elicits different emotional and behavioral responses from the patients. Moreover, research on recruiter-candidate interaction shows that there is a correspondence between the candidates' perception of their competences and their competences evaluated by a recruiter. Despite this correspondence, candidates overestimate their performance in the job interview. The Institute of Work and Organizational Psychology possesses, since 2006, its own virtual reality lab. IVET can be used in a work and organizational psychology context for concrete educational applications.