Human computer interaction in virtual standardized patient systems

Abstract

Interactive computer generated characters can be applied to the medical field as virtual patients for clinical training. The user interface for the virtual characters takes on the same appearance and behavior as a human. To assess if these virtual patients can be used to train skills such as interviewing and diagnosis they need to respond as a patient would. The primary goal of this study was to investigate if clinicians could elicit proper responses from questions relevant for an interview from a virtual patient. A secondary goal was to evaluate psychological variables such as openness and immersion on the question/response composites and the believability of the character as a patient. © 2009 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.