Construction of virtual psychology laboratory describing exploratory experimental behavior

Abstract

In the present study, we show a simulated experiment environment, VPL(Virtual Psychology Laboratory), for visualizing user's exploratory experimental behavior, and present two main modules of the environment: (1) a cognitive simulator and (2) a system for automatically describing experimenter's behavior based on EBS (Exploratory Behavior Schema) proposed by the author. Users use this environment as an experimental psychologist who investigates human collaborative discovery. They experience many trials of conducting experiments using the simulated environment, and analyze by themselves their experimental processes based on the description of their behavior by EBS. It is expected that learners can notice their errors of experimental planning and refine various types of knowledge related to the experimental skills by repeating the experimental activities in this environment.