Close-Quarters Battle Scenarios in Virtual Reality for Testing and Training Performance in a Naturalistic Environment
conference paper
Purpose: Standardized, objective measures of close-quarters battle (CQB) performance are currently lacking due to task and performance complexity. Furthermore, CQB training in training villages is costly, and lacks novelty as the same village is often used repetitively. The purpose of this study is therefore to investigate whether CQB performance can be tested and trained using Virtual Reality (VR). If validated, this method can be used to investigate the effectiveness of human performance enhancement interventions in an ecologically valid environment.
Methods: A total of 38 participants, including 16 SOF operators, 10 SOF-support infantry soldiers, and 12 regular infantry soldiers, performed a CQB VR test. Test scenarios consisted of single rooms and one larger building that the participants had to clear individually. The VR system enabled the participants to move around using a full-body motion tracking suit. It featured immersive role-playing with an actor playing a friendly or hostile character. All participants rated whether the VR scenarios required CQB decision-making ability and CQB procedures on a 1-7 point scale. Performance of the regular infantry was also graded by CQB experts, and observable performance-related actions were scored on a checklist. All participants indicated their perceived stress on a 0-100 point scale and mental effort on a 0-150 point scale after each scenario. These scores were compared with scores obtained during real-life CQB training scenarios in the SOF group. Results: On average, participants gave scenarios a rating of 5 out of 7, both on requiring CQB decision-making ability and on requiring CQB procedures, with no significant difference between groups. The checklist scores significantly predicted CQB experts’ grades in the different scenarios, F(1,140) = 7.10, p = 0.009. Perceived stress and mental effort did not differ significantly between groups, nor between VR and real-life. Conclusions: Participants reported that the VR scenarios where suitable to apply CQB decisionmaking and procedures, regardless of their function. Additionally, SOF participants perceived the VR scenarios to be similarly stressful and required similar mental effort as real-life scenarios. These findings suggest that VR is appropriate for training and testing cognitively demanding tasks by offering ecologically valid testing environments. Furthermore, our results indicate that the VR platform holds promise for standardizing and operationalizing the assessment of CQB decisionmaking ability. Military Impact: Standardized testing of military personnel in unpredictable naturalistic environments is useful for tracking training progress, for selection, and for research. VR provides a relatively low-cost platform with the potential to create such environments, while also allowing for reviewing actions to receive feedback, and for automatically obtaining performance measures. In addition, this VR CQB testing platform appears useful to measure the effects of human performance enhancement interventions.
Methods: A total of 38 participants, including 16 SOF operators, 10 SOF-support infantry soldiers, and 12 regular infantry soldiers, performed a CQB VR test. Test scenarios consisted of single rooms and one larger building that the participants had to clear individually. The VR system enabled the participants to move around using a full-body motion tracking suit. It featured immersive role-playing with an actor playing a friendly or hostile character. All participants rated whether the VR scenarios required CQB decision-making ability and CQB procedures on a 1-7 point scale. Performance of the regular infantry was also graded by CQB experts, and observable performance-related actions were scored on a checklist. All participants indicated their perceived stress on a 0-100 point scale and mental effort on a 0-150 point scale after each scenario. These scores were compared with scores obtained during real-life CQB training scenarios in the SOF group. Results: On average, participants gave scenarios a rating of 5 out of 7, both on requiring CQB decision-making ability and on requiring CQB procedures, with no significant difference between groups. The checklist scores significantly predicted CQB experts’ grades in the different scenarios, F(1,140) = 7.10, p = 0.009. Perceived stress and mental effort did not differ significantly between groups, nor between VR and real-life. Conclusions: Participants reported that the VR scenarios where suitable to apply CQB decisionmaking and procedures, regardless of their function. Additionally, SOF participants perceived the VR scenarios to be similarly stressful and required similar mental effort as real-life scenarios. These findings suggest that VR is appropriate for training and testing cognitively demanding tasks by offering ecologically valid testing environments. Furthermore, our results indicate that the VR platform holds promise for standardizing and operationalizing the assessment of CQB decisionmaking ability. Military Impact: Standardized testing of military personnel in unpredictable naturalistic environments is useful for tracking training progress, for selection, and for research. VR provides a relatively low-cost platform with the potential to create such environments, while also allowing for reviewing actions to receive feedback, and for automatically obtaining performance measures. In addition, this VR CQB testing platform appears useful to measure the effects of human performance enhancement interventions.
TNO Identifier
987131
Source title
Sixth International Congress on Soldiers’ Physical Performance (ICSPP), 12-14 September 2023, London, UK
Files
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