Abstract:

Background:
The ability to efficiently communicate during critical conversations is an essential skill in the workplace. Healthy communication is required for the business environment to function at an optimal level. Being able to manage the emotions of others in a working group is crucial, as failing to do so has negative consequences for the organization.

Problem:
During conversations, issues usually arise when a message is incongruent in its elements (verbal, non-verbal and para-verbal). The internal emotional state of the counterpart has a significant impact on the congruency. Unfortunately, in real life, getting information about the actual internal state of the counterpart can be very hard—especially in the workplace. In fact, because of Response Modulation, emotional response can be faked or hidden.

Purpose:
We believe that those issues could be avoided, and the communication optimized, by learning how to recognize the inner reactions of others and shaping behavior based on it. It means being constantly aware during conversation of the emotions and inner physiological states of the other person, whatever the visible reactions. Regardless of the topic discussed, being aware of hidden emotional states and relating it to visible reactions would help trainees get the character more comfortable, their Autonomic Nervous System balanced and heart rate to its baseline.

The method:
Add to existing interactive digital role play solutions specific information showing emotional response and unperceivable physiological indices (Autonomic nervous system activation and heart rate) related to counterpart’s visible behaviors. The information will be available on the screen in real-time throughout the simulation, shown by a “Physio-widget.” In this way, trainees can be constantly aware of the unperceivable reactions of the character by monitoring the Physio-widget on the screen, thus learning its impact on the conversation. The main purpose is to handle the critical conversation by using the more suitable communication style for the character they’re interacting with and for the contest.

Implementation:
We have already implemented this Physio-widget into SkillGym, an AI-based interactive digital role play solution developed according to the latest neuroscientific findings. SkillGym’s character personality traits have been defined by the Big Five Factor Model, so each character has a corresponding emotion regulation strategy. Heart rate changes and autonomic nervous system activations are based on different emotions and set according to data sourced from experimental settings in literature.

Conclusion:
SkillGym provides active and experiential Learning, thus enabling us to practice something that would not be possible in real life because inner physiological reactions are unperceivable. We assume that by practicing, users will learn to shape their behaviors on counterparts’ emotions. The repeated pairing of behavioral clues with emotional stimuli, by visual processing, would affect different levels of processing: explicit processes of emotional processing by information stored in long-term memory, implicit processing by emotional priming and the “deja-vu effect.” The training would enable significant improvements in emotional awareness of the trainees, therefore changing behavioral patterns and enhancing communication skills

Keywords:

Communication, skills, emotions, emotional state, autonomic nervous system, simulation, digital role play, skillgym, big five factor model.