Effects of public speaking virtual reality trainings on prosodic and gestural features

Abstract

Previous studies have revealed that virtual reality (VR) is able to suggest to the human brain a real environment, as it was stated in 1989 when the term 'virtual reality' was coined. In the field of public speaking, studies have mainly focused on how VR environments can help reduce public speaking anxiety. However, there is no focus on VR training in educational settings and, more specifically, on how VR training can help improve subsequent public-speaking performances in front of a real audience. The present study aims at analyzing the prosodic and gestural effects that VR settings have on speakers. A total of 31 secondary school students participated either in a VR oral-presentation training facing a VR audience, or in a control condition in which oral presentations were practiced alone in a room. Prosodic and gestural measures of speaking style were analyzed and compared between the two groups, each of which performed three rounds of practicing in three consecutive weeks. Training with VR resulted in longer speaking time and more pausing, an increase in f0 values and more gesturing, all of which suggests a stronger audience orientation. By contrast, the non-VR speakers developed in the opposite direction.