Part 7 Myth: Immersion creates empathy
I'll be the first to point out that my blog posts are not published regularly. As I've mentioned before, this series is an updated version of an older series. But these first four myths are mostly ground I've covered before. Additionally, since the myths are just basic lies, it's really hard to muster the motivation to write about them AGAIN.
Every time I have a difficult project, I weigh up working on it versus cleaning the toilet: which would I rather do? Yo, the toilet is pretty clean. So...these blog posts have not been winning that decision.
I'm truly in the dark part of the woods on this entire topic.
But what makes me continue? I've said it before and I'll say it again:
The lies keep being repeated.
In the past week [EDIT: I wrote this on February 27, 2025], I've heard:
In a sales pitch to a school to use VR, that there are (proven?) tangible learning outcomes.
When learners were using VR headsets, engagement happened.
I'm reminded of a baseball quote that I used to motivate my team when they were having really long hard days at work:
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You've got to suit up for them all.
I take from this, that choosing to enter the arena is more important than the outcome of the arena. I may loose the war against false, malicious, money-making claims about XR in education, but the important point is that I chose to speak out.
So here I go, suiting up for our final myth of this series: Immersive experiences are empathy-generating experiences. Here we go.
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| Igloo's immersive cylinder for shared experiences |
Dispelling Myths, Navigating Ethical Labyrinths, and Applying Design Principles in the Metaverse
Part 7 Myth: Immersion creates empathy
The final dominant myth is that immersive experiences are empathy generating, to the point of XR being referred to as an empathy machine (TED, 2015). Empathy is the ability to experience something through another’s point of view, the concept of being to take someone else’s perspective (Sora-Domenjo, 2022) or to be able to be ‘in someone else’s shoes’ (Bloom, 2016, chapter 1).
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What happens when AI makes your art |
Further, empathy is nuanced. Most of the educational research refers to at least two kinds of empathy: emotional and cognitive (Chakrabarti and Baron-Cohen, 2006). The immersive-experiences-as-an-empathy-machine myth remains present in the academic research (Harley, 2022; Sora-Domenjo, 2022).
This myth is related to the active learning myth covered in a prior section. However, with increased access to immersive VR headsets, the immersive experience is designed to dominate the learner’s vision and hearing senses. A learner also becomes the protagonist because the headset might portray a first person point of view. A learner can be assigned an identity or role to play within the experience. Learner agency gives some control to the learner. Ponsanesi used the term “humanitarian VR” ( 2024, p. 27) to describe immersive experiences where learners are assigned to play the role of a person that went through a specific experience. The learner is then expected to take lessons learned from within the experience and apply them in future decisions.
Side point: Nonny de la Pena is one of the most famous names for VR documentaries. This is the transcript of her interview on Kent Bye's Voices of VR podcast.
As with the other myths, there is a kernel of truth from which the myth began. Early immersive experiences users often remark that learners could be transported anywhere anytime. Learners experience the virtual as real (Bailenson, 2018). Also, increasing empathy for some situations is an admirable goal.
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Source: https://mooreinstitute.ie/projects/immersive-empathy/ |
In cases involving empathy generation within education, however, the purpose is to change the learner in some way. If the learner comes to know an experience as someone else does, the learner’s future actions should incorporate and reflect that knowledge. Subsequently, immersive experiences are not just the ultimate field trip; immersive experiences are designed to change behavior.
The research record notes a dichotomy. Immersive experiences have the potential to generate empathy in some specific conditions (Bailenson, 2018). Other research shows that immersive experiences could also be neutral; they are not more effective at generating empathy than other media (Sora-Domenjo, 2022).
Moreover, promoting immersive experiences specifically for empathy generation has been problematic. A concern for designers is the possibility that an experience designed to provoke empathy could have the opposite reaction; the learner could feel trauma, leading to future discriminatory actions (Silverman, 2015). Part of this problem is that empathy functions with some bias. We feel a closer empathetic connection to those that we identify with. Said another way, empathy-generation works strongest when we have a connection to the victim.
Learners might be thrust into sudden circumstances that they do not identify with. For example, learners could be exposed to a simulation of low vision. Instead of empathizing with those with low vision abilities, learners find their circumstances temporary and escapable by simply leaving the immersive experience (taking off the headset). The gap between what the learner identifies with (their own vision ability) and the experience-induced low vision creates emotional and cognitive distance, making it harder for the learner to feel empathy.
Additionally, simulations like this do not reflect the full lives of people with differing abilities. J. L. Clark, when writing about accessible pedagogy in immersive learning, advised avoiding first-person depictions of marginalized groups because immersive experiences cannot portray the depth and spectrum of a person’s life:
Instead of teaching students what it’s like to be blind, consider having them deconstruct the ways vision is assumed in how spaces are designed, as well as the ways their understandings of vision impact how they interact with others. (2021, Recommended Administrative Considerations section, para. 4)
This is advice that designers for XR for education would be wise to heed. Take less time to simulate what someone ELSE is experiencing and take more time to note what YOU are experiencing...and how your experience may be incomplete. Take a stance of viewing the world from your point of view, but enhanced with your learning and newfound wisdom.
For example: An instructional designer sees red and green normally. But an instructional designer realizes that a portion of their learning population do not. So the instructional designer makes sure that no critical information is relayed by color alone. This applies to 2D depictions of text just as it does to street lights.
This harmonizes with the position that kindness outperforms emotional resonance when it comes to empathy (Bloom, 2016). Hickmore (2024) reasoned that immersive experiences do not necessarily trigger empathy, “People think that immersing yourself into the body of a character will bring you more empathy with that character. This is confusing visual perception with emotional understanding. One is not an analogue of the other” (para. 3). Thus, events designed to generate empathy can miss the goal. Immersive experiences designed to foster empathy should be approached with extreme caution.
Further, valid questions have risen about who is making the immersive experiences. User-driven participatory designs are only beginning to appear in academic research (Murchinson, 2015, Schmidt & Glaser, 2021). Harley (2022) noted that if privileged persons create an immersive experience, they could perpetuate a power imbalance. A lack of diversity is also present in research populations, where academic professors often solicit for participants from within learners on campus, a group that skews to early adults. Indeed, this lack of diversity with educational research populations has been noted by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (2018). Further, Peck, McMullen, and Quarles (2021) pointed out that the learners in immersive research studies have been primarily from the western hemisphere, educated environments, from industrialized countries, comparatively rich, and from democratic countries. These non-representative research populations make it difficult to draw solid conclusions for all humans in all learning situations. What works for one group of learners might not work, nor even be comparable, for another group.
Personally, I do not advice the creation of XR experiences for empathy generation. Should it happen in a positive way, great! But I don't condone any project that sets out to mess with empathy in the first place. I think education should steer clear. And I'm not the only one, Donald Clark writes about the mistaken efforts to incorporate empathy into learning and the workplace.
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| This does not look like empathy to me |
References
Bailenson, J. (2018). Experience on demand: What virtual reality is, how it works, and what it can do. W. W. Norton & Company.
Bloom, P. (2016). Against empathy. The case for rational compassion. Harper Collins.
Chakrabarti, B., & Baron-Cohen, S. (2006). Empathizing: neurocognitive developmental mechanisms and individual differences. Progress in brain research, 156, 403-417.
Clark, J. L. (2021, October 8). Recommendations for accessible pedagogy with immersive technology. #DLFteach Publications. https://dlfteach.pubpub.org/pub/vol2-clark-recommendations-for-accessible-pedagogy-with-immersive-technology
Harley, D. (2022). “This would be sweet in VR”: On the discursive newness of virtual reality. New Media & Society, 146144482210846. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448221084655
Hickmore, T. (2024, July). 360 degree immersion [Post]. LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7219716218813902848?updateEntityUrn=urn%3Ali%3Afs_feedUpdate%3A%28V2%2Curn%3Ali%3Aactivity%3A7219716218813902848%29
Murchison, K. A. OpenAPS, Nightscout, and User-Driven Design for Type 1 Diabetes Technology:# OpenAPS, Nightscout, and User-Driven Design for Type 1 Diabetes Technology OpenAPS, Nightscout, and User-Driven Design for Type 1 Diabetes Technology# OpenAPS, Nightscout, and User-Driven Design for Type 1 Diabetes Technology. https://cuny.manifoldapp.org/read/openaps-nightscout-and-user-driven-design-for-type-1-diabetes-technology-a8130c9c-72f6-42d7-a7cf-2c788fd75ab4/section/3fcc8579-ab4b-4155-bf7f-64c20ffd61a0
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. (2018). How people learn II: Learners, contexts, and cultures. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/24783
Peck, T. C., McMullen, K. A., & Quarles, J. (2021). Divrsify: Break the cycle and develop vr for everyone. IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, 41(6), 133-142.
Ponzanesi, S. (2024). Post-humanitarianism and the crisis of empathy. In Postcolonial theory and crisis. De Medeiros, P. & Panzanesi, S., (Eds.). Walter deGruyter GmbH.
Schmidt, M., & Glaser, N. (2021). Investigating the usability and learner experience of a virtual reality adaptive skills intervention for adults with autism spectrum disorder. Educational Technology Research and Development, 69(3), 1665-1699.
Silverman, A. M. (2015). The perils of playing blind: Problems with blindness simulation and a better way to teach about blindness. Braille Monit. 60, 341. https://nfb.org/sites/default/files/images/nfb/publications/bm/bm17/bm1706/bm170603.htm
Sora-Domenjó, C. (2022). Disrupting the “empathy machine”: The power and perils of virtual reality in addressing social issues. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 814565.
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Did you miss the other parts of this series? Here they are!
Part 1: From Myths To Principles: Navigating Instructional Design in Immersive Environments
Part 2: The Immersive Environment Delusion
Part 3: The Case Against Virtual Campuses
Part 4: Myth: Learners Learn Faster
Part 5: Myth: Learners Learn More
Part 6: Myth: Immersive Learning is Active Learning