Gamified applications to improve verbal communication

Gamified applications to improve verbal communication Aplicaciones gamificadas para la mejora de la comunicación oral Trabajo de fin de grado del grado en ingeniería informática Facultad de Informática María Esther Ruiz-Capillas Muñoz Director: Borja Manero Madrid, 2021-2022 Contents 0.1 Abstract .................................... 6 0.2 Resumen .................................... 7 0.3 Keywords ................................... 8 0.4 Palabras clave ................................. 8 1 Introduction 9 1.1 Motivation ................................... 9 1.2 Objectives ................................... 9 1.3 ICCE 2022 paper ............................... 10 1.4 Work structure ................................ 11 2 State of art 12 2.1 Public speaking ................................ 12 2.2 Videogame authoring tools .......................... 13 2.3 Tools to improve public speaking ...................... 13 2.3.1 Non-technological tools ....................... 14 2.3.2 Technological tools .......................... 14 2.4 Voice volume, silences and talking speed tools ............... 15 3 Tool design and developement 19 3.1 Tool design .................................. 19 3.2 Technologies .................................. 20 3.3 Implementation ................................ 21 3.3.1 Silences minigame .......................... 21 2 Gamified applications to improve verbal communication UCM 3.3.2 Volume minigame .......................... 22 3.3.3 Practice minigame .......................... 22 3.3.4 Implementation issues ........................ 22 4 Experiment 24 4.1 Experimental design ............................. 24 4.2 Participants .................................. 25 4.3 Instruments and materials .......................... 25 4.4 Adjustments during the experiment ..................... 27 5 Results and discussion 29 5.1 Results ..................................... 29 5.2 Discussion ................................... 31 6 Conclusions and limitations 33 7 Future work 35 A ICCE paper 37 B GPQ 44 C Questionnaire part 1 48 D Questionnaire part 2 53 3 List of Figures 1.1 ICCE Congress. ................................ 11 2.1 Game environment emotions-responsive audience. ............. 15 2.2 Game environment VRetorik. ........................ 16 2.3 Game environment speaker’s behaviour analizer. .............. 16 2.4 Game environment with interested avatars. ................. 16 2.5 Beyond VR game environment. ....................... 17 2.6 Virtual Speech game environment. ..................... 17 2.7 Retorik. .................................... 17 2.8 Unreal Engine. ................................ 18 2.9 Unity Asset Store. .............................. 18 3.1 Tool scheme. ................................. 20 3.2 Silence minigame capture. .......................... 21 3.3 Volume minigame capture. .......................... 23 3.4 Practice minigame capture. ......................... 23 4.1 Experiment’s design scheme. ......................... 25 4.2 Participant in the experiment. ........................ 26 4.3 Gender pie chart ............................... 27 4.4 Gamer pie chart ................................ 27 4.5 Self-security pie chart ............................. 27 4.6 Participant’s data charts ........................... 27 4 Gamified applications to improve verbal communication UCM 7.1 Graphic of Volume improvement. ...................... 36 7.2 Graphic of Volume minigame. ........................ 36 5 Abstract 0.1 Abstract Public speaking is present everywhere in our lives, not only in special situations but also in our everyday lives. It takes part on the process of building a place in society, our careers, family relations, etc. (1). Therefore, it is important to be prepared to face this situations correctly when the time comes. Most people do not know how to speak in public properly, some due to lack of knowledge, and some due to their glossophobia (or fear of speaking in public and presenting to an audience). In any case, practicing for improving their oratory. There are three basic aspects in this discipline which are not always taken into consideration when trying to get better in public speaking: silences, talking speed and voice volume. For teaching how to use these aspects correctly in a speech and the importance of them, we have created Talk&Play. It is a virtual reality videogame, divided into three minigames, for improving the player’s oratory. For validating this application, we have carried out an experiment for evaluating it. Three main conclusions were reached: 1) Talk&Play increases user’s self-security during public speaking, 2) it raises awareness of the importance of a correct use of silences, voice volume and talking speed, 3) the player learns how to use voice volume and silences. 6 Resumen 0.2 Resumen Hablar en público está presente en todos los ámbitos de nuestras vidas, no solo en ocasiones especiales sino también en nuestro día a día. Forma parte del proceso de incluirnos en la sociedad, nuestras carreras, relaciones familiares, etc. (1). Por tanto, es importante estar preparados para cuando llegue el momento de afrontar estas situaciones. Mucha gente no sabe hablar en público como es debido por falta de conocimientos o por su glosofobia (o miedo a hablar en público y presentar ante un público). En cualquiera de los casos, la mejor solución es practicar para mejorar las habilidades de comunicación. En esta disciplina hay tres aspectos básicos que no suelen tenerse en consideración a la hora de mejorar hablando en público: silencios, velocidad al hablar y volumen de voz. Para enseñar cómo se usan correctamente estos aspectos en un discurso, hemos creado Talk&Play. Es un videojuego de realidad virtual, dividido en tres minijuegos, para mejorar las habilidades de comunicación del jugador. Para validar la aplicación, hemos llevado a cabo un experimento que la evalúa. Hemos podido obtener tres conclusiones principales: 1) Talk&Play mejora la confianza del usuario a la hora de hablar en público, 2) conciencia sobre la importancia que tiene usar correctamente los silencios, la velocidad al hablar y el volumen de voz, 3) el jugador aprende a utilizar el volumen de voz y los silencios. 7 Kewywords 0.3 Keywords - Public speaking - Oratory - Rhetoric - Glossophobia - Virtual reality - Videogames - Unity - Education - Word recognizer - Volume recognizer 0.4 Palabras clave - Hablar en público - Oratoria - Retórica - Glosofobia - Realidad virtual - Videojuegos - Unity - Educación - Reconocimiento de palabras - Reconocimiento de volumen 8 Chapter 1 Introduction 1.1 Motivation Now a days, public speaking is an important skill to have for nearly any aspect of our lives. Many people do not know how to do a speech correctly due to different factors (phobia, absence of information, etc.). There are many aspects of the oratory to work on for improving. Some of them are doing silences and controlling the talking speed and knowing which voice volume to use. There are many tools created with the objective of helping with the oratory’s learning process. Nevertheless, we could not find any focused on this aspects we have right mentioned. These three aspects are very important because they can make the difference between letting the public understand the expressed information or not. Attracting public’s attention is one of the main points in public speaking. If the public does not understand what it is being said, is not possible they keep concentrated on the speech. Observing there is a lack of applications for learning and practicing voice volume, talking speed and silences in a speech, we decided to develop one. Virtual Reality can recreate a situation as in real life, which helps the user to be completely immersed and focused on the application. In addition, it has power over reducing public speaking anxiety, which helps with the learning process. Taking this into consideration for our application, we have created Talk&Play, a virtual reality videogame for teaching the correct use of voice volume, talking speed and silences in oratory and raising awareness of their importance. 1.2 Objectives For this project, we decided to have two main goals: • Developing an application for teaching how to speak in public. 9 Gamified applications to improve verbal communication UCM Figure 2.2: The game environment from VRetorik tool during the game. Figure 2.3: The game environment from the tool which analizes and evaluates the speaker’s behaviour. Figure 2.4: The game environment from the tool with reactive avatars in which the avatars are interested. 16 Gamified applications to improve verbal communication UCM Figure 2.5: Beyond VR game environment. Figure 2.6: Virtual Speech game environment. Figure 2.7: Retorik cards. 17 Gamified applications to improve verbal communication UCM Figure 2.8: Virtual Reality in Unreal Engine. Figure 2.9: Unity Asset Store searching for guns. 18 Chapter 3 Tool design and developement 3.1 Tool design The first decision was to develop an application for improving the public speaking skill. We decided to make it virtual reality to create a highly immersive environment, which allows the user to focus only on public speaking, the feedback received and trying to improve. Furthermore, we included the gamification characteristic, due to the motivational, attractiveness and learning related beneficial properties. Once the basis were decided, the proper videogame needed to be design. We wanted to focus the learning process into two aspects of oratory: voice volume and silences. Nevertheless, while learning the correct use of silences during a speech, the user will also learn about the talking speed. Taking this into consideration, we can say the application is finally focused on three important aspects of public speaking: voice volume, silences and talking speed (mainly in the first two). The next designing step is how will the game be. The taken decision was to make three minigames: Silences, Volume and Practice. The division into three minigames allows the user to improve each aspect on its own, with the Silence and Volume minigames; and to practice them all together, with the Practice minigame. This way, the learning experience is as complete as possible. Silences and Volume minigames have three levels each. This permits the user to learn the basis of the aspects first and increment the difficulty when they decide they are ready to advance. Practice minigame only have one level and the difficulty is not decided by the user. Its purpose is to put the user into a more realistic situation and put the concepts learnt in the other two minigames into practice. The game is composed of 4 phases (figure 3.1). During the game, the player will found itself constantly changing between them. At the beginning, the first phase, there is a start menu in which the player decides the minigame they want to play and the level (in case of Silences and Volume minigames). When the player selects the minigame, the application gives information about the importance of that aspect in public speaking. The second phase consists on explaining the 19 Gamified applications to improve verbal communication UCM game and practicing a speech. The application gives information about the number of silences needed and their duration (figure 3.2) and/or the voice volume needed for the chosen level. Also, the player receives a speech with some help (depending on the level) for doing it correctly. They can take all the time they need in this phase to practice it by their own. When they decide they can do the speech correctly, third phase starts. During the third phase the player does the speech and the game monitors them. They receive feedback on the go so the user can rectify its errors before the end. This avoids frustration due to not understanding the game and keeps the user constantly informed. Once the speech is finished, phase 4 starts. It consists on giving the results and feedback about the whole speech. This way, the user learns what do they have to improve and stimulates them to improve its final grade. Figure 3.1: Tool scheme. 3.2 Technologies For developing the virtual reality videogame we needed Unity 2020.3.33f1, which is crossplatform game engine developer. Its primary purpose is to develop videogames and simulations for computers, consoles and mobile devices. As well, for the phrase recognizer, used for the silences detection, we have used the Unity’s keyword recognizer (UnityEngine.Windows.Speech); and for the decibels detection, used in both silence detection and volume detection, we have used the Unity’s microphone. Finally, for adjusting the game and getting it ready for the experiment, we used the OVR element and the UIHelper Unity’s class. This allows the connection with the headset. 20 Gamified applications to improve verbal communication UCM Figure 3.2: Capture of the beginning of Silences minigame in phase 2. 3.3 Implementation The whole applications is developed for being able to play with and without the headset. If the headset is connected, a ray permits the user to select the buttons together with buttons A, B and trigger from right controller. Meanwhile, if the headset is not connected, the needed buttons are the numbers, space bar and left arrow. The volume and silence recognizers are based on a virtual reality application for analyzing and evaluating the speaker’s behaviour (22). 3.3.1 Silences minigame (figure 3.2) For detecting the silences, the microphone volume is collected. When the volume collected is below a certain threshold (for avoiding environment sound) it is counted as time in silences. If the user stays in silence the needed time, the application counts the user has done a silence. During phase 3 of the minigame, the number of silences done are showed up-to-the-minute as feedback. Furthermore, for knowing approximately if the user has done the silence in the correct moment of the speech, keywords recognition is used. When the player says the words right before a correct silence, they are detected and the game checks the number of silences done by that moment. Depending on the number of silences done the player receives certain points. If the player does spare silences or skips any is penalized. With this points, at the end of the game, the user receives its corresponding feedback. In the first level, the correct placement of the silences is indicated and an audio example 21 Gamified applications to improve verbal communication UCM is given. The second level only keeps the audio example as help. In the third level, the user must be able to do it without any help. The number of silences needed and their duration is always given. 3.3.2 Volume minigame (figure 3.3)For detecting the volume, again, the microphone volume is collected. Depending on the level, two thresholds are setted (lowest and loudest correct volume). While the player maintains the voice volume in between both thresholds, time is counted. As up-to-the-minute feedback, the player can graphically see the used voice volume and the setted thresholds. If its needed to raise or lower the voice volume, the game indicates it with text and colors. At the end, the longer they have been in between the thresholds, the more points they get. With this points, the user receives its corresponding feedback. The Volume minigame teaches the importance and correct use of the volume in different sizes scenarios. In the first level, the user must talk for a small scenario, in the second level for a medium scenario and in the third level for a big scenario. The size is indicated with the approximate number of rows the cinema would have. 3.3.3 Practice minigame (figure 3.4)The Practice minigame detects silences and volume at the same time. It works in the same way as the third Silences level and the second Volume level do. 3.3.4 Implementation issues During the implementation, we had to face some problems. The first one was the use of a new environment. I have never used Unity before, so I needed to learn everything about it. Before starting with this project, I developed a very simple First Person Shooter as a first contact. After that, I started developing Talk&Play using tutorials and external help. At the beginning, we looked for any silence recognizer, but we could not find any already developed. For achieving our objective, we decided to use a volume recognizer and turn it around, which means, instead of using the collected sound, we payed attention to the moments were there was no sound. It was complex but we finally accomplish it. The last one changed our plans for the application and the experiment. The first idea was to develop an Android application. However, the only keyword recognizer we thought it could be useful for us was only available for Windows 10, so the application finally ended being only for Windows 10. 22 Gamified applications to improve verbal communication UCM Figure 3.3: Capture of the Volume minigame while playing. Figure 3.4: Capture of the Practice minigame while playing. 23 Chapter 4 Experiment The aim of this experiment was to test our application effectiveness in improving users’ verbal communication. Nevertheless, it is only a preliminary experiment. 4.1 Experimental design The experiment’s objective was making a first test with Talk&Play and collecting information about its behavior. For this, we reached fourteen people willing to participate in the experiment. We organized fourteen small intervals (one per participant) of thirty minutes each. During the interval, the participants passed through three parts (figure 4.1) in which they tried Talk&Play and some information about them and the experience was collected. In part one, the participants answered some questionnaires prior to the use of the application. The questions collected their relation with videogames, demographic information, information about how do they speak in public, their self-security while speaking in public and their opinion about some aspects of public speaking and their importance in a speech. The collected information was for helping with the study of the results. During part two, the participants played the game. The experience started putting on the headset. We explained the participants how does the headset works and, right after it, a 10 minutes timer started. The player founds itself in the game (figure 4.2) deciding its movements without external indications until the timer finished. Then, part 3 started. The participant took off the headset and answered the final questionnaire. This questions collected their opinion about some aspects of public speaking and their importance in a speech after playing, their feeling about their own learning experience, their self-security while speaking in public after playing and their perspective about the application’s utility and its improvement. Once all the participants finished the experiment, the collected information was analyzed and some conclusions were reached. 24 Gamified applications to improve verbal communication UCM Figure 4.1: Experiment’s design scheme. 4.2 Participants Fourteen people between 20 and 30 years old participated in this experiment. 64.3% were men, 21.4% were women, 7.1% were gender fluid and 7.1% did not want to answer. All of them were studying or have finished university studies. The initial self-security while speaking in public of all the participants covered the whole range (from very confident to not confident at all). Furthermore, their videogames relation covers the whole range as well (from any relation to usual player) 4.5. All of them were volunteers reached randomly between the university community. Their role consisted on trying the application and answering some questionnaires about their public speaking experience, their videogames related feelings and their perspective of the aid the application gave them. 4.3 Instruments and materials For carrying out this experiment we needed a software part, a hardware part and some questionnaires. 25 Gamified applications to improve verbal communication UCM Hardcore gamers have less fear to go blank than the rest. Their fear is indirectly proportional to the frequency of videogames use. Hardcore gamers have a fear mean of 28,57%, well-rounded gamers mean is 46,43%, casual gamers mean is 64,29% and nongamers mean is 71,43%. Also, as happened in the gender comparisons, hardcore gamers are the ones which use less fillers. Hardcore gamers fillers frequency mean is 28,57%, well-rounded gamers mean is 60,71%, casual gamers mean is 73,81% and non-gamers mean is 66,67%. Nevertheless, contrary to how we might expect regarding those results, hardcore gamers feel them selves worst speakers than the rest. Hardcore gamers have a self opinion of their communication skills mean of 28,57%, well-rounded gamers have a mean of 42,86%, casual gamers of 57,14% and non-gamers of 57,14%. This results lead us to think, probably, as higher the use of videogames frequency is, the less speaking in public practice and knowledge have. This conclusion is reached because communication skills can only be improved with practice. Also, a lack of knowledge can allow them to be less nervous due to not being as conscious of the consequences as a speaker with more knowledge. Some other interesting results are about their learning factor. Hardcore gamers and casual gamers learnt better the correct use of silences (hardcore gamers’ knowledge of the correct use of silences in a speech mean after playing is 85,71%, well-rounded gamers’ mean is 60,71%, casual gamers’ is 83,33% and non-gamers’ is 61,90%). Nevertheless, their voice volume learning factor if lower in hardcore gamers and very similar in the rest (hardcore gamers’ knowledge of the correct use of voice volume in a speech mean after playing is 42,86%, well-rounded gamers’ mean is 64,29%, casual gamers’ is 66,67% and non-gamers’ is 66,67%). Finally, we can observe a grater increase in hardcore gamers’ and casual gamers’ self-security than well-rounded gamers’ and non-gamers’ self-security after the use of Talk&Play. Hardcore gamers’ self-security grew up 14,29%, well-rounded grew up 3,57%, casual gamers’ 19,05% and non-gamers’ 4,76%. 32 Chapter 6 Conclusions and limitations Public speaking has a lot of presence in our daily lives, not only in not very common situations, but also in day-to-day activities. Most people have difficulties speaking in public because of their lack of knowledge and fears. Practicing and learning how to do it is the best way to overcome this situation. For speaking in public correctly many aspects must be taken into consideration. Some of them are usually not , for example, voice volume, use of silences and talking speed. For focusing on building on these three aspects, we have created Talk&Play. It is a virtual reality videogame in which users can learn and practice the correct use of the voice volume, silences and talking speed and their importance in a speech. In order to validate it, we have carried out an experiment evaluating the application. During it, the participants answered some questionnaires before and after playing with Talk&Play. The questions collected demographic data, relation with videogames, self-security and habits when speaking in public and opinion about the impact of some aspects in oratory. The information gathered was used for investigating if the application had an utility. Analyzing the received answers, we have drawn three main conclusions: 1. Talk&Play increases user’s speaking in public self-confidence. Looking to the results, we have realized a large majority of the participants have increased their self-confidence during the experiment. 2. Talk&Play raises awareness of the importance of voice volume, talking speed and silences in public speaking. As seen in the results, the percentage of participants who thought voice volume, talking speed and silences are important in a speech before playing, increased significantly after playing. 3. Users learn with Talk&Play how to use voice volume and silences, but the application still needs to improve. The participants declared they have some confidence on knowing how to use silences correctly after playing, but not so much confidence on knowing how to use the voice volume correctly. With this three conclusions we can suggest Talk&Play has reached its objectives. Even though it still needs some work (specially on the third conclusion), we have created an application which gives the player the opportunity to improve the three important 33 Gamified applications to improve verbal communication UCM aspects of oratory we are talking about, which are not usually taken into consideration. Therefore, this can help them overcome their fears and do greater speeches in the future (be better understanded, payed attention and listened). Also, another conclusion can be reached even though it is not probed it is statistically significant: The use of fillers, the fear to go blank and the speaking speed are directly related with the self-confidence. As higher the self-confidence of a speaker is, the less fillers they do, the slower they talk and the less fear to go blank they have. Nevertheless, the experiment presented in this paper only counted with fourteen people. It was not possible to do a bigger experiment due to the time. The necessity of being present during the experiments and having only one person for doing them was very time consuming. This makes it a preliminary experiment. As well, Test&Play still needs some improvements for ensuring a correct functioning and for being more understandable for the users. This two facts make it impossible to reach definitive conclusions with the actual application and experiment. 34 Chapter 7 Future work There are many things which could be improve and included in the future. The main goal is to increase the learning factor. For achieving this, the following changes should be made: 1. Visual changes in Volume minigame: currently, the visual signs (figure 7.1) for letting the user know which voice volume are they using and if it is correct are confusing. Probably, a good way to solve it could be drawing a graph (figure 7.2) which represents the volume the player is using and not using text as feedback, only colors. 2. Technical improvements: adding a probe before the game starts to know the ambient sound will give a more accurate detection of silences and player’s voice volume. Also, letting the user try how the voice volume detection works before start playing will help them to have an idea of the voice volume they need to use and how the recognizer works. 3. More explanations: right now, there is a slight explanation about how to use the silences and voice volume in the minigames. Nevertheless, more information about when to do a silence or how to decide the voice volume and the talking speed to use in any situation would help the player with the learning process and to know how to apply the concepts learnt into real life. 4. Randomize Practice minigame: this minigame only has one level, always the same one. If it is randomize, the user will never expect the situation in advance and it will represent the real life a bit closer. 5. More speeches and levels: including more speeches and levels will let the user practice more situations and get more experience. Also, if they can include their own speeches, they can use the application for practicing their real speech. Apart of doing some changes in the actual minigames for improving them, some other features can be added: 35 Gamified applications to improve verbal communication UCM Figure 7.1: Approximate aspect of the graphic for improving Volume’s minigame feedback. Figure 7.2: Approximate aspect of the actual Volume’s minigame feedback. 1. Filler recognizer: adding a filler recognizer can lead to teaching the user to stop using them and substitute them with silences instead. 2. Public: add public in the scene to have a realistic experience. 3. Track punctuation: having a record of the punctuation allows the user to know its progress. 4. Speed detector: even though detecting the time the player takes to do its silences induce them to speak at the correct speed, having a speed detector will allow to make sure during the rest of the speech they don’t speed up. Finally, another experiment for evaluating the changes with a significant number of participants will allow to have definitive conclusions and find other aspects to improve. 36 Appendix A ICCE paper ICCE 2022 30th International Conference on Computers in Education 37 Iyer, S. et al. (Eds.) (2022). Proceedings of the 30th International Conference on Computers in Education. Asia-Pacific Society for Computers in Education Talk&Play: a VR application to improve volume and silences use in verbal communication Maria Esther RUIZ-CAPILLAS*, Alejandro ROMERO-HERNANDEZb & Borja MANEROc *,b,c, Complutense University of Madrid, Spain *[email protected], [email protected], [email protected] Abstract: Public speaking is present everywhere in our lives; therefore, it is important to know how to do it correctly. Most people have difficulties speaking in public due to their glossophobia (fear of speaking in public). Practicing is one of the best ways for treating this fear and improving the oratory skills. There are three basic aspects in this discipline which are not always taken into consideration when trying to get better in public speaking: silences, speed and volume. This paper presents Talk&Play, an application for teaching how to use these aspects correctly in a speech and the importance of them. For validating this application, an experiment for evaluating it is presented as well. Three main conclusions were reached: 1) Talk&Play increases user’s self-security during public speaking, 2) it also raises awareness of the importance of a correct use of silences, volume and speed in the experiment participants, 3) User learns how to use volume and silences, but the application still needs to improve. Keywords: public speaking, virtual reality, educational videogames 1. Introduction Public speaking has a lot of presence in our daily lives, not only when a speech is done in a congress or in an award collecting, but also in class when asking questions to the teacher, meeting new people, doing a job interview, expressing an idea in a meeting, etc. (Pratiwi et al. 2018). Having a good oratory gives the opportunity of influencing people’s behavior and attracting their attention more easily (Angraini 2016). Due to it, it is very important to firmly acquire this skill, but most people (75% of world’s population) have difficulties because of their glossophobia (or fear of speaking in public), one of the most anxiety related phobias (Forsythe 2013) (Tse 2005). To overcome this situation, the best option is to practice and learn how to do it correctly. Also, some studies ensure Virtual Reality helps to reduce public speaking anxiety (Lim, Aryadoust, and Esposito 2022) (Noor Farah Wan Shamsuddin, Nur Adilin Mohd Anuardi, and Syafinaz Mohmad Rozee 2022) (North, North, and Coble 1998). Speaking in public involves many aspects to take into consideration: hand gestures, body position, face gesticulation, eye contact with the public, volume of the voice, talking speed, speech content, etc. (Chance and Luck 1975). In the literature review, we found different methods and tools created for overcoming glossophobia and for oratory improving. Some of the virtual reality videogames are focused on improvisation and creativity (Fuertes Franco, Navarro Vaquero, and Montes Larrabaster 2020), measure sonority, emotions, hands movements and visual contact (Algaba Aranda et al. 2019), lets practice a speech in front of avatars with different moods (Jos, Franco, and Pais 2017), a virtual reality system which keeps tract of the heart rate (Khurpade et al. 2020) or a virtual reality public which is emotions-responsive (El-Yamri et al. 2019). However, when practicing oratory, the focus is usually not on the voice volume used, talking speed or silences made during the speech but in the rest of the other aspects we have mentioned before. These three aspects are very important because they can make the different between letting the public understand the expressed information or not. Attracting public’s attention is one of the main points in public speaking. If the public does not understand what it is being said, is not possible it keeps concentrated on the speech. Nevertheless, we could not find any tool focused on the correct use of voice volume and silences in a speech, despite their importance in oratory. In this paper we present our tool Talk&Play, a virtual reality game designed and developed to improve these two aspects of public speaking with a preliminary evaluation of it. This paper is structured as follows. This section presents the importance of public speaking. Section 2 describes the application we have created. Section 3 expounds the conducted experiment for knowing if the application can teach the user about the correct use of silences and volume. Finally, Section 4 shows the results and future work. 2. Tool design Talk&Play consists in a virtual reality videogame for teaching the correct use of voice volume, speed and silences in a speech. As well, it raises awareness on the importance of these three aspects. We used gamification to take advantage of its motivational, attractiveness and learning related beneficial powers (Díaz and Troyano 2013). On the other hand, virtual reality environments are highly immersive, what allows the user to focus only on public speaking, the feedback received and trying to improve. The Talk&Play experience starts putting on the headset. A start menu for selecting one of the three minigames appears. It is divided into three minigames because this allows the user to improve each aspect on its own and to practice them all together (See Figure 1). This way, the learning experience is as complete as possible. The silences minigame teaches the importance, use and correct durations of them (indirectly including the talking speed). In the first level, the correct placement of the silences is indicated and an audio example is given. The second level only keeps the audio example as help. In the third level, the user must be able to do it without any help (See Figure 2). The number of silences needed and their durations is always given. During the game, the number of silences the user does during the speech are checked. They are counted as correct silences if their duration and placements are the desired ones. This is done with phrase recognition. The game penalizes if the user does spare silences or skips any. At the end, the user receives some points and feedback. The volume minigame teaches the importance and correct use of the volume in different sizes scenarios. In the first level, the user must talk for a small scenario, in the second level for a medium scenario and in the third level for a big scenario. The size is indicated with the approximate number of rows the cinema would have. During the game, the volume the user is speaking at is detected. If it is the desired one, it is considered as correct. At the end, the user receives some feedback. The practice minigame allows to practice silences and volume together. During the game, the game checks silences and volume and evaluates the user in the same way the third silences level and second volume level do. During the game, the player can find itself constantly changing between four different phases. In the first phase, the user decides the minigame and level to play. The second phase consists in learning how to use the volume and silences correctly and being able to practice it in a speech by their own. In the third phase, the player can present the prepared speech being monitored by the game. Feedback is shown on the go so the user can rectify its errors before the end. Finally, in the fourth phase, the system gives the results and the feedback to the users. Figure 1. Talk&Play scene scheme. The feedback received in phase three consists of the detected number of silences and if the used volume is between the asked thresholds, both in real time. The one in third phase, focuses on the whole presentation for stimulating the user to improve its final grade. Receiving two types of feedback keeps the user constantly informed about the course of the game. This helps to avoid frustration due to not understanding the game, (Díaz and Troyano 2013) and to teach the user how to do it better. 3. Experiment The aim of this experiment was to test our application effectiveness in improving users ‘verbal communication. Nevertheless, it is only a preliminary experiment. 3.1 Participants Fourteen people between 20 and 30 years old participated in this experiment. 64.3% were men, 21.4% were women, 7.1% were gender fluid and 7.1% did not want to answer. All of them were studying or have finished university studies. Both, their initial self-security while talking in public and their videogames relation, covers the whole range (from very confident to not confident at all and from any relation to usual player). They were volunteers reached randomly between university community. Their role was to try the application and answer some questionaries about their public speaking and videogames related feelings and its perspective of the aid the application gave them. 3.2 Experimental design The experiment consisted of making a first test with the application and collecting information about the participants and the application’s behavior. For this, we asked fourteen people to participate, and we organized fourteen small intervals of 30 minutes each. Each interval was divided into 3 parts: part 1, part 2, and part 3 (See figure 3). Figure 3. Experimental design scheme. In part 1 of the experiment the participants answered two questionnaires prior to the use of the application. The first one identifies the type of game the participants are. The second one identifies if they consider themselves good or bad speakers and their self-security when speaking in public (See table 1). Once the questionnaires were answered, part 2 started: a test with the application. The participants entered virtual reality and played Talk&Play for 10 minutes without external indications (See figure 2). Finally, and after part 2, part 3 starts passing the final questionnaire. They answered a questionnaire to identify if after using the application they feel safer when speaking in public and if they think this application can help them improve their oratory. Table 1. Questionnaires summary Question Type Variable measured How it is calculated Self-confidence when talking in public before and after Talk&Play 7-point scale Improvement of selfconfidence Summing up values before playing and after playing Aspects of public speaking they consider important before and after Talk&Play Multiple-choice question Raise of awareness of the importance of volume and silences Summing up the number of selected volume, speed or silences Knowledge about the correct use of silences and volume after Talk&Play 7-point scale Teaching properties of Talk&Play Summing up all values Figure 2. The silences minigame in phase 2 of level 2 and a participant in part 2 of the experiment. 3.3 Instruments and materials For this experiment we needed hardware and software. The software part was the created application, a virtual reality videogame, developed in Unity 2020.3.33f1, which teaches about silences, speed and volume during a speech. The hardware part consisted of the Oculus Quest 1 virtual reality headset connected through Oculus link with a MSI laptop (MS-16p7) for executing the videogame. Also, each participant had to answer three questionnaires. The first one was a validated questionnaire whose purpose is to know the type of gamer the participant is. The other two were questionnaires created specifically for this. The first one asked about demographic data of the participants, their vision of themselves related with oratory and their vision of their self-security when speaking in public, last two before playing the game. The second one asked about their perception of the teaching properties of the application and the aspects of the oratory they consider the most important, both before and after playing. 3.4 Results At first, we did a T-student probe for related samples. In it, we compared the obtained results in user's talking in public self-confidence related questions. In this analysis we can observe (See table 2) a Appendix C Questionnaire part 1 Part 1 of the ”Gammified applications to improve verbal communication” questionnaire can be found in this annex. This part is answered before playing with the application. 48 8/27/22, 4:07 PM Gamified applications to improve verbal communication https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1w_X-5mLfXcLbuYSM2PEMA0eJ1f0kF6xuLWH4UjBeNlA/edit 1/6 1. 2. 3. Marca solo un óvalo. Otro: Hombre Mujer Preero no decirlo 4. Marca solo un óvalo. Otro: Estudios obligatorios Bachillerato Grado Posgrado Parte 1 Gamified applications to improve verbal communication *Obligatorio Número de participante * Edad Género Últimos estudios 8/27/22, 4:07 PM Gamified applications to improve verbal communication https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1w_X-5mLfXcLbuYSM2PEMA0eJ1f0kF6xuLWH4UjBeNlA/edit 2/6 5. Marca solo un óvalo. Nada seguro 1234567 Muy seguro 6. Selecciona todos los que correspondan. Tono de voz Volumen de voz Velocidad al hablar Melodía de la voz Pausas durante el discurso Postura corporal Gesticulación Contenido del discurso Mirada Hacerle preguntas al público 7. Marca solo un óvalo. Nada 1234567 Mucho ¿Te sientes seguro cuando hablas en público? Selecciona hasta 4 aspectos que consideras muy importantes a la hora de hacer un discurso ¿Tienes miedo de quedarte en blanco cuando vas a hacer una presentación? 8/27/22, 4:07 PM Gamified applications to improve verbal communication https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1w_X-5mLfXcLbuYSM2PEMA0eJ1f0kF6xuLWH4UjBeNlA/edit 3/6 8. Marca solo un óvalo. Bajo. A veces me piden que suba el volumen Medio. Todo el mundo se entera sin problemas Alto. A veces me piden que baje el volumen Lo adapto dependiendo de la cantidad de gente que me esté escuchando Lo adapto dependiendo de la sala en la que esté hablando 9. Marca solo un óvalo. No, no utilizo 1234567 Sí, muchas 10. Marca solo un óvalo. Muy lento 1234567 Muy rápido 11. Marca solo un óvalo. Está aburrido 1234567 Está interesado ¿Qué volumen de voz sueles utilizar cuando hablas ante un público? ¿Tiendes a utilizar muletillas al realizar un discurso? ¿A qué velocidad sueles hablar cuando haces exposiciones en público? ¿Crees que captas la atención del público cuando hablas? 8/27/22, 4:07 PM Gamified applications to improve verbal communication https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1w_X-5mLfXcLbuYSM2PEMA0eJ1f0kF6xuLWH4UjBeNlA/edit 4/6 12. Marca solo un óvalo. Muy malo 1234567 Muy bueno No continúes el cuestionario hasta que no se te indique que lo hagas Parte 2 13. Marca solo un óvalo. Sí No 14. Marca solo un óvalo. Imposible 1234567 Perfectamente 15. Marca solo un óvalo. Sí No ¿Cómo te consideras como orador? ¿Crees que hacer pausas durante un discurso permite una mayor comprensión y atención por parte del público? Después haber jugado, ¿sabrías hacer las pausas de un discurso? ¿Crees que si haces pausas durante discurso disminuyes el número de muletillas? Appendix D Questionnaire part 2 Part 2 of the ”Gammified applications to improve verbal communication” questionnaire can be found in this annex. This part is answered after playing with the application. 53 8/27/22, 4:07 PM Gamified applications to improve verbal communication https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1w_X-5mLfXcLbuYSM2PEMA0eJ1f0kF6xuLWH4UjBeNlA/edit 4/6 12. Marca solo un óvalo. Muy malo 1234567 Muy bueno No continúes el cuestionario hasta que no se te indique que lo hagas Parte 2 13. Marca solo un óvalo. Sí No 14. Marca solo un óvalo. Imposible 1234567 Perfectamente 15. Marca solo un óvalo. Sí No ¿Cómo te consideras como orador? ¿Crees que hacer pausas durante un discurso permite una mayor comprensión y atención por parte del público? Después haber jugado, ¿sabrías hacer las pausas de un discurso? ¿Crees que si haces pausas durante discurso disminuyes el número de muletillas? 8/27/22, 4:07 PM Gamified applications to improve verbal communication https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1w_X-5mLfXcLbuYSM2PEMA0eJ1f0kF6xuLWH4UjBeNlA/edit 5/6 16. Marca solo un óvalo. Sí No 17. Marca solo un óvalo. Imposible 1234567 Perfectamente 18. Selecciona todos los que correspondan. Tono de voz Volumen de voz Velocidad de hablar Melodía de la voz Pausas durante el discurso Postura corporal Gesticulación Contenido del discurso Mirada Hacerle preguntas al público ¿Crees que el volumen es algo importante a tener en cuenta durante un discurso? Después haber jugado, ¿sabrías elegir a qué volumen deberás hacer un discurso? Selecciona hasta 4 aspectos que consideras muy importantes a la hora de hacer un discurso 8/27/22, 4:07 PM Gamified applications to improve verbal communication https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1w_X-5mLfXcLbuYSM2PEMA0eJ1f0kF6xuLWH4UjBeNlA/edit 6/6 19. Marca solo un óvalo. Nada 1234567 Mucho 20. Marca solo un óvalo. Sí No 21. Este contenido no ha sido creado ni aprobado por Google. Después de haber jugado, ¿cómo de seguro dirías que te sientes hablando en público? ¿Crees que este juego podría ayudarte a mejorar tus habilidades como orador? ¿Qué echas de menos en el juego que podría ayudarte a mejorar como orador? Formularios Bibliography [1] Novaković N, Teodosijević B. Basics of public speaking. BizInfo (Blace) Journal of Economics, Management and Informatics. 2017;8(2):33-46. [2] Pratiwi TI, Suratman B, Riyanto Y, Arisgi P. A Special Service of Guidance and Counseling Management to Reduce the Students’ Glossophobia Level. In: 2nd International Conference on Education Innovation (ICEI 2018). Atlantis Press; 2018. p. 679-81. [3] Angraini Y. Rules of Three Analysis in Persuasive Public Speaking Presentation. ANGLO-SAXON: Journal of the English Language Education Study Program. 2016;7(1):3-13. [4] Forsythe VJ. The effects of graduated exposure, feedback, and goal setting on public speaking anxiety. 2013. [5] Tse AYH. Glossophobia of university students in Malaysia. International Journal of Asian Social Science. 2012;2(11):2061-73. [6] Tsibulya N. Verbal, nonverbal and prosodic aspects of mastering presentation skills. ������� ����������� ���������������� ���������������� ������������ ����������� � �������������� �����. 2017;(5 (782)):135-48. [7] Aman S, Mahamod Z. The Importance of Voice Control in Public Speaking: A Case Study of Tokoh NILAM Primary School. Creative Education. 2022;13(4):1486-99. [8] Chance B, Luck G. Public speaking. 1975. 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