Validation of a virtual framework for public speaking training

Speaking out in public or during meetings is a challenge for many of us. It is nonetheless a competency required in
many activities: the sales representative who presents a product to customers, the tourist guide visiting a city with a group,
the manager who defends his project in front of stakeholders, the candidate during a job interview, the professor in front of
students… Unfortunately, many firms complain about the too low level of this skill within their staff. To fight public
speaking anxiety, which may impede oral presentation performances, we need to prepare and train the speakers. It can be
done efficiently by immersing the speaker in totally controlled Virtual Reality (VR) environments. This paper first aims to
validate the emotional valence and level of arousal of the attitudes of a virtual public through an experiment with 125
participants. Based on these results, a library of public attitudes corresponding to different levels of arousal and valence has
been created. Our experiment also investigates the benefits of using low-end and high-end VR headsets, as well as the use of
photo-realistic public compared to sketched avatars. In future work, we will use our library during the training of the
speakers to confront them in various situations in response to their speech.