Virtual Reality Empathy Training Goes Under the Microscope in New Software Review

Virtual reality has long been promoted as the ultimate empathy machine, a technology that lets users literally step into someone else’s shoes. But how many of the empathy-boosting VR products on the market actually deliver on that promise? A new open-access review published in the Journal of New Approaches in Educational Research by Iuliia Khukalenko of the University of Sydney and Daria Khanolainen of the University of Jyväskylä offers one of the most systematic answers yet. The pair combed through major VR storefronts, scholarly databases and the open web to map the landscape of empathy-focused VR software, and then put five commercial training applications through a rigorous pedagogical assessment. Their conclusion is sobering: the market is crowded, the science is thin, and buyers are often making decisions in the dark.

The review rests on a deceptively simple premise. Empathy, defined in the literature as the ability to understand and share another person’s emotional state, is widely assumed to be trainable, much like a muscle. If that assumption holds, and if stronger empathy leads to more prosocial behaviour, then tools that reliably enhance empathy could transform education, health care and workplace training. VR seems uniquely suited to the task because it combines immersion, embodiment and a sense of presence, allowing users to inhabit a perspective rather than merely imagine it. That removes the extra cognitive load of traditional perspective-taking exercises and sidesteps classic methodological headaches such as the trade-off between experimental control and real-world realism.

The theoretical case for VR empathy training draws on theory of mind, mirror neuron research and embodied cognition. Theory of mind describes our capacity to attribute thoughts, emotions and intentions to others, while mirror neurons fire both when we perform an action and when we watch someone else perform it. Embodied cognition holds that thinking is rooted in bodily experience rather than abstract computation alone. Together, these frameworks suggest that simulating another person’s situation in an immersive environment could genuinely reshape how users understand others. Some empirical results are striking: in one well-known study, participants who spent just a few minutes embodied in a virtual environment later spent twice as much time helping others as those who received conventional training. In another, people who experienced homelessness in VR did not report higher empathy on questionnaires than controls, yet they signed supportive petitions at significantly higher rates, hinting that behaviour change may outpace self-report.

But the evidence is far from uniform. A meta-analysis of 43 studies concluded that VR reliably arouses compassionate feelings, boosting emotional or affective empathy, yet does little to encourage users to adopt other people’s cognitive perspectives. Another meta-analysis using a narrower definition of VR found the opposite pattern, with gains in cognitive empathy but no significant effect on emotional empathy. The contradiction, the review’s authors argue, likely stems from the sheer variety of products lumped under the VR umbrella, from passive 360-degree films to fully interactive embodied simulations. Without a shared taxonomy, researchers comparing apples to oranges have produced a muddled literature, and the choice of tool directly shapes the quality of the evidence future studies can generate.

To bring order to the chaos, Khukalenko and Khanolainen ran a three-step search. They queried the largest VR distribution platforms, including Steam, the Epic Games Store, the MetaQuest online store, VIVEPORT, PlayStation VR, PICO VR and the Pimax store, using only empathy-related keywords. They then searched PubMed, EBSCOhost and ERIC for studies employing VR products, screening 270 records down to 127 full-text articles. Finally, a Google search combining VR, empathy and training terms generated more than seven million results, of which the first 300 were screened. The outcome was a five-part classification of empathy-related VR content: non-interactive video content such as the United Nations’ Waves of Grace series; semi-interactive VR experiences like Becoming Homeless and Notes on Blindness; structured training software; multisensory simulations used in dementia and disability education, which add props such as stiff gloves or full-body suits; and authoring platforms like Engage and Vizard that let institutions build their own content.

The heart of the review is its deep dive into the third category. Of 18 training applications identified, only five were available for hands-on testing, and the authors evaluated each with headsets in hand: Bodyswaps, People Tech Revolution, SkillsVR, Vrailexia and Kiin. Bodyswaps, a soft-skills platform with AI-generated feedback, includes a health care module in which users practise person-centred communication with a virtual dementia patient named Geoffrey, then receive automated analysis of their eye contact, body language and use of patronising language. People Tech Revolution places users in the embodied role of Lucy, a jobseeker with social anxiety confronting a hostile employment coach, using heartbeat audio and a mirror tutorial to reinforce identification. SkillsVR stages a late-night train conflict and then walks learners through multiple perspectives in a reflection room. Vrailexia, aimed at dyslexia awareness, traps users in an alchemy game with mismatched labels so they experience the pressure dyslexic students face. Kiin, co-founded by VR researchers Mel Slater and Mavi Sanchez-Vives, lets users swap bodies during a simulated meeting to spot and counter microaggressions.

What distinguishes these five products from the flood of videos and experiences is genuine instructional design: explicit learning objectives, structured activities and built-in assessment or feedback. That matters for two reasons, the authors argue. First, ready-made pedagogy spares educators from improvising their own learning scaffolds around a passive experience. Second, a consistent built-in design makes an application a valid, replicable research instrument. When researchers bolt their own objectives onto a product lacking them, every participant receives a slightly different intervention, and variability compounds across research teams, corroding the replicability of the field. The reviewed apps broadly align with established frameworks that combine experiential methods such as role-play with didactic teaching and skills practice.

Yet the review also sounds a note of caution that cuts against Silicon Valley’s techno-solutionist marketing. Companies promise cutting-edge, effective solutions, but rigorous proof remains scarce, and some design choices are questionable. In Vrailexia’s potions game, for example, the failure of a first attempt leads to the death of a virtual friend the user cannot save, a scenario that could plausibly trigger empathy distress rather than empathic concern, prompting self-centred withdrawal instead of altruistic motivation. Compounding the problem, free demo versions are rare, effectively forcing schools and clinics to make blind purchases, and intervention studies rarely disclose even the name of the software they tested, let alone open access to it, blocking replication efforts entirely.

The authors sketch a research agenda to close these gaps. They call for experiments comparing interventions with equivalent instructional designs but different levels of immersion and engagement, to determine whether a headset is actually necessary or whether a desktop screen achieves the same result. They urge head-to-head comparisons of VR training with traditional perspective-taking exercises and role-play. Most strikingly, they note that not a single longitudinal study of VR empathy training has been conducted to date, leaving open whether short-term gains persist, whether sustained use amplifies benefits, or whether technology fatigue could eventually reverse them. Accessibility, technological literacy, hardware disparities, data privacy and the psychological risks of intense immersive experiences all demand attention before the technology scales.

For now, the review functions as a roadmap for a market that has outgrown its evidence base. Teachers selecting tools for bullying prevention, health care providers seeking training for dementia care, researchers hunting for replicable instruments and investors sizing up the empathy-training segment all gain a systematic overview of what exists, what it claims and what has actually been tested. The five-category taxonomy, anchored in interactivity and instructional design, gives the field a common vocabulary it has lacked. As socio-emotional skills gain recognition across education and industry, the message from this analysis is clear: virtual reality’s empathy promise is real but unproven, and the next chapter of the story will be written not by better headsets alone, but by studies that finally hold the software to scientific account.

Subject of Research: Virtual reality software for empathy training and its instructional design

Article Title: The use of virtual reality training to enhance empathy: software review

Article References: Khukalenko, I., & Khanolainen, D. (2025). The use of virtual reality training to enhance empathy: software review. Journal of New Approaches in Educational Research, 14(1), Article 14. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44322-025-00034-z

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s44322-025-00034-z

Keywords: virtual reality, empathy training, instructional design, immersive learning, embodiment, perspective-taking, prosocial behaviour, educational technology, healthcare training, software review, embodied cognition, dyslexia awareness