Virtual reality (VR) has clear potential for improving simulation training in many industries. Yet, methods for testing the fidelity, validity and training efficacy of VR environments are, in general, lagging behind their adoption. There is limited understanding of how readily skills learned in VR will transfer, and what features of training design will facilitate effective transfer. Two potentially important elements are the psychological fidelity of the environment, and the stimulus correspondence with the transfer context. In this study, we examined the effectiveness of VR for training police room searching procedures, and assessed the corresponding development of perceptual-cognitive skill through eye-tracking indices of search efficiency. Participants (n = 54) were assigned to a VR rule-learning and search training task (FTG), a search only training task (SG) or a no-practice control group (CG). Both FTG and SG developed more efficient search behaviours during the training task, as indexed by increases in saccade size and reductions in search rate. The FTG performed marginally better than the CG on a novel VR transfer test, but no better than the SG. More efficient gaze behaviours learned during training were not, however, evident during the transfer test. These findings demonstrate how VR can be used to develop perceptual-cognitive skills, but also highlight the challenges of achieving transfer of training.

虚拟现实（VR）在许多行业中具有改进模拟培训的明显潜力。然而，用于测试VR环境的保真度，有效性和训练效果的方法通常落后于其采用。对于如何轻松地学习虚拟现实中的技能以及培训设计的哪些特征将有助于有效地迁移，人们的理解有限。两个潜在的重要因素是环境的心理保真度以及刺激与转移环境的对应关系。在这项研究中，我们检查了VR在训练警察室搜索程序方面的有效性，并通过搜索效率的眼动指标评估了感知认知技能的相应发展。参加人数 = 54）被分配给VR规则学习和搜索训练任务（FTG），仅搜索训练任务（SG）或无实践对照组（CG）。FTG和SG都在训练任务中开发了更有效的搜索行为，以扫视大小的增加和搜索率的降低为指标。在新颖的VR传输测试中，FTG的表现略好于CG，但并不比SG好。但是，在转移测试过程中，没有发现在训练中学习到的更有效的凝视行为。这些发现证明了如何利用VR来发展感知认知技能，但同时也突出了实现培训转移的挑战。