It is widely recognized that police performance may be hindered by psychophysiological state changes during acute stress. To address the need for awareness and control of these physiological changes, police academies in many countries have implemented Heart-Rate Variability (HRV) biofeedback training. Despite these trainings now being widely delivered in classroom setups, they typically lack the arousing action context needed for successful transfer to the operational field, where officers must apply learned skills, particularly when stress levels rise. The DUST project aims to address this gap by training physiological control skills in an arousing decision-making context. We developed a Virtual-Reality (VR) closed-loop heart-rate variability biofeedback training in which police officers learn to effectively perform physiological self-regulation an engaging game-like action context.
This project is a collaboration between the EPAN lab and the GemHlab (https://gemhlab.com/) from Radboud University and the Dutch Police.
Note. The top panel displays the R-R intervals and two example calculations for LP-HRV. These calculations are updated at each newly discovered peak or through. Average peak-through distance in a 15-second sliding window was calculated and used as the LP-HRV measure (middle panel). This LP-HRV measure is used together with the individually set HRV target to infer a biofeedback score which is represented visually in the game by changes in the field-of-view. The three in-game screenshots (bottom panel) display the variation in field-of-view as seen by the user, with self-regulation (increasing LP-HRV, from left to right) inducing progressively better in-game visibility.
Selected publications
Brammer, J. C., van Peer, J. M., Michela, A., van Rooij, M. M. J. W., Oostenveld, R., Klumpers, F., Dorrestijn, W., Granic, I., & Roelofs, K. (2021). Breathing Biofeedback for Police Officers in a Stressful Virtual Environment: Challenges and Opportunities. Frontiers in Psychology, 12. link
Michela, A., Van Peer, J. M., Brammer, J. C., Nies, A., Van Rooij, M. M. J. W., Oostenveld, R., Dorrestijn, W., Smit, A. S., Roelofs, K., Klumpers, F., & Granic, I. (2022). Deep-Breathing Biofeedback Trainability in a Virtual-Reality Action Game: A Single-Case Design Study With Police Trainers. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 806163. link
Michela, A., van Peer, J. M., Oostenveld, R., Dorrestijn, W., Smit, A. S., Granic, I., Roelofs, K., & Klumpers, F. (2025). Preparing the Heart for Duty: Virtual Reality Biofeedback in an Arousing Action Game Improves in-action Voluntary Heart Rate Variability Control in Experienced Police. IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing, 1–12. link
Michela, A., van Rooij, M. M. J. W., Klumpers, F., van Peer, J. M., Roelofs, K., & Granic, I. (2019). Reducing the Noise of Reality. Psychological Inquiry, 30(4), 203–210. link
Posthuma, J.F, van Peer, J. M., Michela, A., Oostenveld, R., Carneiro de Andrade, M., Brendler A., Roelofs, K., & Klumpers, F. (in prep)
Game design: Koontz interactives https://www.kenkoontz.com/