Training Application-
Healthcare Treatment
•Police are trained to recognize gestures and verbal cues regarding mental illness
•Verbal interaction methods are taught
•The following are simulated:
1.Schizophrenia
2.Paranoia
3.Depression
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(Hubal, 2003)  Federal and corporate funding were used to develop a training aid for police officers who need to deal with the mentally ill.   The application is called JUST-TALK.  It is built upon five basic scenarios.  All scenarios involve a young, adult male behaving strangely.  The youth walks into the middle of a street and is almost run over by a car.  The officer responds to the report and finds the youth either sitting on a bench, standing near it, or pacing around it.

Through gestures and a natural language interpreter, JUST-TALK allows the officer in training to determine if the virtual human is schizophrenic, paranoid, depressed, sad, but normal, or stressed but normal.

The model is based on the interaction with a lifelike virtual human which displays emotion and responds to commands in some manner.  The developers of the software believe that the simulation along with classroom instruction and role playing will lead to an effective learning environment.