User Experience Evaluation in BCI: Filling the Gap

Brain-computer interface (BCI) systems can improve the user experience (UX) when used in entertainment technologies. Improved UX can enhance user acceptance, improve quality of life and also increase the system performance of a BCI system. Therefore, the evaluation of UX is essential in BCI research. However, BCI systems are generally evaluated according to the system aspect only so there is no methodology to evaluate UX in BCI systems. This paper gives an overview of such methods from the human-computer interaction field and discusses their possible uses in BCI research

Psychophysiological Measures of Cognitive Absorption

Cognitive absorption (CA) corresponds to a state of deep involvement with a software program. CA has widely been studied over the last decade in the IT literature using psychometric instruments. Measuring ongoing CA with psychometric tools requires interrupting a subject’s ongoing usage behavior to self-evaluate their level of absorption. Such interruptions may alter or contaminate the very CA state the researcher us attempting to measure. To circumvent this problem, we are investigating the effectiveness of psychophysiological measures of cognitive absorption. This paper reports preliminary results from an ongoing research project by looking at the correlation between electrodermal activity (EDA) and several dimensions of the CA construct

Affective games:a multimodal classification system

Affective gaming is a relatively new field of research that exploits human emotions to influence gameplay for an enhanced player experience. Changes in player’s psychology reflect on their behaviour and physiology, hence recognition of such variation is a core element in affective games. Complementary sources of affect offer more reliable recognition, especially in contexts where one modality is partial or unavailable. As a multimodal recognition system, affect-aware games are subject to the practical difficulties met by traditional trained classifiers. In addition, inherited game-related challenges in terms of data collection and performance arise while attempting to sustain an acceptable level of immersion. Most existing scenarios employ sensors that offer limited freedom of movement resulting in less realistic experiences. Recent advances now offer technology that allows players to communicate more freely and naturally with the game, and furthermore, control it without the use of input devices. However, the affective game industry is still in its infancy and definitely needs to catch up with the current life-like level of adaptation provided by graphics and animation

Perfecting A Video Game with Game Metrics

A state of a perfect video game is what developers has been seeking for their product developments, to achieve the selected state, several standards and methods needs to be applied. These standards and methods are special: they are both verifiable and quantifiable, to make their action and end goal a clear one, the terms for this standards and methods are called ‘game metrics’ and we decided that this is a must-have tool or method to be implanted in a development of a game because it will boost your standards rapidly and will be able to tell you about your own progress of the development

Pressure at play:measuring player approach and avoidance behaviour through the keyboard

With the increased adoption of real-time objective measurements of player experience, advances have been made in characterising the dynamically changing aspects of the player experience during gameplay itself. A direct coupling to player action, however, is not without challenges. Many physiological responses, for instance, have an inherent delay, and often take some time to return to a baseline, providing challenges of interpretation when analysing rapidly changing gameplay on a micro level of interaction. The development of event-related, or phasic, measurements directly coupled to player actions provides additional insights, for instance through player modelling, but also through the use of behavioural characteristics of the human computer interaction itself. In this study, we focused on the latter, and measured keyboard pressure in a number of different, fast-paced action games. In this particular case, we related specific functional game actions (keyboard presses) to experiential player behaviour. We found keyboard pressure to be higher for avoidance as compared to approach-oriented actions. Additionally, the difference between avoidance and approach keyboard pressure related to levels of arousal. The findings illustrate the application potential of qualifying players’ functional actions at play (navigating in a game) and interpret player experience related to these actions through players’ real world behavioural characteristics like interface pressure

Framework of controlling 3d virtual human emotional walking using BCI

A Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) is the device that can read and acquire the brain activities. A human body is controlled by Brain-Signals, which considered as a main controller. Furthermore, the human emotions and thoughts will be translated by brain through brain signals and expressed as human mood. This controlling process mainly performed through brain signals, the brain signals is a key component in electroencephalogram (EEG). Based on signal processing the features representing human mood (behavior) could be extracted with emotion as a major feature. This paper proposes a new framework in order to recognize the human inner emotions that have been conducted on the basis of EEG signals using a BCI device controller. This framework go through five steps starting by classifying the brain signal after reading it in order to obtain the emotion, then map the emotion, synchronize the animation of the 3D virtual human, test and evaluate the work. Based on our best knowledge there is no framework for controlling the 3D virtual human. As a result for implementing our framework will enhance the game field of enhancing and controlling the 3D virtual humans’ emotion walking in order to enhance and bring more realistic as well. Commercial games and Augmented Reality systems are possible beneficiaries of this technique. © 2015 Penerbit UTM Press. All rights reserved

Exploring passive user interaction for adaptive narratives

Previous Interactive Storytelling systems have been designed to allow active user intervention in an unfolding story, using established multi-modal interactive techniques to influence narrative development. In this paper we instead explore the use of a form of passive interaction where users' affective responses, measured by physiological proxies, drive a process of narrative adaptation. We introduce a system that implements a passive interaction loop as part of narrative generation, monitoring users' physiological responses to an on-going narrative visualization and using these to adapt the subsequent development of character relationships, narrative focus and pacing. Idiomatic cinematographic techniques applied to the visualization utilize existing theories of establishing characteristic emotional tone and viewer expectations to foster additional user response. Experimental results support the applicability of filmic emotional theories in a non-film visual realization, demonstrating significant appropriate user physiological response to narrative events and "emotional cues". The subsequent narrative adaptation provides a variation of viewing experience with no loss of narrative comprehension

Another View of the Empire – Camera Control for Heritage Applications

‘Another View of the Empire’ focused on the evaluation of user perspectives and control techniques to help define best practice for the design and implementation of interactive heritage applications. A comparison study was undertaken on two popular avatar control techniques from the field of video games to determine the suitability for integration into interactive heritage environments, where the typical user may not be a regular player of 3D action games. This paper outlines the preliminary research, the design and build of a set of research orientated interactive environments, and the resulting user focused exploratory heuristic qualitative analysis – which found that a hybrid control system may provide the optimum experience for a typical heritage audience

Observations on Experience and Flow in Movement-Based Interaction

Movement-based interfaces assume that their users move. Users have to perform exercises, they have to dance, they have to golf or football, or they want to train particular bodily skills. Many examples of those interfaces exist, sometimes asking for subtle interaction between user and interface and sometimes asking for ‘brute force’ interaction between user and interface. Often these interfaces mediate between players of a game. Obviously, one of the players may be a virtual human. We embed this interface research in ambient intelligence and entertainment computing research, and the interfaces we consider are not only mediating, but they also ‘add’ intelligence to the interaction. Intelligent movement-based interfaces, being able to know and learn about their users, should also be able to provide means to keep their users engaged in the interaction. Issues that will be discussed in this chapter are ‘flow’ and ‘immersion’ for movement-based interfaces and we look at the possible role of interaction synchrony to measure and support engagement