7 research outputs found
Design and Evaluation of a Tangible-Mediated Robot for Kindergarten Instruction
© ACM 2015. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive Version of Record was published in ACE '15 Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2832932.2832952Entertainment technology increases children’s engagement
in educational activities designed to develop abilities ranging
from collaborative problem-solving and cognitive attention
to self-esteem. However, little research has been done
on designing educational and entertaining interactive technology
for kindergarten children (up to 5 years old). Furthermore,
most of the work in this area has considered traditional
input devices such as the mouse and keyboard,
which are not suitable for these very young children. More
recently, other more intuitive means of interaction (touch
and tangible interfaces) and advanced educational artifacts
such as robots have emerged. In this work we therefore
present a joint collaboration between technologists and
kindergarten instructors to design and evaluate a technological
platform using a mobile robot for kindergarten instruction,
as well as an intuitive and user-friendly tangible user
interface. The results obtained suggest the platform is not
only usable by kindergarten children, but it also allows
them to be fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus,
full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity.
In addition, the instructors reported that the system
was well accepted and praised its versatility in use as a
supporting tool for their everyday classroom activities.This work is funded by the European Development Regional Fund (EDRF-FEDER) and supported by Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness with Project TIN2014-60077-R, and from Universitat Politècnica de València under Project UPV-FE-2014-24. It is also supported by fellowship ACIF/2014/214within the VALi+d program from Conselleria d’EducaciĂł, Cultura i Esport (Generalitat Valenciana), and by fellowship FPU14/00136 within the FPU program from Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport.GarcĂa Sanjuan, F.; JaĂ©n MartĂnez, FJ.; Nácher-Soler, VE.; Catalá BolĂłs, A. (2015). Design and Evaluation of a Tangible-Mediated Robot for Kindergarten Instruction. ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/2832932.2832952SDiana Africano, Sara Berg, Kent Lindbergh, Peter Lundholm, Fredrik Nilbrink, and Anna Persson. 2004. Designing Tangible Interfaces for Children's Collaboration.CHI '04 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems, ACM, 853--868. http://doi.org/10.1145/985921.985945Alissa N. Antle. 2013. Exploring how children use their hands to think: an embodied interactional analysis.Behaviour & Information Technology32, 9, 938--954. http://doi.org/10.1080/0144929X.2011.630415Jennifer Connolly, Anna Beth Doyle, and Flavia Ceschin. 1983. Forms and Functions of Social Fantasy Play in Preschoolers in M. B. InSocial and Cognitive Skills: Sex Roles and Children's Play. Academic Press, New York, 71--92.Amnon Dekel, Galit Yavne, Ela Ben-Tov, and Yulia Roschak. 2007. The spelling bee.Proceedings of the International Conference on Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology, ACM, 212--215. http://doi.org/10.1145/1255047.1255092Janet A. DiPietro. 1981. Rough and tumble play: A function of gender.Developmental Psychology 17, 50--58. http://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.17.1.50Allison Druin. 2002. The role of children in the design of new technology.Behaviour & Information Technology21, 1, 1--25. http://doi.org/10.1080/01449290110108659Madhumita Ghosh and Fumihide Tanaka. 2011. The impact of different competence levels of care-receiving robot on children.IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, IEEE, 2409--2415. http://doi.org/10.1109/IROS.2011.6048743Juan Pablo Hourcade, Michael Crowther, and Lisa Hunt. 2007. Does mouse size affect study and evaluation results?: a study comparing preschool children's performance with small and regular-sized mice.Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Interaction Design and Children, ACM, 109--116. http://doi.org/10.1145/1297277.1297300Juan Pablo Hourcade. 2007. Interaction Design and Children.Foundations and Trends in Human--Computer Interaction1, 4, 277--392. http://doi.org/10.1561/1100000006C. Lorelle Lentz, Kay Kyeong-Ju Seo, and Bridget Gruner. 2014. Revisiting the Early Use of Technology: A Critical Shift from "How Young is Too Young?" to "How Much is 'Just Right'?"Dimensions of Early Childhood42, 1, 15--23.Janet Lever. 1976. Sex Differences in the Games Children Play.Social Problems23, 4, pp. 478--487.Janet Lever. 1978. Sex Differences in the Complexity of Children's Play and Games.American Sociological Review43, 4, pp. 471--483.Susan C. Levine, Janellen Huttenlocher, Amy Taylor, and Adela Langrock. 1999. Early sex differences in spatial skill.Developmental Psychology35, 4, 940--949. http://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.35.4.940Liang-Yi Li, Chih-Wei Chang, and Gwo-Dong Chen. 2009. Researches on using robots in education.Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on E-Learning and Games, Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 479--482. http://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-03364-3_57Min Liu. 1996. An exploratory study of how pre-kindergarten children use the interactive multimedia technology: implications for multimedia software design.Journal of Computing in Childhood Education7, 1--2, 71--92.Javier Marco, Eva Cerezo, and Sandra Baldassarri. 2013. Bringing tabletop technology to all: Evaluating a tangible farm game with kindergarten and special needs children.Personal and Ubiquitous Computing17, 8, 1577--1591. http://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-012-0522-5Vicente Nacher, Fernando Garcia-Sanjuan, and Javier Jaen. 2015. Game Technologies for Kindergarten Instruction: Experiences and Future Challenges.Proceedings of the 2nd Congreso de la Sociedad Española para las Ciencias del Videojuego, 58--67.Vicente Nacher, Javier Jaen, and Alejandro Catala. 2014. Exploring Visual Cues for Intuitive Communicability of Touch Gestures to Pre-kindergarten Children.Proceedings of the Ninth ACM International Conference on Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces, ACM, 159--162. http://doi.org/10.1145/2669485.2669523Vicente Nacher, Javier Jaen, Elena Navarro, Alejandro Catala, and Pascual González. 2015. Multi-touch gestures for pre-kindergarten children.International Journal of Human-Computer Studies73, 37--51. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2014.08.004Jeanne Nakamura and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. 2008. Flow Theory and Research. InHandbook of Positive Psychology. 195--206. http://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195187243.013.0018Junichi Osada, Shinichi Ohnaka, and Miki Sato. 2006. The scenario and design process of childcare robot, PaPeRo.Proceedings of the 2006 ACM SIGCHI International Conference on Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology, ACM. http://doi.org/10.1145/1178823.1178917Mildred B. Parten. 1932. Social participation among pre-school children.Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology27, 3, 243--269. http://doi.org/10.1037/h0074524Kimberly K. Powlishta, Maya G. Sen, Lisa A. Serbin, Diane Poulin-Dubois, and Julie A. Eichstedt. 2001. From infancy through middle childhood: The role of cognitive and social factors in becoming gendered. InHandbook of the psychology of women and gender, Rhoda K. Unger (ed.). John Wiley & Sons Inc., Hoboken, NJ, USA, 116--132.Kenneth H Rubin, Terrence L Maioni, and Margaret Hornung. 1976. Free play behaviors in middle- and lower-class preschoolers: Parten and Piaget Revisited.Child Development47, 2, 414--419. http://doi.org/10.2307/1128796Kenneth H. Rubin. 1977. Play Behaviors of Young Children.Young children32, 6, 16--24.Anne B. Smith and Patricia M. Inder. 1993. Social Interaction in Same and Cross Gender Preschool Peer Groups: a participant observation study.Educational Psychology 13, 29--42. http://doi.org/10.1080/0144341930130104Iris Soute and Henk Nijmeijer. 2014. An Owl in the Classroom: Development of an Interactive Storytelling Application for Preschoolers.Proceedings of the 2014 Conference on Interaction Design and Children, ACM, 261--264. http://doi.org/10.1145/2593968.2610467Amanda Strawhacker and Marina Umaschi Bers. 2014. "I want my robot to look for food": Comparing Kindergartner's programming comprehension using tangible, graphic, and hybrid user interfaces.International Journal of Technology and Design Education. http://doi.org/10.1007/s10798-014-9287-7Toshimitsu Takahashi, Masahiko Morita, and Fumihide Tanaka. 2012. Evaluation of a tricycle-style teleoperational interface for children: A comparative experiment with a video game controller.Proceedings of the 21st IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication, IEEE, 334--338. http://doi.org/10.1109/ROMAN.2012.6343775Fumihide Tanaka, Bret Fortenberry, Kazuki Aisaka, and Javier R. Movellan. 2005. Plans for Developing Real-time Dance Interaction between QRIO and Toddlers in a Classroom Environment.Procceedings on the 4th International Conference on Development and Learning, IEEE, 142--147. http://doi.org/10.1109/DEVLRN.2005.1490963Fumihide Tanaka and Shizuko Matsuzoe. 2012. Learning Verbs by Teaching a Care-Receiving Robot by Children: An Experimental Report.Proceedings of the 7th Annual ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, ACM, 253--254. http://doi.org/10.1145/2157689.2157781Fumihide Tanaka and Toshimitsu Takahashi. 2012. A tricycle-style teleoperational interface that remotely controls a robot for classroom children.Proceedings of the 7th Annual ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, 255--256. http://doi.org/10.1145/2157689.2157782Barrie Thorne. 1993.Gender Play: Boys and Girls in School. Rutgers University Press.Chau Kien Tsong, Toh Seong Chong, and Zarina Samsudin. 2012. Tangible multimedia: A case study for bringing tangibility into multimedia learning.Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences64, 382--391. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2012.11.045Jie Chi Yang and Sherry Y. Chen. 2010. Effects of gender differences and spatial abilities within a digital pentominoes game.Computers & Education 55, 1220--1233. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2010.05.019Nicola J. Yelland. 1994. The strategies and interactions of young children in LOGO tasks.Journal of Computer Assisted Learning10, 1, 33--49. http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2729.1994.tb00280.xEvridiki Zachopoulou, Efthimios Trevlas, and Georgia Tsikriki. 2004. Perceptions of gender differences in playful behaviour among kindergarten children.European Early Childhood Education Research Journal12, 1, 43--53. http://doi.org/10.1080/1350293048520930
Game Technologies for Kindergarten Instruction: Experiences and Future Challenges
[EN] Games are an ideal mechanism to design educational activities with preschool children. Moreover, an analysis of current kindergarten curricula points out that playing and games are an important basis for children development. This paper presents a review of works that use games for kindergarten instruction and analyses their underlying technologies. In addition, in this work we present future challenges to be faced for each technology under consideration focusing on the specific needs and abilities these very demanding users have. The end goal is to outline a collection of future research directions for educators, game designers and HCI experts in the area of game-based kindergarten instruction supported by new technologies.This work received financial support from Spanish MINECO (projects TIN2010-20488 and TIN2014-60077-R), from Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV-FE-2014-24), and from GVA (ACIF/2014/214).Nácher-Soler, VE.; GarcĂa Sanjuan, F.; JaĂ©n MartĂnez, FJ. (2015). Game Technologies for Kindergarten Instruction: Experiences and Future Challenges. CEUR Workshop Proceedings. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/74255
Interactive spaces for children: gesture elicitation for controlling ground mini-robots
[EN] Interactive spaces for education are emerging as a mechanism for fostering children's natural ways of learning by means of play and exploration in physical spaces. The advanced interactive modalities and devices for such environments need to be both motivating and intuitive for children. Among the wide variety of interactive mechanisms, robots have been a popular research topic in the context of educational tools due to their attractiveness for children. However, few studies have focused on how children would naturally interact and explore interactive environments with robots. While there is abundant research on full-body interaction and intuitive manipulation of robots by adults, no similar research has been done with children. This paper therefore describes a gesture elicitation study that identified the preferred gestures and body language communication used by children to control ground robots. The results of the elicitation study were used to define a gestural language that covers the different preferences of the gestures by age group and gender, with a good acceptance rate in the 6-12 age range. The study also revealed interactive spaces with robots using body gestures as motivating and promising scenarios for collaborative or remote learning activities.This work is funded by the European Development Regional Fund (EDRF-FEDER) and supported by the Spanish MINECO (TIN2014-60077-R). The work of Patricia Pons is supported by a national grant from the Spanish MECD (FPU13/03831). Special thanks are due to the children and teachers of the Col-legi Public Vicente Gaos for their valuable collaboration and dedication.Pons Tomás, P.; JaĂ©n MartĂnez, FJ. (2020). Interactive spaces for children: gesture elicitation for controlling ground mini-robots. Journal of Ambient Intelligence and Humanized Computing. 11(6):2467-2488. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12652-019-01290-6S24672488116Alborzi H, Hammer J, Kruskal A et al (2000) Designing StoryRooms: interactive storytelling spaces for children. In: Proceedings of the conference on designing interactive systems processes, practices, methods, and techniques—DIS’00. ACM Press, New York, pp 95–104Antle AN, Corness G, Droumeva M (2009) What the body knows: exploring the benefits of embodied metaphors in hybrid physical digital environments. Interact Comput 21:66–75. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intcom.2008.10.005Belpaeme T, Baxter PE, Read R et al (2013) Multimodal child–robot interaction: building social bonds. J Human-Robot Interact 1:33–53. https://doi.org/10.5898/JHRI.1.2.BelpaemeBenko H, Wilson AD, Zannier F, Benko H (2014) Dyadic projected spatial augmented reality. In: Proceedings of the 27th annual ACM symposium on user interface software and technology—UIST’14, pp 645–655Bobick AF, Intille SS, Davis JW et al (1999) The KidsRoom: a perceptually-based interactive and immersive story environment. Presence Teleoper Virtual Environ 8:367–391. https://doi.org/10.1162/105474699566297Bonarini A, Clasadonte F, Garzotto F, Gelsomini M (2015) Blending robots and full-body interaction with large screens for children with intellectual disability. In: Proceedings of the 14th international conference on interaction design and children—IDC’15. ACM Press, New York, pp 351–354Cauchard JR, E JL, Zhai KY, Landay JA (2015) Drone & me: an exploration into natural human–drone interaction. In: Proceedings of the 2015 ACM international joint conference on pervasive and ubiquitous computing—UbiComp’15. ACM Press, New York, pp 361–365Connell S, Kuo P-Y, Liu L, Piper AM (2013) A Wizard-of-Oz elicitation study examining child-defined gestures with a whole-body interface. In: Proceedings of the 12th international conference on interaction design and children—IDC’13. ACM Press, New York, pp 277–280Derboven J, Van Mechelen M, Slegers K (2015) Multimodal analysis in participatory design with children. In: Proceedings of the 33rd annual ACM conference on human factors in computing systems—CHI’15. ACM Press, New York, pp 2825–2828Dong H, Danesh A, Figueroa N, El Saddik A (2015) An elicitation study on gesture preferences and memorability toward a practical hand-gesture vocabulary for smart televisions. IEEE Access 3:543–555. https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2015.2432679Druin A (1999) Cooperative inquiry: developing new technologies for children with children. In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on human factors computer system CHI is limit—CHI’99, vol 14, pp 592–599. https://doi.org/10.1145/302979.303166Druin A (2002) The role of children in the design of new technology. Behav Inf Technol 21:1–25. https://doi.org/10.1080/01449290110108659Druin A, Bederson B, Boltman A et al (1999) Children as our technology design partners. In: Druin A (ed) The design of children’s technology. Morgan Kaufman, San Francisco, pp 51–72Epps J, Lichman S, Wu M (2006) A study of hand shape use in tabletop gesture interaction. CHI’06 extended abstracts on human factors in computing systems—CHI EA’06. ACM Press, New York, pp 748–753Fender AR, Benko H, Wilson A (2017) MeetAlive : room-scale omni-directional display system for multi-user content and control sharing. In: Proceedings of the 2017 ACM international conference on interactive surfaces and spaces, pp 106–115Fernandez RAS, Sanchez-Lopez JL, Sampedro C et al (2016) Natural user interfaces for human–drone multi-modal interaction. In: 2016 international conference on unmanned aircraft systems (ICUAS). IEEE, New York, pp 1013–1022Garcia-Sanjuan F, Jaen J, Nacher V, Catala A (2015) Design and evaluation of a tangible-mediated robot for kindergarten instruction. In: Proceedings of the 12th international conference on advances in computer entertainment technology—ACE’15. ACM Press, New York, pp 1–11Garcia-Sanjuan F, Jaen J, Jurdi S (2016) Towards encouraging communication in hospitalized children through multi-tablet activities. In: Proceedings of the XVII international conference on human computer interaction, pp 29.1–29.4Gindling J, Ioannidou A, Loh J et al (1995) LEGOsheets: a rule-based programming, simulation and manipulation environment for the LEGO programmable brick. In: Proceedings of symposium on visual languages. IEEE Computer Society Press, New York, pp 172–179Gonzalez B, Borland J, Geraghty K (2009) Whole body interaction for child-centered multimodal language learning. In: Proceedings of the 2nd workshop on child, computer and interaction—WOCCI’09. ACM Press, New York, pp 1–5Grønbæk K, Iversen OS, Kortbek KJ et al (2007) Interactive floor support for kinesthetic interaction in children learning environments. In: Human–computer interaction—INTERACT 2007. Lecture notes in computer science, pp 361–375Guha ML, Druin A, Chipman G et al (2005) Working with young children as technology design partners. Commun ACM 48:39–42. https://doi.org/10.1145/1039539.1039567Hansen JP, Alapetite A, MacKenzie IS, Møllenbach E (2014) The use of gaze to control drones. In: Proceedings of the symposium on eye tracking research and applications—ETRA’14. ACM Press, New York, pp 27–34Henkemans OAB, Bierman BPB, Janssen J et al (2017) Design and evaluation of a personal robot playing a self-management education game with children with diabetes type 1. Int J Hum Comput Stud 106:63–76. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2017.06.001Horn MS, Crouser RJ, Bers MU (2011) Tangible interaction and learning: the case for a hybrid approach. Pers Ubiquitous Comput 16:379–389. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-011-0404-2Hourcade JP (2015) Child computer interaction. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, North CharlestonHöysniemi J, Hämäläinen P, Turkki L (2004) Wizard of Oz prototyping of computer vision based action games for children. Proceeding of the 2004 conference on interaction design and children building a community—IDC’04. ACM Press, New York, pp 27–34Höysniemi J, Hämäläinen P, Turkki L, Rouvi T (2005) Children’s intuitive gestures in vision-based action games. Commun ACM 48:44–50. https://doi.org/10.1145/1039539.1039568Hsiao H-S, Chen J-C (2016) Using a gesture interactive game-based learning approach to improve preschool children’s learning performance and motor skills. Comput Educ 95:151–162. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2016.01.005Jokela T, Rezaei PP, Väänänen K (2016) Using elicitation studies to generate collocated interaction methods. In: Proceedings of the 18th international conference on human–computer interaction with mobile devices and services adjunct, pp 1129–1133. https://doi.org/10.1145/2957265.2962654Jones B, Benko H, Ofek E, Wilson AD (2013) IllumiRoom: peripheral projected illusions for interactive experiences. In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on human factors in computing systems—CHI’13, pp 869–878Jones B, Shapira L, Sodhi R et al (2014) RoomAlive: magical experiences enabled by scalable, adaptive projector-camera units. In: Proceedings of the 27th annual ACM symposium on user interface software and technology—UIST’14, pp 637–644Kaminski M, Pellino T, Wish J (2002) Play and pets: the physical and emotional impact of child-life and pet therapy on hospitalized children. Child Heal Care 31:321–335. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15326888CHC3104_5Karam M, Schraefel MC (2005) A taxonomy of gestures in human computer interactions. In: Technical report in electronics and computer science, pp 1–45Kistler F, AndrĂ© E (2013) User-defined body gestures for an interactive storytelling scenario. Lect Notes Comput Sci (including subser Lect Notes Artif Intell Lect Notes Bioinform) 8118:264–281. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-40480-1_17Konda KR, Königs A, Schulz H, Schulz D (2012) Real time interaction with mobile robots using hand gestures. In: Proceedings of the seventh annual ACM/IEEE international conference on human–robot interaction—HRI’12. ACM Press, New York, pp 177–178Kray C, Nesbitt D, Dawson J, Rohs M (2010) User-defined gestures for connecting mobile phones, public displays, and tabletops. In: Proceedings of the 12th international conference on human computer interaction with mobile devices and services—MobileHCI’10. ACM Press, New York, pp 239–248Kurdyukova E, Redlin M, AndrĂ© E (2012) Studying user-defined iPad gestures for interaction in multi-display environment. In: Proceedings of the 2012 ACM international conference on intelligent user interfaces—IUI’12. ACM Press, New York, pp 93–96Lambert V, Coad J, Hicks P, Glacken M (2014) Social spaces for young children in hospital. Child Care Health Dev 40:195–204. https://doi.org/10.1111/cch.12016Lee S-S, Chae J, Kim H et al (2013) Towards more natural digital content manipulation via user freehand gestural interaction in a living room. In: Proceedings of the 2013 ACM international joint conference on pervasive and ubiquitous computing—UbiComp’13. ACM Press, New York, p 617Malinverni L, Mora-Guiard J, Pares N (2016) Towards methods for evaluating and communicating participatory design: a multimodal approach. Int J Hum Comput Stud 94:53–63. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2016.03.004Mann HB, Whitney DR (1947) On a test of whether one of two random variables is stochastically larger than the other. Ann Math Stat 18:50–60. https://doi.org/10.1214/aoms/1177730491Marco J, Cerezo E, Baldassarri S et al (2009) Bringing tabletop technologies to kindergarten children. In: Proceedings of the 23rd British HCI Group annual conference on people and computers: celebrating people and technology, pp 103–111Michaud F, Caron S (2002) Roball, the rolling robot. Auton Robots 12:211–222. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1014005728519Micire M, Desai M, Courtemanche A et al (2009) Analysis of natural gestures for controlling robot teams on multi-touch tabletop surfaces. In: Proceedings of the ACM international conference on interactive tabletops and surfaces—ITS’09. ACM Press, New York, pp 41–48Mora-Guiard J, Crowell C, Pares N, Heaton P (2016) Lands of fog: helping children with autism in social interaction through a full-body interactive experience. In: Proceedings of the 15th international conference on interaction design and children—IDC’16. ACM Press, New York, pp 262–274Morris MR (2012) Web on the wall: insights from a multimodal interaction elicitation study. In: Proceedings of the 2012 ACM international conference on interactive tabletops and surfaces. ACM Press, New York, pp 95–104Morris MR, Wobbrock JO, Wilson AD (2010) Understanding users’ preferences for surface gestures. Proc Graph Interface 2010:261–268Nacher V, Garcia-Sanjuan F, Jaen J (2016) Evaluating the usability of a tangible-mediated robot for kindergarten children instruction. In: 2016 IEEE 16th international conference on advanced learning technologies (ICALT). IEEE, New York, pp 130–132Nahapetyan VE, Khachumov VM (2015) Gesture recognition in the problem of contactless control of an unmanned aerial vehicle. Optoelectron Instrum Data Process 51:192–197. https://doi.org/10.3103/S8756699015020132Obaid M, Häring M, Kistler F et al (2012) User-defined body gestures for navigational control of a humanoid robot. In: Lecture notes in computer science (including subseries lecture notes in artificial intelligence and lecture notes in bioinformatics), pp 367–377Obaid M, Kistler F, Häring M et al (2014) A framework for user-defined body gestures to control a humanoid robot. Int J Soc Robot 6:383–396. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12369-014-0233-3Obaid M, Kistler F, KasparaviÄŤiĹ«tÄ— G, et al (2016) How would you gesture navigate a drone?: a user-centered approach to control a drone. In: Proceedings of the 20th international academic Mindtrek conference—AcademicMindtrek’16. ACM Press, New York, pp 113–121Pares N, Soler M, Sanjurjo Ă€ et al (2005) Promotion of creative activity in children with severe autism through visuals in an interactive multisensory environment. In: Proceeding of the 2005 conference on interaction design and children—IDC’05. ACM Press, New York, pp 110–116Pfeil K, Koh SL, LaViola J (2013) Exploring 3D gesture metaphors for interaction with unmanned aerial vehicles. In: Proceedings of the 2013 international conference on intelligent user interfaces—IUI’13, pp 257–266. https://doi.org/10.1145/2449396.2449429Piaget J (1956) The child’s conception of space. Norton, New YorkPiaget J (1973) The child and reality: problems of genetic psychology. Grossman, New YorkPiumsomboon T, Clark A, Billinghurst M, Cockburn A (2013) User-defined gestures for augmented reality. CHI’13 extended abstracts on human factors in computing systems—CHI EA’13. ACM Press, New York, pp 955–960Pons P, CarriĂłn A, Jaen J (2018) Remote interspecies interactions: improving humans and animals’ wellbeing through mobile playful spaces. Pervasive Mob Comput. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pmcj.2018.12.003Puranam MB (2005) Towards full-body gesture analysis and recognition. University of Kentucky, LexingtonPyryeskin D, Hancock M, Hoey J (2012) Comparing elicited gestures to designer-created gestures for selection above a multitouch surface. In: Proceedings of the 2012 ACM international conference on interactive tabletops and surfaces—ITS’12. ACM Press, New York, pp 1–10Raffle HS, Parkes AJ, Ishii H (2004) Topobo: a constructive assembly system with kinetic memory. System 6:647–654. https://doi.org/10.1145/985692.985774Read JC, Markopoulos P (2013) Child–computer interaction. Int J Child-Comput Interact 1:2–6. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijcci.2012.09.001Read JC, Macfarlane S, Casey C (2002) Endurability, engagement and expectations: measuring children’s fun. In: Interaction design and children, pp 189–198Read JC, Markopoulos P, ParĂ©s N et al (2008) Child computer interaction. In: Proceeding of the 26th annual CHI conference extended abstracts on human factors in computing systems—CHI’08. ACM Press, New York, pp 2419–2422Robins B, Dautenhahn K (2014) Tactile interactions with a humanoid robot: novel play scenario implementations with children with autism. Int J Soc Robot 6:397–415. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12369-014-0228-0Robins B, Dautenhahn K, Te Boekhorst R, Nehaniv CL (2008) Behaviour delay and robot expressiveness in child–robot interactions: a user study on interaction kinesics. In: Proceedings of the 3rd ACMIEEE international conference on human robot interaction, pp 17–24. https://doi.org/10.1145/1349822.1349826Ruiz J, Li Y, Lank E (2011) User-defined motion gestures for mobile interaction. In: Proceedings of the 2011 annual conference on human factors in computing systems—CHI’11. ACM Press, New York, p 197Rust K, Malu M, Anthony L, Findlater L (2014) Understanding childdefined gestures and children’s mental models for touchscreen tabletop interaction. In: Proceedings of the 2014 conference on interaction design and children—IDC’14. ACM Press, New York, pp 201–204Salter T, Dautenhahn K, Te Boekhorst R (2006) Learning about natural human-robot interaction styles. Robot Auton Syst 54:127–134. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.robot.2005.09.022Sanghvi J, Castellano G, Leite I et al (2011) Automatic analysis of affective postures and body motion to detect engagement with a game companion. In: Proceedings of the 6th international conference on human–robot interaction—HRI’11. ACM Press, New York, pp 305–311Sanna A, Lamberti F, Paravati G, Manuri F (2013) A Kinect-based natural interface for quadrotor control. Entertain Comput 4:179–186. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.entcom.2013.01.001Sato E, Yamaguchi T, Harashima F (2007) Natural interface using pointing behavior for human–robot gestural interaction. IEEE Trans Ind Electron 54:1105–1112. https://doi.org/10.1109/TIE.2007.892728Schaper M-M, Pares N (2016) Making sense of body and space through full-body interaction design. In: Proceedings of the 15th international conference on interaction design and children—IDC’16. ACM Press, New York, pp 613–618Schaper M-M, Malinverni L, Pares N (2015) Sketching through the body: child-generated gestures in full-body interaction design. In: Proceedings of the 14th international conference on interaction design and children—IDC’15. ACM Press, New York, pp 255–258Seyed T, Burns C, Costa Sousa M et al (2012) Eliciting usable gestures for multi-display environments. In: Proceedings of the 2012 ACM international conference on interactive tabletops and surfaces—ITS’12. ACM Press, New York, p 41Shimon SSA, Morrison-Smith S, John N et al (2015) Exploring user-defined back-of-device gestures for mobile devices. In: Proceedings of the 17th international conference on human–computer interaction with mobile devices and services—MobileHCI’15. ACM Press, New York, pp 227–232Sipitakiat A, Nusen N (2012) Robo-blocks: a tangible programming system with debugging for children. In: Proceedings of the 11th international conference on interaction design and children—IDC’12. ACM Press, New York, p 98Soler-Adillon J, Ferrer J, Pares N (2009) A novel approach to interactive playgrounds: the interactive slide project. In: Proceedings of the 8th international conference on interaction design and children—IDC’09. ACM Press, New York, pp 131–139Stiefelhagen R, Fogen C, Gieselmann P et al (2004) Natural human–robot interaction using speech, head pose and gestures. In: 2004 IEEE/RSJ international conference on intelligent robots and systems (IROS) (IEEE Cat. No. 04CH37566). IEEE, New York, pp 2422–2427Subrahmanyam K, Greenfield PM (1994) Effect of video game practice on spatial skills in girls and boys. J Appl Dev Psychol 15:13–32. https://doi.org/10.1016/0193-3973(94)90004-3Sugiyama J, Tsetserukou D, Miura J (2011) NAVIgoid: robot navigation with haptic vision. In: SIGGRAPH Asia 2011 emerging technologies SA’11, vol 15, p 4503. https://doi.org/10.1145/2073370.2073378Takahashi T, Morita M, Tanaka F (2012) Evaluation of a tricycle-style teleoperational interface for children: a comparative experiment with a video game controller. In: 2012 IEEE RO-MAN: the 21st IEEE international symposium on robot and human interactive communication. IEEE, New York, pp 334–338Tanaka F, Takahashi T (2012) A tricycle-style teleoperational interface that remotely controls a robot for classroom children. In: Proceedings of the seventh annual ACM/IEEE international conference on human–robot interaction—HRI’12. ACM Press, New York, pp 255–256Tjaden L, Tong A, Henning P et al (2012) Children’s experiences of dialysis: a systematic review of qualitative studies. Arch Dis Child 97:395–402. https://doi.org/10.1136/archdischild-2011-300639Vatavu R-D (2012) User-defined gestures for free-hand TV control. In: Proceedings of the 10th European conference on interactive TV and video—EuroiTV’12. ACM Press, New York, pp 45–48Vatavu R-D (2017) Smart-Pockets: body-deictic gestures for fast access to personal data during ambient interactions. Int J Hum Comput Stud 103:1–21. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2017.01.005Vatavu R-D, Wobbrock JO (2015) Formalizing agreement analysis for elicitation studies: new measures, significance test, and toolkit. In: Proceedings of the 33rd annual ACM conference on human factors in computing systems—CHI’15. ACM Press, New York, pp 1325–1334Vatavu R-D, Wobbrock JO (2016) Between-subjects elicitation studies: formalization and tool support. In: Proceedings of the 2016 CHI conference on human factors in computing systems—CHI’16. ACM Press, New York, pp 3390–3402Voyer D, Voyer S, Bryden MP (1995) Magnitude of sex differences in spatial abilities: a meta-analysis and consideration of critical variables. Psychol Bull 117:250–270. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.117.2.250Wainer J, Robins B, Amirabdollahian F, Dautenhahn K (2014) Using the humanoid robot KASPAR to autonomously play triadic games and facilitate collaborative play among children with autism. IEEE Trans Auton Ment Dev 6:183–199. https://doi.org/10.1109/TAMD.2014.2303116Wang Y, Zhang L (2015) A track-based gesture recognition algorithm for Kinect. Appl Mech Mater 738–7399:334–338. https://doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMM.738-739.334
Interactive technologies for preschool game-based instruction: Experiences and future challenges
This is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Entertainment Computing. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Entertainment Computing, vol. 17 (2016). DOI 10.1016/j.entcom.2016.07.001.[EN] According to current kindergarten curricula, game play is an important basis for children development
and it is the main driving force when designing educational activities during early childhood. This paper
presents a review of the current state of the art of game technologies that support pre-kindergarten and
kindergarten children development. Moreover, the most emergent technologies for developing educational
games for preschool children are identified and a set of future challenges are discussed. The main
goal of this work is to review the state of the art in interactive technologies which will help educators,
game designers and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) experts in the area of game-based kindergarten
instruction.
2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.This work received financial support from Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness and funded by the European Development Regional Fund (EDRF-FEDER) with the project TIN2014-60077-R (SUPEREMOS). This work is also supported by a predoctoral fellowship within the FPU program from the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports to V. Nacher (FPU14/00136) and from GVA (ACIF/2014/214) to F. Garcia-Sanjuan.Nácher-Soler, VE.; GarcĂa Sanjuan, F.; JaĂ©n MartĂnez, FJ. (2016). Interactive technologies for preschool game-based instruction: Experiences and future challenges. Entertainment Computing. 17:19-29. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.entcom.2016.07.001S19291
Exploring visual prompts for communicating directional awareness to kindergarten children
[EN] Although a myriad of educational applications using tablets and multi-touch technology for kindergarten children have been developed in the last decade, most of these applications do not fully exploit multi-touch technology since the game world used is limited to the screen only. Considering a larger digital space in tablet-based educational scenarios would be beneficial since it would enable the design of engaging activities driven by curiosity, exploration, discovery and decisions on where the next action is situated in the digital virtual space by directional awareness. This paper therefore investigates kindergarten children's abilities to use a virtual world beyond the screen and evaluates three different types of visual prompts for communicating directional awareness. The results obtained show, firstly, that these specific users are able to use the space beyond the screen boundaries and that the evaluated prompts can effectively communicate information to kindergarten children. The paper also makes a set of recommendations to help designers choose the appropriate type of prompt for their application requirements.This work received financial support from Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness and was funded by the European Development Regional Fund (EDRF-FEDER) in the project TIN2014-60077-R (SUPEREMOS). This work is also supported by a pre-doctoral fellowship within the FPU program from the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports to V. Nacher (FPU14/00136) and from GVA (ACIF/2014/214) to F. Garcia-Sanjuan.Nácher-Soler, VE.; Jurdi, S.; JaĂ©n MartĂnez, FJ.; GarcĂa Sanjuan, F. (2019). Exploring visual prompts for communicating directional awareness to kindergarten children. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies. 126:14-25. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2019.01.003S142512
Kindertivity: Usability and Communicability Strategies for Interactive Surfaces and Pre-Kindergarten Children
Tesis por compendio[ES] La tecnologĂa multi-táctil se ha convertido en una de las más emergentes tras experimentar un enorme crecimiento desde sus pasos iniciales en los años ochenta hasta su amplia aceptaciĂłn y uso en la actualidad. Por una parte, la tecnologĂa multi-táctil se basa en el estilo de interacciĂłn de manipulaciĂłn directa el cual proporciona a los usuarios la ventaja de ver los objetos y las acciones de interĂ©s, sustituir comandos escritos por acciones de señalado y, además, permite la realizaciĂłn de acciones rápidas, reversibles e incrementales evitando el uso de instrucciones complejas. Por otra parte, diversos trabajos han evaluado las virtudes derivadas de utilizar conjuntamente la manipulaciĂłn directa con el toque directo mostrando que es posible evitar los problemas inherentes a otras tĂ©cnicas de interacciĂłn como el ratĂłn y el teclado. Por lo tanto, aprovechando la interacciĂłn natural e intuitiva proporcionada por la tecnologĂa multi-táctil, Ă©sta parece una forma ideal para dar soporte a la creaciĂłn de escenarios educativos dirigidos a niños en edad preescolar. Sin embargo, a pesar de la existencia de diversos estudios que evalĂşan la idoneidad de utilizar el estilo de interacciĂłn de manipulaciĂłn directa, existe una falta de trabajos abordando el uso dispositivos basados en superficies táctiles con niños de una temprana edad.
Asimismo, en la actualidad existe una creciente tendencia a diseñar aplicaciones educativas y lúdicas dirigidas a niños en edad preescolar utilizando dispositivos multi-táctiles como los teléfonos inteligentes o las tabletas. Además, diversos informes señalan que los niños son usuarios frecuentes de este tipo de dispositivos y los utilizan incluso antes de ser capaces de hablar.
Sin embargo, a pesar de este crecimiento en el uso de la tecnologĂa multi-táctil y su aparente idoneidad para ser utilizado en el desarrollo de aplicaciones educativas para niños en edad preescolar, no existen unas interacciones universales y estandarizadas para preescolares a la hora de utilizar dispositivos táctiles ya que habitualmente sĂłlo se utilizan dos gestos básicos (básicamente, el toque con un dedo para seleccionar y el arrastre con un dedo para el movimiento). Por lo tanto, existe una clara necesidad de llevar a cabo estudios empĂricos para contribuir y avanzar en el diseño de aplicaciones que den un soporte adecuado y encaje con las habilidades de los niños en su temprano desarrollo.
Por tanto, esta tesis propone, diseña y evalĂşa diversas estrategias de usabilidad y comunicabilidad adaptadas a los niños en edad preescolar para establecer la base para el diseño y desarrollo de futuras aplicaciones basadas en dispositivos táctiles dirigidas a preescolares. Estas estrategias llevarán a la adecuada definiciĂłn de guĂas de diseño que permitirán a los niños aprovechar al máximo la tecnologĂa multi-táctil, harán posible el desarrollo de nuevas y atractivas aplicaciones y, eventualmente, tambiĂ©n podrán ayudar al desarrollo cognitivo y motor de los niños.[CA] La tecnologia multi-tĂ ctil s'ha convertit en una de les mĂ©s emergents desprĂ©s d'experimentar un enorme creixement des dels seus passos inicials als anys vuitanta fins l'actualitat on es Ă mpliament acceptada i utilitzada. D'una banda, la tecnologia multi-tĂ ctil es basa en l'estil d'interacciĂł de manipulaciĂł directa, el qual proporciona als usuaris l'avantatge de veure els objectes i les accions d'interès, substituir comandos escrits per accions d'assenyalament i, a mĂ©s, permet la realitzaciĂł d'accions, rĂ pides, reversibles i incrementals evitant l'Ăşs d'instruccions complexes. D'altra banda, diversos treballs han avaluat les virtuts derivades d'utilitzar conjuntament la manipulaciĂł directa amb el toc directe mostrant que Ă©s possible evitar els problemes inherents a altres tècniques d'interacciĂł com el ratolĂ i el teclat. Per tant, aprofitant la interacciĂł natural i intuĂŻtiva proporcionada per la tecnologia multi-tĂ ctil, aquesta sembla una forma ideal per donar suport a la creaciĂł d'escenaris educatius per a xiquets en edat preescolar. No obstant això, malgrat l'existència de diversos estudis que avaluen la idoneĂŻtat d'utilitzar l'estil d'interacciĂł de manipulaciĂł directa, existeix una manca de treballs abordant l'Ăşs de dispositius basats en superfĂcies tĂ ctils amb xiquets d'edat primerenca.
Aixà mateix, en l'actualitat existeix una creixent tendència a dissenyar aplicacions educatives i lúdiques dirigides a xiquets en edat preescolar utilitzant dispositius tà ctils com els telèfons intel¿ligents o les tauletes. A més, diversos informes assenyalen que els xiquets són usuaris freqüents d'aquests tipus de dispositius i els utilitzen fins i tot abans de ser capaços de parlar.
Malgrat aquest creixement en l'Ăşs de la tecnologia multi-tĂ ctil i la seua aparent idoneĂŻtat per a ser utilitzada en el desenvolupament d'aplicacions educatives per a xiquets en edat preescolar, no existeixen unes interaccions universals i estandarditzades per a preescolars a l'hora d'utilitzar dispositius tĂ ctils ja que habitualment nomĂ©s s'utilitzen dos gestos bĂ sics (bĂ sicament, el toc amb un dit per a seleccionar i l'arrossegament amb un dit per al moviment). Per tant, hi ha una clara necessitat de dur a terme estudis empĂrics per a contribuir i avançar en el disseny d'aplicacions que donen un suport adequat i s'ajusten amb les habilitats dels xiquets en el seu primerenc desenvolupament.
Per tant, la tesi proposa, dissenya i avalua diverses estratègies de usabilitat i comunicabilitat adaptades als xiquets en edat preescolar per tal d'establir la base per al disseny i desenvolupament de futures aplicacions basades en dispositius tà ctils dirigides a preescolars. Aquestes estratègies portaran a l'adequada definició de guies de disseny que permetran als xiquets aprofitar al mà xim la tecnologia multi-tà ctil, faran possible el desenvolupament de noves i atractives aplicacions i, eventualment, podran també ajudar al desenvolupament cognitiu i motor dels xiquets.[EN] Multi-touch technology has become one of the most emergent technologies and has had an enormous growth since its initial steps in the eighties to be widespread accepted and used in the present. On the one hand, multi-touch technology relies on the direct manipulation interaction style which gives users the advantage to view the objects and actions of interest, replace typed commands by pointing actions and to perform rapid, reversible and incremental actions avoiding using complex instructions. On the other hand, several works have evaluated the virtues when joining direct manipulation with direct-touching showing that it solves the problems inherent in other interaction devices, such as those involving mouse or keyboard. Hence, taking advantage of the intuitive and natural interaction provided by multi-touch technology it seems an ideal way to support educational scenarios targeted to kindergarten children. Although several works have assessed the suitability of using the direct manipulation style with children, there is a lack of works addressing the use of touchscreen devices by this specific type of users.
Moreover, there is a growing trend of designing educational and playful applications targeted to kindergarten children based on touchscreen devices such as smartphones and tablets. In addition, several reports point out that children use touchscreen devices even before they are able to speak and they are frequent users of devices such as smartphones and tablets.
However, despite this growth in the use of multi-touch technology by children and its apparent suitability to be used to develop applications targeted to young children, there is a lack of standardized and universally accepted interactions for young children when using touchscreen devices since only two basic gestures are commonly used (basically, consisting of only one-finger touch for selection and one-finger drag for movement). Hence, there is a need of carrying out empirical studies to help and advance in the design of applications that adequately support and fit with children's development and skills.
Therefore, this thesis proposes, designs and evaluates several usability and communicability strategies tailored to children in their early development stage to establish the design and development of future applications targeted to kindergarten children. These strategies will lead to define appropriate design strategies that enable infants to take full advantage of multi-touch technology, would make it possible to develop attractive new applications and, eventually, could also aid children's cognitive and motor development.Nácher Soler, VE. (2019). Kindertivity: Usability and Communicability Strategies for Interactive Surfaces and Pre-Kindergarten Children [Tesis doctoral no publicada]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/116833TESISCompendi
Towards Intelligent Playful Environments for Animals based on Natural User Interfaces
Tesis por compendioEl estudio de la interacciĂłn de los animales con la tecnologĂa y el desarrollo de sistemas tecnolĂłgicos centrados en el animal está ganando cada vez más atenciĂłn desde la apariciĂłn del área de Animal Computer Interaction (ACI). ACI persigue mejorar el bienestar de los animales en diferentes entornos a travĂ©s del desarrollo de tecnologĂa adecuada para ellos siguiendo un enfoque centrado en el animal. Entre las lĂneas de investigaciĂłn que ACI está explorando, ha habido bastante interĂ©s en la interacciĂłn de los animales con la tecnologĂa basada en el juego. Las actividades de juego tecnolĂłgicas tienen el potencial de proveer estimulaciĂłn mental y fĂsica a los animales en diferentes contextos, pudiendo ayudar a mejorar su bienestar.
Mientras nos embarcamos en la era de la Internet de las Cosas, las actividades de juego tecnolĂłgicas actuales para animales todavĂa no han explorado el desarrollo de soluciones pervasivas que podrĂan proveerles de más adaptaciĂłn a sus preferencias a la vez que ofrecer estĂmulos tecnolĂłgicos más variados. En su lugar, estas actividades están normalmente basadas en interacciones digitales en lugar de explorar dispositivos tangibles o aumentar las interacciones con otro tipo de estĂmulos. Además, estas actividades de juego están ya predefinidas y no cambian con el tiempo, y requieren que un humano provea el dispositivo o la tecnologĂa al animal. Si los humanos pudiesen centrarse más en su participaciĂłn como jugadores de un sistema interactivo para animales en lugar de estar pendientes de sujetar un dispositivo para el animal o de mantener el sistema ejecutándose, esto podrĂa ayudar a crear lazos más fuertes entre especies y promover mejores relaciones con los animales. Asimismo, la estimulaciĂłn mental y fĂsica de los animales son aspectos importantes que podrĂan fomentarse si los sistemas de juego diseñados para ellos pudieran ofrecer un variado rango de respuestas, adaptarse a los comportamientos del animal y evitar que se acostumbre al sistema y pierda el interĂ©s.
Por tanto, esta tesis propone el diseño y desarrollo de entornos tecnolĂłgicos de juego basados en Interfaces Naturales de Usuario que puedan adaptarse y reaccionar a las interacciones naturales de los animales. Estos entornos pervasivos permitirĂan a los animales jugar por si mismos o con una persona, ofreciendo actividades de juego más dinámicas y atractivas capaces de adaptarse con el tiempo.L'estudi de la interacciĂł dels animals amb la tecnologia i el desenvolupament de sistemes tecnològics centrats en l'animal estĂ guanyant cada vegada mĂ©s atenciĂł des de l'apariciĂł de l'Ă rea d'Animal Computer Interaction (ACI) . ACI persegueix millorar el benestar dels animals en diferents entorns a travĂ©s del desenvolupament de tecnologia adequada per a ells amb un enfocament centrat en l'animal. Entre totes les lĂnies d'investigaciĂł que ACI estĂ explorant, hi ha hagut prou interès en la interacciĂł dels animals amb la tecnologia basada en el joc. Les activitats de joc tecnològiques tenen el potencial de proveir estimulaciĂł mental i fĂsica als animals en diferents contextos, podent ajudar a millorar el seu benestar.
Mentre ens embarquem en l'era de la Internet de les Coses, les activitats de joc tecnològiques actuals per a animals encara no han explorat el desenvolupament de solucions pervasives que podrien proveir-los de mĂ©s adaptaciĂł a les seues preferències al mateix temps que oferir estĂmuls tecnològics mĂ©s variats. En el seu lloc, estes activitats estan normalment basades en interaccions digitals en compte d'explorar dispositius tangibles o augmentar les interaccions amb estĂmuls de diferent tipus. A mĂ©s, aquestes activitats de joc estan ja predefinides i no canvien amb el temps, mentre requereixen que un humĂ proveĂŻsca el dispositiu o la tecnologia a l'animal. Si els humans pogueren centrar-se mĂ©s en la seua participaciĂł com a jugadors actius d'un sistema interactiu per a animals en compte d'estar pendents de subjectar un dispositiu per a l'animal o de mantenir el sistema executant-se, açò podria ajudar a crear llaços mĂ©s forts entre espècies i promoure millors relacions amb els animals. AixĂ mateix, l'estimulaciĂł mental i fĂsica dels animals sĂłn aspectes importants que podrien fomentar-se si els sistemes de joc dissenyats per a ells pogueren oferir un rang variat de respostes, adaptar-se als comportaments de l'animal i evitar que aquest s'acostume al sistema i perda l'interès.
Per tant, esta tesi proposa el disseny i desenvolupament d'entorns tecnològics de joc basats en InterfĂcies Naturals d'Usuari que puguen adaptar-se i reaccionar a les interaccions naturals dels animals. Aquestos escenaris pervasius podrien permetre als animals jugar per si mateixos o amb una persona, oferint activitats de joc mĂ©s dinĂ miques i atractives que siguen capaces d'adaptar-se amb el temps.The study of animals' interactions with technology and the development of animal-centered technological systems is gaining attention since the emergence of the research area of Animal Computer Interaction (ACI). ACI aims to improve animals' welfare and wellbeing in several scenarios by developing suitable technology for the animal following an animal-centered approach. Among all the research lines ACI is exploring, there has been significant interest in animals' playful interactions with technology. Technologically mediated playful activities have the potential to provide mental and physical stimulation for animals in different environmental contexts, which could in turn help to improve their wellbeing.
As we embark in the era of the Internet of Things, current technological playful activities for animals have not yet explored the development of pervasive solutions that could provide animals with more adaptation to their preferences as well as offering varied technological stimuli. Instead, playful technology for animals is usually based on digital interactions rather than exploring tangible devices or augmenting the interactions with different stimuli. In addition, these playful activities are already predefined and do not change over time, while they require that a human has to be the one providing the device or technology to the animal. If humans could focus more on their participation as active players of an interactive system aimed for animals instead of being concerned about holding a device for the animal or keep the system running, this might help to create stronger bonds between species and foster better relationships with animals. Moreover, animals' mental and physical stimulation are important aspects that could be fostered if the playful systems designed for animals could offer a varied range of outputs, be tailored to the animal's behaviors and prevented the animal to get used to the system and lose interest.
Therefore, this thesis proposes the design and development of technological playful environments based on Natural User Interfaces that could adapt and react to the animals' natural interactions. These pervasive scenarios would allow animals to play by themselves or with a human, providing more engaging and dynamic playful activities that are capable of adapting over time.Pons Tomás, P. (2018). Towards Intelligent Playful Environments for Animals based on Natural User Interfaces [Tesis doctoral no publicada]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/113075TESISCompendi