Modelling Physical Activity in Virtual Reality Games

This thesis was inspired by the possibility that virtual reality (VR) games, which are designed primarily to be fun, could also provide exercise. It aimed to gain insights about this by exploring whether people can gain beneficial levels of exercise while playing VR games and how they might use VR games for exercise over several weeks. Furthermore, this work also focuses on how the level of physical activity that can be captured during gameplay and how a long-term user model can be created for individual players, as a foundation for supporting the user in gaining personal informatics insights about their exertion as well as being used for personalisation and external recommendation for VR games. The key contributions of this research are: • The first study of a diverse set of commercial VR games to gain insights about the level of actual and perceived exertion players have. • The first long-term study of VR games in a sedentary workplace to gain insights about the ways people utilise it and the levels of exertion they gain. • Based on reflections on the above studies, this thesis presents a framework and guidelines for designing physical activity VR games. • The systematic creation of a user model for representing a person’s long-term fitness and their VR gameplay, exertion and preferences. • A study of the ways that people can scrutinise their long-term personal informatics user model of exertion from VR game play and incidental walking. These contributions provide a foundation for future researchers and industry practitioners to design VR games that provide beneficial levels of exertion and allow people to gain insights into the relative contribution of the exercise from gameplay

Custom-designed motion-based games for older adults: a review of literature in human-computer interaction

Many older adults, particularly persons living in senior residences and care homes, lead sedentary lifestyles, which reduces their life expectancy. Motion-based video games encourage physical activity and might be an opportunity for these adults to remain active and engaged; however, research efforts in the field have frequently focused on younger audiences and little is known about the requirements and benefits of motion-based games for elderly players. In this paper, we present an overview of motion-based video games and other interactive technologies for older adults. First, we summarize existing approaches towards the definition of motion-based video games – often referred to as exergames – and suggest a categorization of motion-based applications into active video games, exergames, and augmented sports. Second, we use this scheme to classify case studies addressing design efforts particularly directed towards older adults. Third, we analyze these case studies with a focus on potential target audiences, benefits, challenges in their deployment, and future design opportunities to investigate whether motion-based video games can be applied to encourage physical activity among older adults. In this context, special attention is paid to evaluation routines and their implications regarding the deployment of such games in the daily lives of older adults. The results show that many case studies examine isolated aspects of motion-based game design for older adults, and despite the broad range of issues in motion-based interaction for older adults covered by the sum of all research projects, there appears to be a disconnect between laboratory-based research and the deployment of motion-based video games in the daily lives of senior citizens. Our literature review suggests that despite research results suggesting various benefits of motion-based play for older adults, most work in the field of game design for senior citizens has focused on the implementation of accessible user interfaces, and that little is known about the long-term deployment of video games for this audience, which is a crucial step if these games are to be implemented in activity programs of senior residences, care homes, or in therapy

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

DESIGNING BETTER EXERGAMES: APPLICATION OF FLOW CONCEPTS AND THE FITT PRINCIPLE TO FULL BODY EXERTION VIDEO GAMES AND FLEXIBLE CHALLENGE SYSTEMS

Exercise video games have a recognized potential for widespread use as tools for effective exercise. Current exergames do not consistently strike a successful balance between the “fun gameplay” and “effective exercise” aspects of the ideal exergame. Our research into the design of better exergames applies existing gameflow research and established exercise guidelines, such as those published by the American College of Sports Medicine, to a collection of four custom exergames: Astrojumper, Washboard, Sweet Harvest and Legerdemain implement full-body motion mechanics that support different types of exercise, and vary in intended duration of play, game complexity, and level of physical challenge. Each game also implements a difficulty adjustment system that detects player performance from in-game data and dynamically adjusts game difficulty, in order to balance between a player’s fitness level and the physical challenge presented by the game. We have evaluated the games produced by our design approach through a series of user studies on players’ physiological and psychological responses to gameplay, finding that balance between challenge types (cognitive or physical) is an important consideration along with challenge-skill balance, and further, that game mechanics able to support creativity of movement are an effective means of bridging between gameplay and exercise in order to improve the player experience

Closing the loop in exergaming - Health benefits of biocybernetic adaptation in senior adults

Exergames help senior players to get physically active by promoting fun and enjoyment while exercising. However, most exergames are not designed to produce recommended levels of exercise that elicit adequate physical responses for optimal training in the aged population. In this project, we developed physiological computing technologies to overcome this issue by making real-time adaptations in a custom exergame based on recommendations for targeted heart rate (HR) levels. This biocybernetic adaptation was evaluated against conventional cardiorespiratory training in a group of active senior adults through a floor-projected exergame and a smartwatch to record HR data. Results showed that the physiologically-augmented exergame leads players to exert around 40% more time in the recommended HR levels, compared to the conventional training, avoiding over exercising and maintaining good enjoyment levels. Finally, we made available our biocybernetic adaptation software tool to enable the creation of physiological adaptive videogames, permitting the replication of our study.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Tailoring a psychophysiologically driven rating system

Humans have always been interested in ways to measure and compare their performances to establish who is best at a particular activity. The first Olympic Games, for instance, were carried out in 776 BC, and it was a defining moment in history where ranking based competitive activities managed to reach the general populous. Every competition must face the issue of how to evaluate and rank competitors, and often rules are required to account for many different aspects such as variations in conditions, the ability to cheat, and, of course, the value of entertainment. Nowadays, measurements are performed out through various rating systems, which considers the outcomes of the activity to rate the participants. However, they do not seem to address the psychological aspects of an individual in a competition. This dissertation employs several psychophysiological assessment instruments intending to facilitate the acquisition of skill level rating in competitive gaming. To do so, an exergame that uses non-conventional inputs, such as body tracking to prevent input biases, was developed. The sample size of this study is ten, and the participants were put on a round-robin tournament to provide equal intervals between games for each player. After analyzing the outcome of the competition, it revealed some critical insights on the psychophysiological instruments; Especially the significance of Flow in terms of the prolificacy of a player. Although the findings did not provide an alternative for the traditional rating systems, it shows the importance of considering other aspects of the competition, such as psychophysiological metrics to fine-tune the rating. These potentially reveal more in-depth insight into the competition in comparison to just the binary outcome

Running App "Zombies, Run!" Users' Engagement with Physical Activity: A Qualitative Study

Introduction: Sufficient physical activity (PA) is important for all aspects of health. Smartphone apps and the use of gamification, such as narrative-based augmented reality (AR), have a great potential to engage a variety of people in more PA. Zombies, Run! (ZR) is the world's most popular running exergame app and therefore a suitable model to understand what users find engaging. / Objective: To understand people's motivation and experience of using a narrative-based AR exergame app ZR for PA. / Materials and Methods: ZR users were randomly selected for interview from a quantitative ZR user's survey. Interviews which were guided by a semistructured topic guide were audio-recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using inductive and deductive thematic analysis. / Results: Participants were 15 males and 15 females aged 16–53 years (mean = 36, SD = 10), from 13 countries, with the largest proportions from the United States (30%) and United Kingdom (23%). The majority (73%) used ZR while running, followed by cycling and walking. Four overarching themes that emerged were: “Reasons for starting and staying with ZR,” “Preferred features,” “Perceived effects of ZR,” and “Pros and cons of the app.” Sixteen subthemes included the attraction of gamification and narrative appeal, desire to add something fun to PA, or to distract from the negative physiological effects of PA. Users' favorite features were the feelings of immersion and presence through narrative, story line, and characters. The narrative motivated participants to engage in PA for longer sessions and encouraged long-term use. / Conclusions: This study identified a number of factors that users found attractive in an AR running exergame, particularly narrative. Our findings suggest that ZR may engage people in exercise by modifying their perception of PA through a story line or narrative, dissociating the players from the effort of exertion. AR narrative-based apps may be an effective way of engaging people with health-related behaviors or habit-forming activities

Home is the new gym: Exergame as a potential tool to maintain adequate fitness levels also during quarantine

Purpose. With the coronavirus outbreak, the preventive measures include staying at home and isolation, increasing sedentary behaviours and risk for worsening of chronic diseases. To explore alternative forms of home-based physical activity, the study aim was to evaluate physiological (heart rate [HR], respiratory exchange ratio [RER], oxygen consumption [ O2], energy expenditure [EE], metabolic equivalent task [MET]) and psychological (session rating of perceived exertion [sRPE], enjoyment) parameters of real (Zumba® class [ZC]) and exergame (Zumba® Fitness Rush [ZFR]) activities in relation to sex. Methods. Overall, 12 female (age: 24.7 ± 0.9 years) and 8 male (age: 25.3 ± 2.1 years) college students randomly performed 2 experimental 60-min sessions, ZC and ZFR, during which HR (expressed as percentage of individual maximal HR [%HRmax]), O2, RER, MET and EE were measured. After each session, sRPE and Physical Activity Enjoyment Scale (PACES) were used to monitor exercise intensity and enjoyment, respectively. Results. Main effects for sex (p = 0.02) and modality (p < 0.0001) emerged for %HRmax, with women showing higher values than men and ZC showing higher values than ZFR. EE presented main effects for sex (p < 0.0001) and modality (p = 0.0002), with higher values in men and in ZC. Main effect (p = 0.0001) for modality emerged also for O2 and MET, with higher values in ZC regardless of sex. No significant differences were observed for RER, sRPE, or PACES. Conclusions. Although ZC elicited higher cardiovascular and metabolic responses, ZFR, classified as a moderate-to-vigorous activity, could be used to maintain regular physical activity in a safe home environment during the coronavirus crisis