Game adaptivity impact on affective physical interaction

Adaptive human computer interaction is necessary for successfully closing the affective loop within intelligent interactive systems. This paper investigates the impact of adaptivity on the physiological state and the expressed emotional preferences of users. A physical interactive game is used as a test-bed system and its real-time adaptation mechanism is evaluated using a survey experiment. Results reveal that entertainment preferences expressed are consistent with the affective model constructed and that adaptation generates dissimilar physiological responses with respect to preferences.peer-reviewe

Designing interactive virtual environments with feedback in health applications.

One of the most important factors to influence user experience in human-computer interaction is the user emotional reaction. Interactive environments including serious games that are responsive to user emotions improve their effectiveness and user satisfactions. Testing and training for user emotional competence is meaningful in healthcare field, which has motivated us to analyze immersive affective games using emotional feedbacks. In this dissertation, a systematic model of designing interactive environment is presented, which consists of three essential modules: affect modeling, affect recognition, and affect control. In order to collect data for analysis and construct these modules, a series of experiments were conducted using virtual reality (VR) to evoke user emotional reactions and monitoring the reactions by physiological data. The analysis results lead to the novel approach of a framework to design affective gaming in virtual reality, including the descriptions on the aspects of interaction mechanism, graph-based structure, and user modeling. Oculus Rift was used in the experiments to provide immersive virtual reality with affective scenarios, and a sample application was implemented as cross-platform VR physical training serious game for elderly people to demonstrate the essential parts of the framework. The measurements of playability and effectiveness are discussed. The introduced framework should be used as a guiding principle for designing affective VR serious games. Possible healthcare applications include emotion competence training, educational softwares, as well as therapy methods

Integrating the strengths of cognitive emotion models with traditional HCI analysis tools

This paper reports an attempt to integrate key concepts from cognitive models of emotion to cognitive models of interaction established in HCI literature. The aim is to transfer the strengths of interaction models to analysis of affect-critical systems in games, e-commerce and education, thereby increasing their usefulness in these systems where affect is increasingly recognised as a key success factor. Concepts from Scherer’s appraisal model and stimulation evaluation checks, along with a framework of emotion contexts proposed by Coulson (An everything but framework for modelling emotion. In proceeding of AAAI spring symposium on architectures for emotion, 2004), are integrated into the cycle of display-based action proposed by Norman (The design of everyday things. Basic Books, New York, 1988). Norman’s action cycle has commonly been applied as an interaction analysis tool in the field of HCI. In the wake of the recent shift of emphasis to user experience, the cognition-based action cycle is deemed inadequate to explicate affective experiences, such as happiness, joy and surprise. Models based on appraisal theories, focusing on cognitive accounts of emotion, are more relevant to understanding the causes and effects of feelings arising from interacting with digital artefacts. The paper explores the compatibility between these two genres of model, and future development of integrated analysis tools

Integrating the strengths of cognitive emotion models with traditional HCI analysis tools

This paper reports an attempt to integrate key concepts from cognitive models of emotion to cognitive models of interaction established in HCI literature. The aim is to transfer the strengths of interaction models to analysis of affect-critical systems in games, e-commerce and education, thereby increasing their usefulness in these systems where affect is increasingly recognised as a key success factor. Concepts from Scherer’s appraisal model and stimulation evaluation checks, along with a framework of emotion contexts proposed by Coulson (An everything but framework for modelling emotion. In proceeding of AAAI spring symposium on architectures for emotion, 2004), are integrated into the cycle of display-based action proposed by Norman (The design of everyday things. Basic Books, New York, 1988). Norman’s action cycle has commonly been applied as an interaction analysis tool in the field of HCI. In the wake of the recent shift of emphasis to user experience, the cognition-based action cycle is deemed inadequate to explicate affective experiences, such as happiness, joy and surprise. Models based on appraisal theories, focusing on cognitive accounts of emotion, are more relevant to understanding the causes and effects of feelings arising from interacting with digital artefacts. The paper explores the compatibility between these two genres of model, and future development of integrated analysis tools

A case study of intended versus actual experience of adaptivity in a tangible storytelling system

This article presents a case study of an adaptive, tangible storytelling sys- temcalled “The ReadingGlove”. The research addresses a gap in the field of adaptivity for ubiquitous systems by taking a critical look at the notion of “adaptivity” and how users experience it. The Reading Glove is an interactive storytelling system featur- ing a wearable, glove-based interface and a set of narratively rich objects. A tabletop display provides adaptive recommendations which highlight objects to select next, functioning as an expert storytelling system. The recommendation engine can be run in three different configurations to examine the effects of different adaptive methods. The study of the design process as well as the user experience of the Reading Glove allows us to develop a deeper understanding of the experience of adaptivity that is use- ful for designers of intelligent systems, particularly those with ubiquitous and tangible forms of interaction