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

Inform to Perform: Using Domain Analysis to Explore Amateur Athlete Information Resources and Behaviour

Sporting information has been relatively unexamined in library and information science (LIS) literature with most research concentrating on collection management or archival functions. User studies in LIS have covered some aspects of outdoor recreation and hobbies, but only one study has been found explicitly researching amateur athletes. This project builds contributes a definition of sport as an information domain and an exploratory user study of amateur athletes. The research takes a socio-cognitive approach and uses domain analysis linked to serious leisure, information communication chain and information behaviour theories to provide the research context. These foundational theories are used to define sport as an information domain more formally, noting both degrees of specialisation within it and intersections with related disciplines. Four domain analysis approaches are then used to illustrate the potential of the approach for researching different dimensions within the domain. Three of these approaches involve desk research into different aspects of amateur sport information. By discussing the role of documents, computer science and discourses in sport these approaches show that sport is a multi-faceted and interdisciplinary domain with many topics of interest for the information researcher and practitioner. The fourth approach is a user study of athlete information behaviour that collected data on information sources, tasks and attitudes via an online questionnaire

Use of Emerging Technology as Part of the Experiential Learning Process in Ultradistance Cycling: A Phenomenological Study

Technology is well entrenched as part of our everyday lives and formal learning settings. The role technology plays as part of informal learning of sports and physical activities has not been explored as thoroughly. This study examined the use of technology by ultradistance cyclists as part of their experiential learning process. Data collection was through semi-structured interviews of 10 cyclists who routinely utilized technology in preparing for and participating in ultradistance events. Emerging themes were organized utilizing NVIVO software. While identified themes were similar to the phases of the Kolb (2014) experiential learning model, there was also a strong temporal component. Technology usage themes prior to an event included Abstract Conceptualization, Route Planning, and Training. Technology usage themes during an event included Active Experimentation, Concrete Experience, and Coping with Equipment, Mental, or Physical Challenges. A technology usage theme after an event included Reflective Observations. Participants also expressed preferences in technology characteristics; themes included Record and Display information, Easy to Use, Syncing Between Devices, and Reliability. Kolb and Kolb (2005) identified a number of features that enhanced informal experiential learning spaces in higher education. Technology could replicate these features to enhance the experiential learning process in ultradistance cycling

D3.1 Instructional Designs for Real-time Feedback

The main objective of METALOGUE is to produce a multimodal dialogue system that is able to implement an interactive behaviour that seems natural to users and is flexible enough to exploit the full potential of multimodal interaction. The METALOGUE system will be arranged in the context of educational use-case scenarios, i.e. for training active citizens (Youth Parliament) and call centre employees. This deliverable describes the intended real-time feedback and reflection in-action support to support the training. Real-time feedback informs learners how they perform key skills and enables them to monitor their progress and thus reflect in-action. This deliverable examines the theoretical considerations of reflection in-action, what type of data is available and should be used, the timing and type of real-time feedback and, finally, concludes with an instructional design blueprint giving a global outline of a set of tasks with stepwise increasing complexity and the feedback proposed.The underlying research project is partly funded by the METALOGUE project. METALOGUE is a Seventh Framework Programme collaborative project funded by the European Commission, grant agreement number: 611073 (http://www.metalogue.eu)

Enhancing the Quality and Motivation of Physical Exercise Using Real-Time Sonification

This research project investigated the use of real-time sonification as a way to improve the quality and motivation of biceps curl exercise among healthy young participants. A sonification system was developed featuring an elec- tromyography (EMG) sensor and Microsoft Kinect camera. During exercise, muscular and kinematic data were collected and sent to custom design sonifi- cation software developed using Max to generate real-time auditory feedback. The software provides four types of output sound in consideration of personal preference and long-term use. Three experiments were carried out. The pilot study examined the sonifi- cation system and gathered the users’ comments about their experience of each type of sound in relation to its functionality and aesthetics. A 3-session between-subjects test and an 8-session within-subjects comparative test were conducted to compared the exercise quality and motivation between two conditions: with and without the real-time sonification. Overall, several conclusions are drawn based on the experimental results: The sonification improved participants’ pace of biceps curl significantly. No significant effect was found for the effect on vertical movement range. Participants expended more effort in training with the presence of sonification. Analysis of sur- veys indicated a higher motivation and willingness when exercising with the sonification. The results reflect a wider potential for applications including general fitness, physiotherapy and elite sports training

The impacts of new technologies on physical activities: Based on fitness app use and fitness social media postings

Focusing on fitness app use and social context of fitness postings on social media, this study examined the implications of mHealth technologies use for fitness. This study explored descriptive information about respondents’ use of fitness apps such as self-monitoring, self-regulation, social facilitators, and rewards. Furthermore, respondents’ fitness posting experience was also explored. For respondents who saw others’ fitness posts, this study examined how viewers’ social comparison on fitness postings (upward and downward) related to their physical activity (PA) self-efficacy, motivation, and participation. For those who posted about their fitness information on social media, this study investigated fitness posters’ ways of self-presentation related to receiving supportive feedback, and how supportive feedback related to fitness posters’ PA motivation and participation. This study recruited fitness app users from a crowdsourcing internet marketplace. Quantitative data analysis examined the role of social comparison, self-presentation, and supportive feedback in respondents’ PA self-efficacy, motivation, and participation. The results revealed that people mostly used the fitness apps for physical activity-related self-monitoring and self-regulation. For those who engaged in upward social comparison tended to have more self-efficacy for PA, PA motivation, and therefore participated more in PA. Both positive and negative self-presenters received more supportive feedback from others. The more supportive feedback fitness posters received, the more self-efficacy for PA they had. The more self-efficacy for PA fitness posters had, the more PA motivation they had. The results also showed that people received more esteem support and emotional support from others when they positively presented their fitness on social media. Fitness posters with negative self-presentation received more emotional support and informational support