Cognition, technology and games for the elderly: An introduction to ELDERGAMES Project

Eldergames is a EU-funded project to develop games using advanced visualisation and interaction interfaces to improve the cognitive, functional and social skills of older users. The project merges two major areas to which technology for elderly people is applied: health and social engagement. Its platform will allow users to improve their cognitive skills and individual well-being by playing on a mixed-reality platform; in addition, it will offer the unusual experience of communicating with people located in other countries without the need to share the same language. After introducing the field of gerontology and the project, this paper describes the main cognitive abilities that change with aging (perception, attention, memory, and other more specific processes such as decision-making), and that have to be taken into account while designing a technology for elderly people. Some guidelines that are specifically meant to ensure usability of these products are listed in the conclusions

Effects of Social Conditions in a Virtual Exergame for Cognitive Rehabilitation in Multiple Sclerosis

Rehabilitation is essential for individuals with multiple sclerosis (MS) to improve their quality of life and mitigate the progression of the disease. Cognitive deficits, which commonly affect MS patients, significantly impact daily functioning and well-being. This paper focuses on the development of a digital version of the Tangram puzzle using virtual reality (VR) to promote logical reasoning, attention, and social interactions to enhance engagement in cognitive rehabilitation for MS patients. The developed simulation integrates social presence in the form of a non-playable character (NPC) intending to improve player performance and motivation to ultimately promote engagement and adherence to treatment. A user study involving different game modes with the NPC in either a supporting or interfering role, was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness and usability of the Tangram VR exergame. After collecting and analyzing questionnaire scores and performance data, our results suggest that the application was well-received by users, and the introduction of an NPC had an impact in terms of execution times and sense of frustration, depending on its behaviour. Nonetheless, only a limited set of significant differences between modes was found, suggesting that further study is necessary to validate the results fully

Video gaming and sleep in adults: A systematic review

Video games (VGs) are one of the most common forms of entertainment and their diffusion is constantly increasing. Although largely studied in the framework of their relationship with mental and physical health, the relationship of VGs with sleep are not yet fully understood. This review provides a systematic assessment of the studies that investigated the relationships between video gaming and sleep in adults. The review search included both online databases (PubMed, Scopus, and PsycInfo) and citation tracking. Twenty-six studies were included in the final qualitative analysis. Findings are described separately for subjective and objective sleep measures and then discussed considering exposure levels and VG typology. Observational studies showed an association between excessive video gaming, poor sleep quality, and delayed sleep timing, whereas habitual and/or casual use was not associated with poor sleep and some studies even showed a beneficial effect on daytime functioning. Experimental evidence shows that playing an arousing VG before sleep delays sleep onset with possible alteration of sleep structure, whereas non-arousing cognitively challenging video gaming resulted in improved sleep continuity, stability, and organization. Overall, these findings show that the effect of VGs on sleep depends on the level of arousal associated with gaming, gaming sessions’ duration, and frequency of gaming

Beyond Digital Twins: Phygital Twins for Neuroergonomics in Human-Robot Interaction

International audienc

A Serious Game for Using Socio-Economic and Trust Based Decision-Making Scenarios for Elicitation of Emotional Responses

The relationship between Decision-Making and emotions has been investigated in literature both through theoretical and empirical research. Particularly, some paradigms have been defined, rooted in the Game Theory, that use socio-economic and/or trust based contexts to produce specific emotional responses in people. However, experiments with such game paradigms have most frequently been carried out in controlled settings only. As these methods have a potential usefulness in a variety of areas, we are interested in verifying their applicability “in the wild”. To this end, we have developed a mobile game that integrates in a single plot four of the above mentioned socio-economic and trustbased game paradigms and aims at eliciting specific types and valences of emotions in different interactions. The paper discusses the outcomes of an experiment we carried out with eight participants in order to preliminarily test the usability of our game in authentic contexts of use. The results confirm that the designed game interactions are able to elicit emotional responses in the participants, also in ecological settings, that were expected based on the literature

Applications of Serious Games as Affective Disorder Therapies in Autistic and Neurotypical Individuals: A Literature Review

Affective disorders can greatly influence the everyday lives of neurotypical and autistic individuals. As platforms that promote engagement, computer-based serious games (CSGs) have been previously proposed as therapies to treat affective disorders for both populations. However, these CSGs were assessed on a wide variety of experimental conditions, and there is a lack of comparative studies on their effectiveness. In this study, we identified and analyzed 37 interventions of CSGs for affective disorders in autistic and neurotypical individuals from 507 initial search results from four databases (Embase, Scopus, Web Of Science and IEEE Xplore), using concepts such as 'serious-games', 'affective-disorders', 'autism' and 'neurotypical'. A total of 21 different CSGs were identified that were evaluated with 30 different outcome measures in the reviewed interventions. A positive impact was reported in 22 of them; specifically, all instances of depression interventions reported a positive impact of CSG therapies. Our comparative analysis indicates that CSG applications could be effective in treating affective disorders in autistic and neurotypical individuals. Additionally, our analysis identifies CSG design characteristics that might be useful in applications involving depression, anxiety and phobias. Based on these characteristics, we provide a set of recommendations for CSG interventions for affective disorder therapies