Diving into a decade of games for health research: a systematic review

Recent years have been characterised by a rising interest in using enter tainment computing to monitor, maintain, and improve human health. This is observed in many systems and applications that leverage the benefits of a playful and enjoyable experience to provide a technology-enabled health intervention. This paper reviews one decade of papers (679) published at the intersection of health, entertainment and technology to determine trends, studies’ characteristics, type of solutions, domains of application and study purposes. Results show that there is a growing body of research in the area, with the majority of studies provid ing solutions for rehabilitation and addressing motor conditions related to stroke and/or fitness. Where half of the solutions reported are custom made, the bulk of those studies is performed with the purpose of evaluating the solutions pro posed or validating their efficacy. In 80% of the cases, the studies are performed with subjects from the target population with sample sizes that have been steadily increasing over the years.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Leveraging icebreaking tasks to facilitate uptake of voice communication in multiplayer games

Voice Communication (VC) is widely employed by developers as an essential component of online games. Typically, it is assumed that communications through this mechanism will be helpful and enjoyable, but existing literature suggests that the entry into VC can be problematic. In this paper, we present a study that attempts to mitigate player discomfort when first engaging with VC with strangers, through the use of traditional icebreaking tasks. We integrate these into the game RET, an online cooperative first person shooter which requires effective communication for players to succeed. An online user study with 18 participants suggests that icebreaking tasks can contribute to a positive VC experience, but their inclusion also creates further issues to be considered for successful integration

ME3CA - Monitoring environment exercise and emotion by a cognitive assistant

The elderly population has increased dramatically in today’s society. This fact implies the need to propose new policies of attention to this group but without increasing social spending. Currently, there is a need to promote the care of elderly people in their own homes, avoiding being transferred to saturated residences. Bearing this in mind, in recent years numerous approaches have tried to offer solutions in this sense using the continuous advances in new information and communication technologies. In this way, this article proposes the employment of a personal assistant to help the elderly in the development of their daily life activities. The proposed system, called ME3CA, is a cognitive assistant that involves users in rehabilitating exercise, consisting of a sensorization platform and different integrated decision-making mechanisms. The system tries to plan and recommend activities to older people trying to improve their physical activity. In addition, in the decision making process the assistant takes into account the emotions of the user. In this way, the system is more personalized and emotionally intelligent.- (undefined

A survey of cognitive assistants

Cognitive Assistants is a subset area of Personal Assistants focused on ubiquitous and pervasive platforms and services. They are aimed at elderly people’s needs, habits, and emotions by being dynamic, adaptive, sensitive, and responsive. These advances make cognitive assistants a true candidate of being used in real scenarios and help elderly people at home and outside environments. This survey will discuss the cognitive assistants’ emergence in order to provide a list of new projects being developed on this area. We summarize and enumerate the state-of-the-art projects. Moreover, we discuss how technology support the elderly affected by physical or mental disabilities or chronic diseases.Programa Operacional Temático Factores de Competitividade (UID/CEC/00319/2013

Games in Higher Education

International audienceThis entry presents an overview of how and why Learning Games are used in higher education.Learning Games can be defined as games that are designed to captivate the learners’ attention and facilitate their learning process. They have explicit educational purposes and can be used for teaching at all levels of education. All types of games can be used for learning: board games, card games, role-playing games, First Person Shooter games, simulation games, management games, puzzle games, treasure hunts…The main characteristic of Learning Games for higher education is the fact that they are designed to teach specific complex skills taught at university or during professional training programs. Unfortunately, it is not infrequent to observe strong opposition on the part of this target audience to this mode of learning, that these adult students associate with children.The use of Learning Games in primary school seems natural to teachers and is encouraged by specialists in didactics and neuroscience. This learning technique is much less frequently used in middle school and is almost completely absent from higher education. Yet teachers at all these levels are faced with the same problems, such as lack of motivation and investment, for which games are known to be an effective solution. This entry presents an overview of the games that can be used for higher education and the reasons why some teachers and students still show resistance to this type of learning. The numerous advantages of games for higher education will then be presented, citing games presently used in universities, in graduate schools and for professional training. Finally, thisDraft : Marfisi-Schottman I. (2019) Games in Higher Education. In: Tatnall A. (eds) Encyclopedia of Education and Information Technologies. Springer, Chamentry presents the current research questions that need to be addressed concerning the design of games for higher education and the acceptance of these games by teachers

Telepresence and the Role of the Senses

The telepresence experience can be evoked in a number of ways. A well-known example is a player of videogames who reports about a telepresence experience, a subjective experience of being in one place or environment, even when physically situated in another place. In this paper we set the phenomenon of telepresence into a theoretical framework. As people react subjectively to stimuli from telepresence, empirical studies can give more evidence about the phenomenon. Thus, our contribution is to bridge the theoretical with the empirical. We discuss theories of perception with an emphasis on Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty and Gibson, the role of the senses and the Spinozian belief procedure. The aim is to contribute to our understanding of this phenomenon. A telepresence-study that included the affordance concept is used to empirically study how players report sense-reactions to virtual sightseeing in two cities. We investigate and explore the interplay of the philosophical and the empirical. The findings indicate that it is not only the visual sense that plays a role in this experience, but all senses

The Influence of Perceptual Training on Working Memory in Older Adults

Normal aging is associated with a degradation of perceptual abilities and a decline in higher-level cognitive functions, notably working memory. To remediate age-related deficits, cognitive training programs are increasingly being developed. However, it is not yet definitively established if, and by what mechanisms, training ameliorates effects of cognitive aging. Furthermore, a major factor impeding the success of training programs is a frequent failure of training to transfer benefits to untrained abilities. Here, we offer the first evidence of direct transfer-of-benefits from perceptual discrimination training to working memory performance in older adults. Moreover, using electroencephalography to evaluate participants before and after training, we reveal neural evidence of functional plasticity in older adult brains, such that training-induced modifications in early visual processing during stimulus encoding predict working memory accuracy improvements. These findings demonstrate the strength of the perceptual discrimination training approach by offering clear psychophysical evidence of transfer-of-benefit and a neural mechanism underlying cognitive improvement

Digital game elements, user experience and learning

The primary aim of this paper is to identify and theoretically validate the relationships between core game design elements and mechanics, user motivation and engagement and consequently learning. Additionally, it tries to highlight the moderating role of player personality traits on learning outcomes and acceptance and suggest ways to incorporate them in the game design process. To that end, it outlines the role of narrative, aesthetics and core game mechanics in facilitating higher learning outcomes through intrinsic motivation and engagement. At the same time, it discusses how player goal orientation, openness to experience, conscientiousness, sensation seeking and need for cognition influence the translation of the gameplay experience into valuable learning outcomes and user acceptance of the technology

Using Evolutionary Algorithms to Target Complexity Levels in Game Economies

Game economies (GEs) describe how resources in games are created, transformed, or exchanged: They underpin most games and exist in different complexities. Their complexity may directly impact player difficulty. Nevertheless, neither difficulty nor complexity adjustment has been explored for GEs. Moreover, there is a lack of knowledge about complexity in GEs, how to define or assess it, and how it can be employed by automated adjustment approaches in game development to target specific complexity. We present a proof-of-concept for using evolutionary algorithms to craft targeted complexity graphs to model GEs. In a technical evaluation, we tested our first working definition of complexity in GEs. We then evaluated player-perceived complexity in a city-building game prototype through a user study and confirmed the generated GEs' complexity in an online survey. Our approach toward reliably creating GEs of specific complexity can facilitate game development and player testing but also inform and ground research on player perception of GE complexity

Amplifying teachers intelligence in the design of gamified intelligent tutoring systems

Researchers are increasingly interested in using gamification along with Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS) to motivate action, promote learning, facilitate problem-solving, and to drive desired learning behaviors. In fact, although the desire of teachers to be active users of gamified ITS, these systems are not personalized according to teachers’ preferences. Several research problems might arise when trying to empower teachers in the design of gamified ITS, for instance, the high complexity and variability of features to manage, the need to consider theories and design practices, and the need of providing simple and usable solutions for them. In this work, we propose a gamified ITS authoring tool that supports authoring (fully or partially) of the domain, gamification and pedagogical models of gamified ITS by teachers. We investigate how different versions of the tool are perceived by users assuming the role of teachers. Our results indicate a positive attitude towards the use of the authoring tool, in which participants agreed that they are easy to use, usable, simple, aesthetically appealing, have a well-perceived system support and high credibility