CARDIORESPIRATORY FITNESS, ACTIVITY LEVEL, HEALTH-RELATED ANTHROPOMETRIC VARIABLES, SEDENTARY BEHAVIOUR AND SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS IN A SAMPLE OF IRANIAN 7-11 YEAR OLD BOYS

The purpose of this study was to evaluate cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF), activity level, some health-related anthropometric variables, sedentary behaviour and socioeconomic status (SES) of 7-11 year old boys in the city of Ardabil, Iran. Of 21 253 school boys aged 7-11 years, 766 participated in this study using the cluster sampling method. Subjects underwent standard anthropometry. One-mile test was used to evaluate ·VO2max. BMI cut-off points were used to identify weight status. Child’s TV watching and video playing daily time (TVVPT) was taken for sedentary behaviour evaluation. SES and activity level were measured by standard questionnaires. Of all participants, 8.9�0(N=68) of students had CRF lower than normal and 58.6�0(N=449) of them had inadequate physical activity. There was a significant adverse relationship between ·VO2max and body mass index (BMI), waist to height ratio (WHtR), waist circumference (WC), and fat mass (FM) (p<0.05). A significant direct association between SES and both FM and TVVPT was observed (p<0.05). Significantly lower physical activity and ·VO2max, and higher TVVPT were observed in the obese boys than their counterparts (p<0.05). The results of this study indicated a significant relationship between CRF and physical activity, and health-related anthropometric variables in a selected sample of 7-11 year boys. Moreover, the obese subjects had not only lower physical activity but also longer sedentary behaviour time than their counterparts

BatSight: Efficient Sonification Techniques to Map Environmental Information into Audio Cues in Audio Augmented Reality Games

By using sound to visualize the real-world environment, audio games can offer a completely new game experience. In this paper, we study how audio cues can be visualized in computer games to enhance the navigation skills of players. To this end, we propose an audio game in which blindfolded players move through a physical maze with the help of audio cues. To realize this game, a sonar headset is designed and built based on ultrasonic sensors, which maps the external environment features into musical sounds. The game is played in a real-world environment and uses an augmented reality approach as it adds virtual sounds to the real world. The gaming environment of this game is a physical maze, where the blindfolded players enter the maze while wearing the sonar headset. A user study was conducted to evaluate the effect of using different sound mapping techniques on navigation performance and playing experience in the game proposed in this paper. The results show that producing musical sound can lead to better navigation performance, game experience, and immersion in players

Play with one’s feelings: a study on emotion awareness for player experience

Summarization: Affective interaction between players of video games can elicit rich and varying patterns of emotions. In multiplayer activities that take place in a common space (such as sports and board games), players are generally aware of the emotions of their teammates or opponents as they can directly observe their behavioral patterns, facial expressions, head pose, body stance, and so on. Players of online video games, however, are not generally aware of the other players’ emotions given the limited channels of direct interaction among them (e.g., via emojis or chat boxes). It also turns out that the impact of real-time emotion-awareness on play is still unexplored in the space of online digital games. Motivated by this lack of empirical knowledge on the role of the affect of others to one’s gameplay performance, in this article, we investigate the degrees to which the expression of manifested emotions of an opponent can affect the emotions of the player and consequently his gameplay behavior. In this initial study, we test our hypothesis on a two-player adversarial car racing game. We perform a comprehensive user study to evaluate the emotions, behaviors, and attitudes of players in emotion aware versus emotion agnostic game versions. Our findings suggest that expressing the emotional state of the opponent through an emoji in real-time affects the emotional state and behavior of players that can consequently affect their playing experience.Παρουσιάστηκε στο: IEEE Transactions on Game