Amber Choo

A Field Study: Evaluating Gamification Approaches for Promoting Physical Activity with Motivational Models of Behavior Changes

Wearable trackers and mobile applications can facilitate self-reflection of doing physical activity. The gamification process incorporates game design elements with persuasive systems in order to encourage more physical activity. However, few gamification strategies have been rigorously evaluated; these investigations showed that using the same gamification mechanism to promote physical activity could have contradictory effects. Therefore, I developed FitPet, a virtual pet-keeping mobile game for encouraging activity. I evaluated its effectiveness, and compared it with the goal-setting and social community strategies in a six-week field study. The findings revealed social interaction were the most effective intervention. Contrary to prior research, goal-setting was not perceived as an effective way to provide motivation compared to social interaction overall. Although FitPet was not able to promote significantly higher activity, participants showed great interests in this approach and provided design insights for future research: implementing social components and more challenging gameplay.

Virtual mindfulness meditation: Virtual reality and electroencephalography for health gamification

Mindfulness practices have been shown to improve various health related aspects of patient lifestyles including the reduction of depressive relapse in those who suffer from depression [4] and reduction of perceived pain in chronic pain patients [3]. Mindfulness meditation has also been shown to reduce stress and encourage relaxation [10] which is naturally beneficial for many demographics, including those with low life satisfaction [1]. This paper outlines an attempt to translate learning outcomes of mindfulness practice with gamification into educational software. The software provides immersive virtual environments and guided meditation tracks to catalyze mindfulness learning practices. It also supports electroencephalography (EEG) data collection to monitor the affective states of participants, which allows the software to provide visual feedback in real-time. Its design is heavily influenced by gamification strategies and contemporary game design practices in order to encourage persistent training behaviors in participants over longer periods of time.

The Design of an Immersive Mobile Virtual Reality Serious Game in Cardboard Head-Mounted Display for Pain Management

Researchers have proved immersive Virtual Reality (VR) to be an effective method and non-pharmacological analgesic for distracting acute pain and chronic pain, and for reducing anxiety levels. VR has been developed and deployed in pain management contexts in medical settings for dental and medical procedures, as well to manage cancer and burn pain. Often, what patients are distracted by can typically be described as immersive VR games. Although this is promising, and although the cost of VR has dramatically fallen in the past few years, most VR systems are still comparatively expensive in terms of accessibility for patients in their everyday contexts, such as at home or at work. For most patients — especially chronic pain patients — it is important that pain-related VR is accessible when it is needed, or “just” needed. However, the so-called Cardboard VR is affordable enough for everyday use. It provides a low-cost stereoscopic display that patients attached to smartphones. Therefore, a mobile VR game has been designed, developed and tested for this purpose. This paper describes the game design and game mechanics of Cryoblast, a mobile VR game for self-managing pain. We introduce the design of the gameplay and pain metaphors, and believe it will inspire more mobile VR games for healthcare.

Virtual Reality and Mobius Floe: Cognitive Distraction as Non-Pharmacological Analgesic for Pain Management

This paper outlines the intentions and current design behind the production of Mobius Floe, an immersive virtual reality game catered to acute and chronic pain patients. Researchers have shown that immersive virtual reality (VR) can serve as a non-pharmacological analgesic by inducing cognitive distraction in acute pain patients [Hoffman 2000]. Mobius Floe experiments with virtual reality as well as auditory immersion, a more experimental approach to cognitive distraction for pain relief; the results will be tested by acute as well as chronic pain patients to determine if chronic sufferers can benefit from similar VR practices as their acute counterparts. Mobius Floe’s game design is informed by contemporary game design theory and cognitive psychology in order to improve its distractive properties.

Immersive virtual reality and affective computing for gaming, fear and anxiety management

Video game developers are enthusiastic about creating novel interaction approaches that yield a better gaming experience; such interactions are usually built with physical and emotional immersion in mind. Technologies such as Wii®, Kinect®, and Playstation Move® focus on the physical movement of play to encourage seamless and natural behaviors during gameplay. On the other hand, technologies such as biofeedback are not yet being utilized to any large degree in the commercial industry and could be used to gain further knowledge of players behavior and emotions. Biofeedback refers to technologies that provide awareness of human physiological functions through signals in order to control a system or improve those functions. This technology was primarily developed for clinical purposes to treat diseases such as headaches, high blood pressure, and epilepsy. The patients obtain the skill to control functions associated with aforementioned diseases by being exposed to equipment that measures and displays their bodily functions such as brain waves, heart rate, and galvanic skin response (GSR). This enables them to observe those senses through visualization and exert control over their physiological response over time.

The Virtual Meditative Walk: An Immersive Virtual Environment for Pain Self-modulation Through Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Meditation

One in five people in North America experience chronic pain. The primary non-pharmacological approach to treat chronic pain is to ‘manage’ pain by practices like Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Meditation. Previous research shows the potential of mindfulness meditation to help foster patients’ emotional wellbeing and pain self-modulation. Thus, the Virtual Reality (VR) system named “Virtual Meditative Walk” (VMW) was developed to help patients direct their attention inward through mindfulness meditation, which incorporates biofeedback sensors, an immersive virtual environment, and stereoscopic sound. It was specifically designed to help patients to learn MBSR meditation by providing real-time feedback, and to provide further training reinforcement. VMW enables patients to manage their chronic pain by providing real-time immersive visual signals and sonic feedback, which are mapped to their physiological biofeedback data. In the proof-of-concept study, this combination of immersive VR and MBSR meditation pain self-modulation technique proved to be effective for managing chronic pain.

A mixed-methods evaluation of nonverbal communication in collaborative video games

In order to explore the benefits of communication in complex settings such as work and home environments, it is important to have a firm understanding of how communication operates in a relatively controllable system, such as video games. This paper aims to evaluate the impact of nonverbal communication on success during collaborative gameplay using both qualitative observations of and quantitative gameplay data from players of the custom-designed application TeamWyrm. In so doing, it encourages a discussion of nonverbal communications role in gameplay, the forms of nonverbal communication displayed during gameplay, and how the availability of nonverbal communication affects player performance.

‘Weather’ Wearable System: A Design Exploration to Facilitate the Collaboration and Communication with Chronic Pain Patients

Unpredictable spikes in pain intensity can easily interrupt the lives of chronic pain patients. The uncertainty of when these painful experiences will occur inhibits positive communications and collaborations with friends, families or co-workers in daily life. In this paper, the authors explore an affective design space for developing a wearable technology piece using real-time biofeedback monitoring capabilities. The intent of the device is to mitigate chronic pain patients’ pain uncertainty in order to facilitate daily collaborations between the worker who lives with chronic pain and co-workers through social signaling. This exploratory design process, including the wearable system organization and presentation rationale, was developed in participatory design collaboration with target users: a chronic pain patient and people she works with in an academic workplace context. After three iterations, two prototypes were developed; each addresses the control of privacy and information sharing issues. In future work, appropriate evaluation methods will be explored and the iterative design prototype also will be improved based on user feedback. The long-term goal is to improve the wearable’s applicability in a variety of social contexts, and applicability for other chronic conditions.

Fraternal feelings: How brothers: A tale of two sons affects players through gameplay

Video games are well known for their interactive aspects. Through gameplay, players are given options to control characters, perform actions, and make decisions. These interactions typically impact a players degree of success at the game. In games with characters and narratives, the interactions might even inform the player of character traits and abilities. Close-reading reveals how Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons steps further down this path by having the player control two characters at the same time. Interactive elements illuminate and distinguish the two protagonists for the player, contributing to the effectiveness of the games conclusion. Additionally, the unique intertwining of narrative and interaction design has implications for games as an artistic and story-driven medium.

Serious indie games for social awareness: gamifying human characters with disabilities

By avoiding holistic and accurate portrayals of the physical limitations of human beings, contemporary games ultimately fail to acknowledge the more marginalized qualities of humankind in their characters. For example, we often see idealized human heroes who require no food, water or sleep in games from all generations, such as the majority of characters in first person shooters (FPS), role-playing games (RPG) and action adventure games. Such characters shrug off extreme bodily damage and are almost always in perfect mental health. 3=3 aims to expand the definition of what it means to experience the journey of an ideal protagonist through the realization and development of three characters, each of whom have an individualized disability or impairment. Inspired by games with proven design frameworks, game mechanics and user experiences, their journey together to survive a contemporary disaster scenario becomes a memorable experience of emotive and relational understanding. 3=3 aims to encourage a positive shift in the way gamers understand and perceive the embodied experiences that manifest from the addressed disability demographics, not only in virtual characters, but in real life encounters. Additionally, the success of 3=3 would invoke new perceptions in regards to how notable characters can be portrayed, encouraging game designers to consider more realistic, inclusive portrayals.