Byung-Chull Bae

Evaluating musical foreshadowing of videogame narrative experiences

We experiment with mood-expressing, procedurally generated music for narrative foreshadowing in videogames, investigating the relationship between music and the players experience of narrative events in a game. We designed and conducted a user study in which the games music expresses true foreshadowing in some trials (e.g. foreboding music before a negative event) and false foreshadowing in others (e.g. happy music that does not lead to a positive event). We observed players playing the game, recorded analytics data, and had them complete a survey upon completion of the gameplay. Thirty undergraduate and graduate students participated in the study. Statistical analyses suggest that the use of musical cues for narrative foreshadowing induces a better perceived consistency between music and game narrative. Surprisingly, false foreshadowing was found to enhance the players enjoyment.

People's Emotional Responses to a Plant's Emotional Expression

In this paper we investigate how people emotionally respond to the emotional expression of a plant when external stimuli were given to the plant. For this purpose we built a simple LED emoticon-based device as an emotional proxy for delivering inner states of a plant, assuming the inner states of a plant can be changed depending on either positive or negative external stimuli. Our pilot study suggests that peoples attitude on plants can be influenced by observing the emotional expressions of a plant.

A database-centric architecture for interactive storytelling

In this study, we propose a system design for interactive narrative generation which uses database for information exchange among system sub-modules. We present database schema design and a simple example to show how our approach works. We conclude with our future work.

DenTeach: A Device for Fostering Children's Good Tooth-brushing Habits

In this paper we present DenTeach, a smart brush with a doll-shaped tangible device. We designed and to foster childrens good tooth brushing habits by explicitly showing the effect of their tooth brushing on the teeth of a physical avatar in real time. A pilot study conducted with 15 children (ages between 6 and 12) shows that there was possibly positive change of their attitudes to tooth brushing and motivations for tooth brushing when they brushed their teeth with DenTeach. As future work, we plan to develop a smartphone app that interacts with DenTeach so that the children users can constantly check their tooth brushing habits with more fun.

Slowee : A Smart Eating-Speed Guide System with Light and Vibration Feedback

In this paper we introduce Slowee, a smart eating-speed guide system with light and vibration. Slowee aims to improve the users eating habits by delivering right feedback in real time to the user while eating. We designed and implemented our system, Slowee, and conducted a pilot study to investigate the usability of Slowee and obtain feedbacks from the users. Although the number of the participants is rather small (n=10), the participants gave positive feedbacks on the potentials of Slowee. We expect that our device can help maintaining appropriate eating speed and chewing numbers for patients (e.g., those who have undergone esophageal resection) as well as for those who eat fast or chew less than the recommended number of times. As future work, we plan to conduct a long-term period study to evaluate the effectiveness of Slowee on the formation of an eating habit beyond immediate action improvements.

A Feedback System for the Prevention of Forward Head Posture in Sedentary Work Environments

In this paper we introduce a feedback system for the prevention of forward head posture in sedentary work environments. Our system aims to promote the user to maintain good posture by delivering a real-time feedback when the user poses forward head postures particularly sitting at the desk. We designed and developed a visual feedback system using a 3D camera and a simple pop-up notification window. The results of a pilot study with 14 participants show that the visual feedback using a pop-up window made a positive influence on the user for preventing his or her forward head posture.

Planning with applications to quests and story

Most games include some form of narrative. Like other aspects of game content, stories can be generated. In this chapter, we discuss methods for generating stories, mostly using planning algorithms. Algorithms that search in plan space and those that search in state space can both be useful here. We also present a method for generating stories and corresponding game worlds together.

Exergame Development Using Body Composition Data for Obesity Care

This study proposes an exergame for personal obesity management. This project called H-Run is implemented with a focus on exercise inducement for obese people. In this study, we particularly focus on aerobic exercises among the many obesity management exercise methods and develop them for enjoyment indoors. H-Run generates an avatar in the game by using the players body composition data. Using the avatar reflecting his/her body type information, the player runs around the in-game spaces constructed on the basis of the actual environment. After finishing the game, the player can check the result of his/her actual exercises, and in the long term, the player can identify the body shape changes identical to those in the real environment. A pilot study showed that our H-Run game can potentially induce the players to exercise.

Experiment on Emotional Exchange Method through Phone Stack Game

The purpose of this study is to identify the degree of direct human communication that is replaced by smartphone-based Social Networking Services (SNSs). To this end, we designed a device for intuitively playing a Phone Stack Game, and performed comparative analysis by examining the conditions before and after installation of the device through videos. Through the analytic results, we confirmed that direct emotional exchange is reduced by more than half when smartphones are used. This study is significant because it confirms that smartphones are replacing an existing emotional exchange method and that their effects are considerable.

Towards the Utilization of Diegetic UI in Virtual Reality Educational Content

In this paper we introduce our ongoing VR learning program for fjord that can enhance the user’s sense of immersion using the diegetic UI in virtual reality environment. Fjord is a typical example of glacier terrain, which is not very well known to our target users - junior high school students. As a method to naturally enhance the sense of immersion, we focus on the natural progression of the immersion senses by avoiding the use of non–diegetic UI (e.g., explicit head-up display menus) and employing the diegetic UI (such as the involvement of story characters who are helping the story progression, the use of props and interactable objects, and sound effects that can provide clues and aid in the process) in virtual reality environment.