Hiroaki Shigemasu

Developing a Comprehensive Engagement Framework of Gamification for Reflective Learning

Engagement is a key reason for introducing gamification to learning and thus serves as an important measurement of its effectiveness. Based on a literature review and meta-synthesis, this paper proposes a comprehensive framework of engagement in gamification for learning. The framework sketches out the connections among gamification strategies, dimensions of engagement, and the ultimate learning outcome. It also elicits other task - and user - related factors that may potentially impact the effect of gamification on learner engagement. To verify and further strengthen the framework, we conducted a user study to demonstrate that: 1) different gamification strategies can trigger different facets of engagement; 2) the three dimensions of engagement have varying effects on skill acquisition and transfer; and 3) task nature and learner characteristics that were overlooked in previous studies can influence the engagement process. Our framework provides an in-depth understanding of the mechanism of gamification for learning, and can serve as a theoretical foundation for future research and design.

Audio-Vocal Monitoring System Revealed by Mu-Rhythm Activity

Understanding the neural mechanisms underlying speech production has a number of potential practical applications. Speech production involves multiple feedback loops. An audio-vocal monitoring system plays an important role in speech production, based on auditory feedback about the speaker’s own voice. Here we investigated the mu-rhythm activity associated with speech production by examining event-related desynchronization and synchronization in conditions of delayed auditory feedback (DAF) and noise feedback (Lombard). In Experiment 1, we confirmed that the mu-rhythms were detectable for a conventional finger-tapping task, and vocalization. In Experiment 2, we examined the mu-rhythms for imagined speech production. We tested whether the same motor-related mu-rhythm activity was exhibited while participants listened to their own voice, and while reading. The mu-rhythms were observed for overt vocalization and covert reading, while listening to simulated auditory feedback of the participants’ own voice reading text. In addition, we found that the mu-rhythm associated with listening was boosted and attenuated under the DAF and Lombard conditions, respectively. This is consistent with the notion that auditory feedback is important for the audio-vocal monitoring system in speech production. This paradigm may help clarify the way in which auditory feedback supports motor planning, as indexed by the motor-related mu-rhythm.

Effects of physical display size and amplitude of oscillation on visually induced motion sickness

Viewing environment is an important factor to understand the mechanism of visually induced motion sickness (VIMS). In Experiment 1, we investigated whether the symptom of VIMS changed depending on viewing angle and physical display size. Our results showed that larger viewing angle made the symptom of sickness severer and nausea symptom changed depending on physical display size with identical viewing angles. In Experiment 2, we investigated effects of viewing angle and amplitude of oscillation. The results showed that the effects of viewing angle were not only related to amplitude of oscillation but also to the other factors of viewing angle.

Control of eye-movement to decrease VE-sickness

One of well-known theories for motion sickness and VE (Virtual Environment) sickness is sensory conflict theory. In this paper, we investigated whether the conflict between actual (extra-retinal) eye-movement and visually-simulated (retinal) eye-movement affects the VE-sickness. In results, we found that VE-sickness was significantly decreased by the control of observers eye-movement with a stationary/moving fixation point. When the extra-retinal and retinal eye-movements were incongruent while the observers head was actively moving, the VE-sickness was increased for sickness-sensitive observers. These results suggest that we can decrease VE-sickness by controlling eye-movements with a stationary/moving fixation point to remove conflict of extra-retinal and visual eye-movements. This is a new proposal of the way to decrease VE-sickness.

Temporal order judgments are disrupted more by reflexive than by voluntary saccades

We do not always perceive the sequence of events as they actually unfold. For example, when two events occur before a rapid eye movement (saccade), the interval between them is often perceived as shorter than it really is and the order of those events can be sometimes reversed (Morrone MC, Ross J, Burr DC. Nat Neurosci 8: 950-954, 2005). In the present article we show that these misperceptions of the temporal order of events critically depend on whether the saccade is reflexive or voluntary. In the first experiment, participants judged the temporal order of two visual stimuli that were presented one after the other just before a reflexive or voluntary saccadic eye movement. In the reflexive saccade condition, participants moved their eyes to a target that suddenly appeared. In the voluntary saccade condition, participants moved their eyes to a target that was present already. Similarly to the above-cited study, we found that the temporal order of events was often misjudged just before a reflexive saccade to a suddenly appearing target. However, when people made a voluntary saccade to a target that was already present, there was a significant reduction in the probability of misjudging the temporal order of the same events. In the second experiment, the reduction was seen in a memory-delay task. It is likely that the nature of the motor command and its origin determine how time is perceived during the moments preceding the motor act.

Relationship of Depth Adaptation Between Disparity-Specified Plaids and Their Components

In the luminance domain, studies show that perceived contrasts of plaids are a nonlinear summation of their components. In the disparity domain, perceived depth has been studied by using a depth adaptation paradigm with simple surfaces; however, the relationship between depth adaptation between plaids and their components has not been investigated. To clarify this, combinations of disparity-defined horizontal corrugation (marked as horizontal) and disparity-defined plaids as adaptor-probe pairs were used. Three experiments were performed: The first two compared the aftereffects between horizontal-horizontal and plaid-horizontal pairs (Comparison 1) and between horizontal-plaid and plaid-plaid pairs (Comparison 2). Experiments 1 and 2 controlled the plaids to have the same and doubled peak-to-trough amplitudes as the horizontal corrugation, respectively. In Comparison 1, the horizontal or horizontally oriented component of the plaids was adapted. In Comparison 2, the plaid adaptor or horizontally oriented component of the plaid test stimuli was adapted. Thus, depth adaptation may be linked to cyclopean-oriented depth-from-disparity bandpass filters. The depth adaptation degree was determined by the adaptation of amplitudes of the similar oriented channels between the adaptation and test stimuli. Experiment 3 compared the aftereffects between noise-horizontal and horizontal-horizontal pairs. Since the noise adaptor contained multispatial frequency channels, only the channels with similar spatial frequencies as the horizontal corrugation were adapted, thus causing smaller depth aftereffects.

Effects of Category Labels on P300 in Facial Recognition

Gordon and Tanaka (2011) suggested that name labels such as Joe facilitated face memory and elicited large P300. However, when name labeling was used in Brain Computer Interface (BCI) by which users can choose people with their faces, preserved P300 response to the previous target might be problematic because of the effect of memory. Our study utilized categorical labels of occupation instead of name labels, and investigated the effects of task-relevancy, face exposure and category labels in face selection task. Participants were required to judge whether each stimulus was a target or not. Results showed that although it was consistent with the name-label situation that P300 was enhanced by task-relevant targets, repeated exposure to previous target didnt increase P300 in category-label situation in contrast to the previous study. These results suggest that categorical labeling is more appropriate for BCIs, because task-relevant target face elicits larger P300 than other faces.