Tim Johannes Willem Tijs

How to stay in the emotional rollercoaster: lessons learnt from designing EmRoll

Bodily expressions can be used to involve players in intense experiences with games. By physically moving, breathing, or increasing your pulse, you may start emotional processes that help create for a stronger experience of the narrative in the game. We have designed a system named EmRoll that poses riddles to pairs of players. The riddles can only be solved if the players are, or at least pretend to be, moving according to different emotional states: dancing happily, relaxed breathing and being scared. The system measures movement, breathing and sweat reactions from the two players. Lessons learnt were: playing in pairs is an important aspect as the two players influenced one-another, pulling each other into stronger experiences; getting excited through intense movement when involving your whole body worked well, as did relaxing through deep breathing; using the sweat response as an input mechanism worked less well; and finally, putting a Wizard (a human operator) into the loop can help bootstrap difficulty balancing and thereby increase emotional involvement.

Intervention to Lower Anxiety of 18F-FDG PET/CT Patients by Use of Audiovisual Imagery During the Uptake Phase Before Imaging

Many patients referred for PET suffer from anxiety, possibly affecting the workflow and patient experience. In addition, patient anxiety may affect image quality through uptake of 18F-FDG in muscles or brown adipose tissue (BAT).This study investigated the effects of a nonpharmacologic intervention—the use of audiovisual imagery in the PET uptake room—on patient anxiety and false-positive uptake of 18F-FDG (in muscles and BAT). Methods: A 2-stage study was conducted on 101 patients. The cohort undergoing the intervention included 51 patients. The first stage (n = 35) included physiologic measurements (cardiovascular activity, muscular activity, skin conductance, and cortisol), a state anxiety questionnaire, and visual evaluation of 18F-FDG uptake in muscles and BAT; the second stage (n = 66) included only the state anxiety questionnaire and the 18F-FDG uptake evaluation. Results: Throughout the stay in the uptake room, a significant decrease in overall anxiety was found, together with several other significant changes in patient physiology. In the cohort with audiovisual intervention, however, the decrease in patient anxiety was significantly larger. The cohort with intervention also showed significantly lower 18F-FDG uptake in BAT but not in muscles. Conclusion: The investigated audiovisual intervention helps to lower patient anxiety in the PET uptake room and can lower false-positive 18F-FDG uptake in BAT.