Victoria Meza-Kubo

Assessing the user experience of older adults using a neural network trained to recognize emotions from brain signals

The use of Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) technologies as a means to cope with problems that arise due to an increasing and aging population is becoming usual. AAL technologies are used to prevent, cure and improve the wellness and health conditions of the elderly. However, their adoption and use by older adults is still a major challenge. User Experience (UX) evaluations aim at aiding on this task, by identifying the experience that a user has while interacting with an AAL technology under particular conditions. This may help designing better products and improve user engagement and adoption of AAL solutions. However, evaluating the UX of AAL technologies is a difficult task, due to the inherent limitations of their subjects and of the evaluation methods. In this study, we validated the feasibility of assessing the UX of older adults while they use a cognitive stimulation application using a neural network trained to recognize pleasant and unpleasant emotions from electroencephalography (EEG) signals by contrasting our results with those of additional self-report and qualitative analysis UX evaluations. Our study results provide evidence about the feasibility of assessing the UX of older adults using a neural network that take as input the EEG signals; the classification accuracy of our neural network ranges from 60.87% to 82.61%. As future work we will conduct additional UX evaluation studies using the three different methods, in order to appropriately validate these results.

On the Effect of Previous Technological Experience on the Usability of a Virtual Rehabilitation Tool for the Physical Activation and Cognitive Stimulation of Elders

We present and discuss our findings on the identified causes for the differences of the results of two usability studies on the borrowed use of Gesture Therapy, a virtual rehabilitation tool for the cognitive stimulation and physical activation of elders. The studies focused on usability aspects including perceived usefulness, ease of use, intention of use and user experience. In the first study, we used self-report techniques to gather data, and found that previous technological experience had a significant effect on the perceived anxiety of elders; while on the second study, we used indirect observation techniques to gather data, and found that previous technological experience had a significant effect on the perceived enjoyment of elders. After a further analysis of the video recordings of the playing sessions, we identified that elders developed two different approaches to their using the application (explore-and-learn and score-and-compete), which could be related to their previous technological experience, and explain the identified differences. We observed that in the presence of problems, the response of participants was different depending on the adopted behavior. Based on this evidence, we distilled a set of preliminary guidelines to foster or inhibit certain behaviors and outcomes related to the effect of previous experience that were observed during our evaluation studies of virtual tools for the cognitive stimulation and physical activation of the elderly.

Bridging the gap between illiterate older adults and cognitive stimulation technologies through pervasive computing

The global ageing of the population has made the increase in age-related diseases more obvious, some of which are accompanied by a patient’s cognitive decline (CD). That is a hard problem for Mexico, as a large number of older adults belong to marginalized sectors. These older adults are characterized by their illiteracy and limited financial resources, which make them more vulnerable to conditions such as the Alzheimer’s disease. According to the literature, a person who participates often in cognitive stimulation (CS) activities reduces the risk of suffering a CD-related condition. This has provided the motivation to carry out case studies to understand older adults’ interactions in CS sessions, and their relation with technologies and with members of their social family networks (SFN). To address these technological, social and illiteracy gaps, a pervasive CS collaborative system has been designed and evaluated which eases interaction through natural interfaces and enables SFN members to interact with older adults during their CS activities regardless of their physical location. The evaluation results provide evidence that participants perceived the system as useful, easy to use and providing a pleasurable user experience. Furthermore, these results show the feasibility of augmenting traditional board games (e.g. chess, checkers) to create pervasive CS collaborative applications and the importance and benefits of integrating SFN members as informal caregivers.

Towards a Tele-assistance Service for the Cognitive Stimulation of Elders with Cognitive Decline

Thanks to advances in science and technology, the life expectancy of human beings has increased steadily at a constant rate. Unfortunately, this had made evident the increasing incidence of age-related diseases, such as Alzheimers disease (AD). Although there is no cure for AD, the literature reports that people who frequently participates in cognitive stimulation activities reduces the risk of presenting it or improves their cognitive abilities. Aging-in-place and telemedicine make possible the provision of medical services to elder adults in their homes, in order to reduce hospitalization costs and to increase patient comfort in their home. Aiming at understanding the processes that occur in cognitive stimulation, and how they could be supported through technology, we present a characterization of the activities performed during a stimulation session of people suffering from AD. We also present a preliminary set of design insights that designers and developers of tele-assistance services could consider for the development of such systems.

Emotions Identification to Measure User Experience Using Brain Biometric Signals

There are different techniques e.g. direct or indirect observation, questionnaires, etc. with which it is possible to estimate user experience. Biometric data obtained with different devices e.g. EEG, EMG have been used as a source to infer user experience. In this work, as part of the construction of an evaluation model of user experience, we present a preliminary study that seeks to identify emotions using records of brain electrical activity through the visualisation of preset images that stimulate emotions known a priori. The results include identifying emotions of joy and displeasure through brain activity using the Emotive device in older adults.

Processing EEG Signals Towards the Construction of a User Experience Assessment Method

This paper proposes a neural network to identify pleasant and unpleasant emotions from recorded electroencephalography (EEG) signals, towards the construction of a method to assess user experience (UX). EEG signals were obtained with an Emotiv EEG device. The input data was recorded during the presentation of visual stimulus that induce emotions known a priori. The EEG signals recorded were preprocessed to enhance the differences and then used to train and validate a Patternet neural network. The results indicate that the neural network provides an accurate rate of 99.61 % for 258 preprocessed signals.

Promoting Elderly-Children Interaction in Digital Games: A Preliminary Set of Design Guidelines

In this paper, we propose a set of guidelines to facilitate the design of digital games to support elderly-children interaction. We conducted a literature review to identify preliminary elements in the elderly-children interaction process and assessed elder-child interaction during their using two digital games to complement the initial findings. Based on these results, we proposed a set of guidelines to aid in the design of digital games. To validate the guidelines, we conducted an evaluation on the design of digital games with a group of 12 postgraduate students from two local Computer Science programs. Results are promising, indicating a high perception of usefulness, ease of use and intention of use of the proposed guidelines by the group of developers.

User experience of elders and relatives in a collaborative cognitive stimulation tool

Aiming at improving the design of cognitive stimulation (CS) applications for elders, we have conducted studies that allowed us to gain an understanding of the nature of CS activities, and to envision how we might support them using pervasive technologies. One such support is InTouchFun, a CS application that allows for the integration of remote social family network members into an elders CS activities. Although the results of a TAM-based usability evaluation provided evidence that the tool was perceived as useful, easy to use, and generating pleasurable user experiences, we did not have insights into which were the applications features that fostered these results. In this paper, we present and discuss the results of a further evaluation centered on the analysis of the interactions observed during a CS session, and which provide evidence to determine the features that fostered reaching goals such as engagement, satisfaction, enjoyment and a low anxiety level.

Haptic Mobile Augmented Reality System for the Treatment of Phobia of Small Animals in Teenagers

Some of the fears of small animals present in childhood are maintained and cause significant discomfort until the adolescent stage, even causing phobias. A treatment used in the traditional therapy of phobias is the live exposure to the object of fear, however one of the problems with this treatment is patient resistance and eventual therapy abandonment. The use of intelligent environments is an alternative that allows to support the therapy through the virtual, gradual and controlled exposure of the patient to the animal to which s/he is afraid. In this research, we present the design, development and evaluation of a haptic mobile augmented reality system for the treatment of small animals phobia using the TPAD haptic device. The proposed haptic system includes features that allow (i) diagnosing the level of phobia of small animals, (ii) self-adjusting the phobia treatment using support vector machines, and (iii) user progress statistics based on the estimated stress level and time touching the screen. A usability and performance evaluation of the system with 14 teenagers, suggests that the haptic system is perceived as useful and usable, while providing an effective and accessible way to treat the patient and to adjust the therapy challenge level.

Augmenting Cognitive Stimulation Activities in a Nursing Home through Pervasive Computing

Cognitive stimulation (CS) is a non-pharmacological intervention to treat individuals with mild to moderate dementia. CS aims to improve and maintain overall cognitive functions through activities in sessions of active stimulation. Results of an empirical study and an observational study of CS sessions show that (1) the interaction mechanisms to perform assisted CS activities can leverage the benefits for patient participants, and that (2) the support for assisted interactions in a CS session can increase the quality of the provided care and ease the workload of caregiver participants. For this reason, we present the Aware-Puzzle, a tangible vision-based context-aware system for the assessment of progress and correctness of CS activities. On the one hand, the tangible interface allows for alternative interaction means which are more suited to the abilities and capabilities of elders. On the other hand, the context-aware features allow for caregivers to become aware of explicit requests for help or, of implicit needs of patients, and thus proactively provide to them support, encouragement or feedback, as needed. Finally, we present an implementation of the Aware-Puzzle as an agent-based system envisioning its use as a dedicated environment in the nursing home.