Physical movement and activity can be used to drive actions within virtual environments for unique and immersive experiences that get the heart racing! For example, the technologies we are developing will allow users to interact naturally in virtual environments by cycling on an exercycle or by running and jumping on the spot.
Sensing and detecting a user’s feelings and emotional response to the exergame can be used to enhance the experience by adjusting the difficulty in order to support and encourage continued engagement.
We will explore how gamified physical exercises combined with affect recognition has the potential to help stroke patients recover their mobility in a physically effective and emotionally motivating manner.
We will demonstrate the value of optimisation of physical activity and affective motivation for competitive cyclists, showing how affective exergaming has the potential to improve training and enhance performance.
CAMERA has been publishing cutting-edge research and pushing the boundaries of Affective VR Exergaming for a number of years, resulting in several research publications:
Jicol, C., Wan, C. H., Doling, B., Illingworth, C. H., Yoon, J., Headey, C., Lutteroth, C., Proulx, M., Petrini, K., & O'Neill, E. (2021). Effects of emotion and agency on presence in virtual reality. In CHI 2021 - Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems: Making Waves, Combining Strengths (Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings). Association for Computing Machinery.https://doi.org/10.1145/3411764.3445588
Michael, A., & Lutteroth, C. (2020). Race Yourselves: A Longitudinal Exploration of Self-Competition Between Past, Present, and Future Performances in a VR Exergame. In Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Vol. 2020-April, pp. 1-17). (CHI Conference on Human Factors and Computing Systems). Association for Computing Machinery.https://doi.org/10.1145/3313831.3376256
Dehesa, J., Vidler, A., Lutteroth, C., & Padget, J. (2020). Touché: Data-Driven Interactive Sword Fighting in Virtual Reality. In CHI 2020 - Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Vol. 2020-April, pp. 1-14). [3376714] (Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings). Association for Computing Machinery. https://doi.org/10.1145/3313831.3376714
Barathi, S. C., Proulx, M., O'Neill, E., & Lutteroth, C. (2020). Affect Recognition using Psychophysiological Correlates in High Intensity VR Exergaming. In CHI 2020 - Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Vol. 2020-April, pp. 1-15). (Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings). Association for Computing Machinery. https://doi.org/10.1145/3313831.3376596
Ioannou, C., Archard, P., O'Neill, E., & Lutteroth, C. (2019). Virtual Performance Augmentation in an Immersive Jump & Run Exergame. In CHI 2019 - Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1-15). [158] (CHI: Conference on Human Factors and Computing Systems). Association for Computing Machinery. https://doi.org/10.1145/3290605.3300388
With funding from Horizon Europe and UKRI, the University of Bath research team will push the boundaries of affective exergaming in virtual environments and focus on the following key deliverables:
A software development kit (SDK) to allow developers and content creators to integrate physical activity to drive actions within virtual environments for the design of new products and services.
Software tools that will allow developers and content creators to integrate user feelings/affective responses as mechanisms to drive interactions within virtual environments for the design of new products and services.
A specific, bespoke application for stroke rehabilitation using closed-loop optimisation of gamified physical exercises and affect to help stroke patients recover their mobility in a physically effective and emotionally motivating manner.
An application which utilises optimisation of physical activity and affective motivation for competitive cyclists, highlighting another potential use case that leverages the SDKs developed as part of the EMIL project.
Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or European Health and Digital Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Programme under Grant Agreement No 101070533.