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Digital, virtual environments and the metaverse are rapidly taking shape and will generate disruptive changes in the areas of ethics, privacy, safety, and how the relationships between human beings will be developed. To uncover some of some of the implications that will impact those areas, this study investigates the perceptions of 101 younger people from the generations Y and Z. We present a first exploratory analysis of the findings, focusing on knowledge and self-perception. Results show that these young generations are seriously doubting their knowledge on the metaverse and virtual worlds – regarding both the definition and the usage. It is interesting to see only a medium confidence level, considering that the participants are young and from an academic environment, which should increase their interest in and the affinity towards virtual worlds. Males from both generations perceive themselves as significantly more knowledgeable than females. Regarding a fitting definition, almost 40% agreed on the metaverse as a “universal and immersive virtual world that is made accessible using virtual reality and augmented reality technologies”. Regarding the topic in general, several participants (almost 40%) considered themselves sceptics or “just” users (38%). Interestingly, generation Y participants were more likely than the younger generation Z participants to identify themselves as early adopters or innovators. In result, the considerable amount of “mixed feelings” regarding digital, virtual environments and the metaverse shows that in-depth studies on the perception of the metaverse as well as its ethical and integrity implications are required to create more accessible, inclusive, safe, and inclusive digital, virtual environments.
Activities for rehabilitation and prevention are often lengthy and associated with pain and frustration. Their playful enrichment (hereafter: gamification) can counteract this, resulting in so-called “exergames”. However, in contrast to games designed solely for entertainment, the increased motivation and immersion in gamified training can lead to a reduced perception of pain and thus to health deterioration. Therefore, it is necessary to monitor activities continuously. However, only an AI-based system able to generate autonomous interventions could vacate the therapists’ costly time and allow better training at home. An automated adjustment of the movement training’s difficulty as well as individualized goal setting and control are essential to achieve such autonomy. This article’s contribution is two-fold: (1) We portray the potentials of gamification in the health area. (2) We present a framework for smart rehabilitation and prevention training allowing autonomous, dynamic, and gamified interactions.
Wow, You Are Terrible at This!: An Intercultural Study on Virtual Agents Giving Mixed Feedback
(2020)
While the effects of virtual agents in terms of likeability, uncanniness, etc. are well explored, it is unclear how their appearance and the feedback they give affects people's reactions. Is critical feedback from an agent embodied as a mouse or a robot taken less serious than from a human agent? In an intercultural study with 120 participants from Germany and the US, participants had to find hidden objects in a game and received feedback on their performance by virtual agents with different appearances. As some levels were designed to be unsolvable, critical feedback was unavoidable. We hypothesized that feedback would be taken more serious, the more human the agent looked. Also, we expected the subjects from the US to react more sensitively to criticism. Surprisingly, our results showed that the agents' appearance did not significantly change the participants' perception. Also, while we found highly significant differences in inspirational and motivational effects as well as in perceived task load between the two cultures, the reactions to criticism were contrary to expectations based on established cultural models. This work improves our understanding on how affective virtual agents are to be designed, both with respect to culture and to dialogue strategies.
In this article, we present a taxonomy in Robot-Assisted Training; a growing body of research in Human–Robot Interaction which focuses on how robotic agents and devices can be used to enhance user’s performance during a cognitive or physical training task. Robot-Assisted Training systems have been successfully deployed to enhance the effects of a training session in various contexts, i.e., rehabilitation systems, educational environments, vocational settings, etc. The proposed taxonomy suggests a set of categories and parameters that can be used to characterize such systems, considering the current research trends and needs for the design, development and evaluation of Robot-Assisted Training systems. To this end, we review recent works and applications in Robot-Assisted Training systems, as well as related taxonomies in Human–Robot Interaction. The goal is to identify and discuss open challenges, highlighting the different aspects of a Robot-Assisted Training system, considering both robot perception and behavior control.
Purpose: Participation and accessibility issues faced by gamers with multi-sensory disabilities are themes yet to be fully understood by accessible technology researchers. In this work, we examine the personal experiences and perceptions of individuals with deafblindness who play games despite their disability, as well as the reasons that lead some of them to stop playing games.
Materials and methods: We conducted 60 semi-structured interviews with individuals living with deafblindness in five European countries: United Kingdom, Germany, Netherlands, Greece and Sweden.
Results: Participants stated that reasons for playing games included them being a fun and entertaining hobby, for socialization and meeting others, or for occupying the mind. Reasons for stop playing games included essentially accessibility issues, followed by high cognitive demand, changes in gaming experience due their disability, financial reasons, or because the accessible version of a specific game was not considered as fun as the original one.
Conclusions: We identified that a considerable number of individuals with deafblindness enjoy playing casual mobile games such as Wordfeud and Sudoku as a pastime activity. Despite challenging accessibility issues, games provide meaningful social interactions to players with deafblindness. Finally, we introduce a set of user-driven recommendations for making digital games more accessible to players with a diverse combination of sensory abilities.
IMPLICATIONS FOR REHABILITATION
- Digital games were considered a fun and entertaining hobby by participants with deafblindness. Furthermore, participants play games for socialization and meeting others, or for occupying the mind.
- Digital games provide meaningful social interactions and past time to persons with deafblindness.
- On top of accessibility implications, our findings draw attention to the importance of the social element of gaming for persons with deafblindness.
- Based on interviews, we introduce a set of user-driven recommendations for making digital games more accessible to players with a diverse combination of sensory abilities.
Deafblindness, also known as dual sensory loss, is the combination of sight and hearing impairments of such extent that it becomes difficult for one sense to compensate for the other. Communication issues are a key concern for the Deafblind community. We present the design and technical implementation of the Tactile Board: a mobile Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) device for individuals with deafblindness. The Tactile Board allows text and speech to be translated into vibrotactile signs that are displayed real-time to the user via a haptic wearable. Our aim is to facilitate communication for the deafblind community, creating opportunities for these individuals to initiate and engage in social interactions with other people without the direct need of an intervener.
Co-Designing Assistive Tools to Support Social Interactions by Individuals Living with Deafblindness
(2020)
Deafblindness is a dual sensory impairment that affects many aspects of life, including mobility, access to information, communication, and social interactions. Furthermore, individuals living with deafblindness are under a high risk of social isolation. Therefore, we identified opportunities for applying assistive tools to support social interactions through co-ideation activities with members of the deafblind community. This work presents our co-design approach, lessons learned and directions for designing meaningful assistive tools for dual sensory loss.
Video game developers continuously increase the degree of details and realism in games to create more human-like characters. But increasing the human-likeness becomes a problem in regard to the Uncanny Valley phenomenon that predicts negative feelings of people towards artificial entities. We developed an avatar creation system to examine preferences towards parametrized faces and explore in regard to the Uncanny Valley phenomenon how people design faces that they like or reject. Based on the 3D model of the Caucasian average face, 420 participants generate 1341 faces of positively and negatively associated concepts of both gender. The results show that some characteristics associated with the Uncanny Valley are used to create villains or repulsive faces. Heroic faces get attractive features but are rarely and little stylized. A voluntarily designed face is very similar to the heroine. This indicates that there is a tendency of users to design feminine and attractive but still credible faces.
Brand identification has the potential of shaping individuals' attitudes, performance and commitment within learning and work contexts. We explore these effects, by incorporating elements of branded identification within gamified environments. We report a study with 44 employees, in which task performance and emotional outcomes are assessed in a real-world assembly scenario - namely, while performing a soldering task. Our results indicate that brand identification has a direct impact on individuals' attitude towards the task at hand: while instigating positive emotions, aversion and reactance also arise.
In pandemic times, the possibilities for conventional sports activities are severely limited; many sports facilities are closed or can only be used with restrictions. To counteract this lack of health activities and social exchange, people are increasingly adopting new digital sports solutions—a behavior change that had already started with the trend towards fitness apps and activity trackers. Existing research suggests that digital solutions increase the motivation to move and stay active. This work further investigates the potentials of digital sports incorporating the dimensions gender and preference for team sports versus individual sports. The study focuses on potential users, who were mostly younger professionals and academics. The results show that the SARS-CoV-19 pandemic had a significant negative impact on sports activity, particularly on persons preferring team sports. To compensate, most participants use more digital sports than before, and there is a positive correlation between the time spent physically active during the pandemic and the increase in motivation through digital sports. Nevertheless, there is still considerable skepticism regarding the potential of digital sports solutions to increase the motivation to do sports, increase performance, or raise a sense of team spirit when done in groups.