Cindy Chamberland - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Cindy Chamberland

2019 8th International Conference on Affective Computing and Intelligent Interaction (ACII)

The lack of high-quality in-game player data has been a challenge in affective computing and play... more The lack of high-quality in-game player data has been a challenge in affective computing and player experience research, as the currently available datasets do not fully capture the multimodal nature of the player-game interaction. The following paper addresses this issue by introducing a multimodal collection of video game player data: the FUNii Database. The database contains in-laboratory physiological, behavioral and subjective data from 190 players acquired while they played Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed: Unity and Assassin's Creed: Syndicate. The database also includes demographic data from the players and Fun Trace ratings, a unique tool for assessing player experience on a continuous scale following a game session. The database offers opportunities to study physio-behavioral responses in a gaming context, player profiling, player experience modeling or adaptation strategies for affective adaptive games.

Augmented Cognition

This paper investigates the use of physio-behavioural detection of fun to model players’ preferen... more This paper investigates the use of physio-behavioural detection of fun to model players’ preferences in real-time in the context of an adaptive game. To do so, a Physiological and Behavioural Model of Fun (PBMF), previously trained on 218 players, was used to model players’ preferences based n gameplay events. As a proof-of-concept, we leverged the PBMF to generate a simple player’s preference profile tailored to our test-bench game: Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, an open-world, action-adventure game. This model associated every player to one of 3 predetermined stereotypical types of player, namely Fight, Stealth and Explore, which are closely tied to mechanics of the Assassin’s Creed series. Using the inferred preferences, we compared an adaptive vs a non-adaptive version of the same game and tested whether the adaptive version was perceived as more fun than the non-adaptive version by the 39 participants of this study. The results point to the creation of an accurate player’s preference profiles during a baseline mission, with profile matching both a “ground truth” Fun Trace – a continuous, subjective rating of a player’s fun – and a self-reported profile with an accuracy of \(69\%\) and \(72\%\) respectively. This, however, did not translate into a measurable difference in reported fun between the adaptive version of the game and the non-adaptive version in neither Fun Trace ratings nor questionnaire answers. Theses findings support that stereotypical preference modelling can be achieved successfully through a physio-behavioural model of fun, but that further investigation on adaptation strategies to those preferences are needed in order to reach the adaptive game’s promise of maximizing player’s enjoyment.

Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, 2018

Finding a physiological signature of a player's fun is a goal yet to be achieved in the field of ... more Finding a physiological signature of a player's fun is a goal yet to be achieved in the field of adaptive gaming. The research presented in this paper tackles this issue by gathering physiological, behavioural and self-report data from over 200 participants who played off-the-shelf video games from the Assassin's Creed series within a minimally invasive laboratory environment. By leveraging machine learning techniques the prediction of the player's fun from its physiological and behavioural markers becomes a possibility. They provide clues as to which signals are the most relevant in establishing a physiological signature of the fun factor by providing an importance score based on the predictive power of each signal. Identifying those markers and their impact will prove crucial in the development of adaptive video games. Adataptive games that tailor their gameplay to the affective state of a player in order to deliver the optimal gaming experience. Indeed, an adaptive video game needs a continuous reading of the fun level to be able to respond to these changing fun levels in real time. While the predictive power of the presented classifier remains limited with a gain in the F1 score of 15% against random chance, it brings insight as to which physiological features might be the most informative for further analyses and discuss means by which low accuracy classification could still improve gaming experience.

Applied Cognitive Psychology, 2021

Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, 2016

Dynamic and complex command and control situations often require the timely recognition of change... more Dynamic and complex command and control situations often require the timely recognition of changes in the environment in order to detect potentially malicious actions. Change detection can be challenging within a continually evolving scene, and particularly under multitasking conditions whereby attention is necessarily divided between several subtasks. On-screen tools can assist with detection (e.g., providing a visual record of changes, ensuring that none are overlooked), however, in a high workload environment, this may result in information overload to the detriment of the primary task. One alternative is to exploit the auditory modality as a means to support visual change detection. In the current study, we use a naval air-warfare simulation, and introduce an auditory alarm to coincide with critical visual changes (in aircraft speed/direction) on the radar. We found that participants detected a greater percentage of visual changes and were significantly quicker to detect these c...

Interindividual variability in the emotional expressivity of gamers is an issue in the developmen... more Interindividual variability in the emotional expressivity of gamers is an issue in the development of emotion-based adaptive games. Specifically, the emotional expressivity of expert gamers has been shown to be reduced compared to non experts in previous work, but these observations have not been studied during a gaming session. This study tested whether expert gamers have a reduced emotional expressivity compared to non experts in the ecological context of a gaming session. Nine expert and nine non expert gamers aged between 18 and 35 years old played two missions of the game Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate. The muscular activity of the zygomaticus major and the corrugator supercilii was measured using facial electromyography. The subjective workload of the gaming session was assessed with the NASA-TLX questionnaire. Preliminary results suggest no difference between expert and non expert gamers on emotional expressivity as measured through facial electromyography. However, experts perc...

2016 IEEE Conference on Computational Intelligence and Games (CIG), 2016

Journal of Cognitive Engineering and Decision Making, 2017

The failure to notice critical changes in both visual and auditory scenes may have important cons... more The failure to notice critical changes in both visual and auditory scenes may have important consequences for performance in complex dynamic environments, especially those related to security, such as aviation, surveillance during major events, and command and control of emergency response. Previous work has shown that a significant number of situation changes remain undetected by operators in such environments. In the current study, we examined the impact of using auditory warning messages to support the detection of critical situation changes and to a broader extent the decision making required by the environment. Twenty-two participants performed a radar operator task involving multiple subtasks while detecting critical task-related events that were cued by a specific type of audio message. Results showed that about 22% of the critical changes remained undetected by participants, a percentage similar to that found in previous work using visual cues to support change detection. Ho...

Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 2017

While the development of intelligent technologies in security surveillance can augment human capa... more While the development of intelligent technologies in security surveillance can augment human capabilities, they do not replace the role of the operator entirely; as such, when developing surveillance support it is critical that limitations to the cognitive system are taken into account. The current article reviews the cognitive challenges associated with the task of a CCTV operator: visual search and cognitive/perceptual overload, attentional failures, vulnerability to distraction, and decision-making in a dynamically evolving environment. While not directly applied to surveillance issues, we suggest that the NSEEV (noticingsalience, effort, expectancy, value) model of attention could provide a useful theoretical basis for understanding the challenges faced in detection and monitoring tasks. Having identified cognitive limitations of the human operator, this review sets out a research agenda for further understanding the cognitive functioning related to surveillance, and highlights the need to consider the human element at the design stage when developing technological solutions to security surveillance.

Applied Cognitive Psychology, 2018

Emergency resuscitation in intensive care units (ICUs) requires effective team communication to o... more Emergency resuscitation in intensive care units (ICUs) requires effective team communication to orchestrate the joint performance of several individuals. Although team simulation training has proven an effective means to improve communication skills in high-risk environments, the influence of debriefing content on simulation-based learning is less clear. In this study, 10 ICU teams completed three consecutive cardiac resuscitation scenarios, followed by a 3-month follow-up. Control teams received a debriefing on the basis of resuscitation technical skills after each of the first three scenarios, whereas the experimental teams' debriefing focused on team communication. Results showed that although information sharing improved for all teams, communication quality improved only for experimental teams, and these training benefits dissipated after 3 months. The study helps develop a methodology for assessing team communication and highlights the importance of frequent team simulation-based training and debriefing in emergency medicine that includes both technical and nontechnical skills.

Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, 2018

Closed-circuit television (CCTV) is increasingly used as a means to ensure the safety and securit... more Closed-circuit television (CCTV) is increasingly used as a means to ensure the safety and security of critical infrastructure and public spaces. Operators in control rooms are responsible for monitoring multiple camera feeds that generally exceed the number of screens available. Using a realistic video surveillance simulation, the current study investigates strategies that untrained operators use to deal with this visual overload. The majority of participants adopted a priority strategy by fixating some scenes more than others, as opposed to a parity strategy of devoting roughly equal time across all screens—although participants were largely unaware of the strategy they had used. A parity approach led to better detection performance, perhaps because less time elapsed between viewing each available camera feed thus reducing the probability that an incident could pass unnoticed. The identification of successful scanning strategies can be used to inform operator training.

Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, 2015

While the usefulness of games extends beyond their entertainment value, the act of playing a game... more While the usefulness of games extends beyond their entertainment value, the act of playing a game remains essentially tied to its positive experience. Techniques to assess the player’s experience have greatly improved in the past decade, yet several challenges remain such as identifying objective and dynamic measures that reflect the player’s emotions during the game. In this paper, we describe an innovative approach to capture the player’s experience that relies on cognitive sciences and affective neuroscience. Our research endeavor is to contribute to the development of systems capable of predicting the player’s fun based on psychophysiology and in-game behaviors, and adapting the game to maximize that value. We present a use case of our techniques to elicit the player’s affective and cognitive states using an online strategic card game. Preliminary results revealed that electrodermal and respiratory activities were positively associated to the casual gamers’ affective and cogniti...

Journal of Memory and Language, 2016

The role of the compatibility between obligatory perceptual organization and the active assembly ... more The role of the compatibility between obligatory perceptual organization and the active assembly of a motor-plan in auditory-verbal serial recall was examined. The classic finding that serial recall is poorer with ear-alternating items was shown to be related to spatialsource localization, thereby confirming a basic tenet of the perceptual-motor account and disconfirming an early account characterizing the two ears as separate inputchannels (Experiment 1). Promoting the streaming-by-location of ear-alternating itemsand therefore the incompatibility between perceived and actual order-augmented the ear-alternation effect (Experiment 2) whereas demoting streaming-by-location by reducing the regularity of the alternation attenuated it (Experiment 3). Finally, increasing the perceptual variability of an ear-alternating list while demoting the likelihood of streaming-by-location-by adding uncorrelated voice changes-also reduced the earalternation effect as did articulatory suppression for that part of the list (pre-recency) associated with motor-planning (Experiment 4). The results are incompatible with theories in which perceptual variability impairs serial recall due to a deficit in encoding items into a limited-capacity short-term memory space and instead point to a central role for perceptual and motor processes in serial short-term memory performance.

Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, 2012

The intensive care unit (ICU) is a high-risk environment that requires cross-professional teams t... more The intensive care unit (ICU) is a high-risk environment that requires cross-professional teams to provide life-saving patient care. There is ample evidence that poor communication creates situations where medical errors are likely to occur and affect patient safety. We tested whether communication-oriented debriefing following high-fidelity simulation improves quality of information exchange reflecting collaborative work in ICU teams. Ten teams of six cross-professional ICU workers participated in three simulation-based training sessions. After each training session, the experimental group was debriefed on communication-oriented skills (based on Crew Resource Management, CRM), while the control group was debriefed on technical skills. The analysis was double-blind; 30 videotaped sessions were coded for three types of communication measures by four observers showing adequate inter-rater reliability. Results suggest that high-fidelity simulation training can improve non-technical ski...

Participants were asked to respond as quickly as possible in a two-choice time discrimination tas... more Participants were asked to respond as quickly as possible in a two-choice time discrimination task. The short tone (ST) duration was constant across blocks of trials, whereas the long tone (LT) duration varied between blocks. In principle, response time to the ST could be independent of LT duration, as one could decide that the tone is long as soon as the subjective duration corresponding to the ST is over. The results showed instead that as the LT lengthened, reactions times to the ST decreased and reaction times to the LT increased. Performance was more accurate at longer LTs. Errors were found mostly with the ST when reaction times were shorter, whereas errors in late responses were as frequent with the long and short tones; this pattern of results was modulated by LT duration. Our findings show a strong influence of temporal context, even in a simple two-choice time discrimination task.

Communications in Computer and Information Science, 2013

This study shows how the use of various measures of eye movement can serve to portray dynamic dec... more This study shows how the use of various measures of eye movement can serve to portray dynamic decision-making (DDM) in a coherent fashion. We extracted eye movement metrics relative to 1) scanpath, 2) eye fixations, and 3) pupillary response, to characterize DDM during the process of risk assessment. Results from Experiment 1 revealed that incorrect classifications were associated with 1) less efficient information search, 2) difficulties in making sense of critical information, and 3) a low level of cognitive load. In Experiment 2, we used eye tracking to assess the impact on DDM of introducing a decision support system. The addition of a temporal-overview display seems to affect processing time in DDM as indexed by shorter scanpaths and fixations during classifications. These findings illustrate how event-based eye movement measures can reveal characteristics and limitations of the ongoing cognitive processing involved in DDM and also contribute to usability testing.

Memory, 2013

In the present study we examined the contribution of semantic associative links to short-term rec... more In the present study we examined the contribution of semantic associative links to short-term recall performance by using the separation effect first introduced in free recall studies (Glanzer, 1969). Pairs of associated words were inserted in the to-be-remembered lists. In two experiments associated words were better recalled than non-associated words, and were better recalled when they were adjacent in the list than when they were separated by one non-associated item. In addition results showed that forward associative links among pair members were as beneficial to immediate serial recall as backward associative links. Finally the benefit of associative links among pair members was observed with both forward and backward recall.

2012 IEEE Conference on Visual Analytics Science and Technology (VAST), 2012

Temporal awareness is pivotal to successful real-time dynamic decision making in a wide range of ... more Temporal awareness is pivotal to successful real-time dynamic decision making in a wide range of command and control situations; particularly in safety-critical environments. However, little explicit support for operators' temporal awareness is provided by decision support systems (DSS) for time-critical decisions. In the context of functional simulations of naval anti-air warfare and emergency response management, the present study compares operator support provided by two display formats. In both environments, we contrast a baseline condition to a condition in which a temporal display was integrated to the original interface to support operators' temporal awareness. We also wish to establish whether the implementation of time-based DSSs may also come with drawbacks on cognitive functioning and performance.