Augmented Reality Cubes for Cognitive Gaming: Preliminary Usability and Game Experience Testing (original) (raw)
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2020
BACKGROUND Older adults in Taiwan are advised to adopt regular physical and social activities for the maintenance of their cognitive and physical health. Games offer a means of engaging older individuals in these activities. For this study, a collaborative cognitive-based board game, Nostalgic Seekers, was designed and developed with augmented reality technology to support cognitive engagement in older adults. OBJECTIVE A user study of the board game was conducted to understand how the game facilitates communication, problem solving, and emotional response in older players and whether augmented reality is a suitable technology in game design for these players. METHODS A total of 23 participants aged 50 to 59 years were recruited to play and evaluate the game. In each session, participants’ interactions were observed and recorded, then analyzed through Bales’ interaction process analysis. Following each session, participants were interviewed to provide feedback on their experience. R...
Augmented reality cube game for cognitive training: An interaction study
There is the potential that cognitive activity may delay cognitive decline in people with mild cognitive impairment. Games provide both cognitive challenge and motivation for repeated use, a prerequisite for long lasting effect. Recent advances in technology introduce several new interaction methods, potentially leading to more efficient, personalised cognitive gaming experiences. In this paper we present an Augmented Reality (AR) cognitive training game, utilising cubes as input tools, and we test the cube interaction with a pilot study. The results of the study revealed the marker occlusion problem and that novice AR users can adjust to the developed AR environment after a small number of sessions.
A virtual reality game for cognitive impairment screening in elderly: a user perspective
10th IEEE International Conference on Cognitive Infocommunications – CogInfoCom 2019, October 23-25, 2019, Naples, Italy , 2019
Today, there are 50 million people suffering from dementia worldwide, that is a new case every 3 seconds and more than 152 million cases expected in 2050. Aging related morbidity is a real social problem making screening a major challenge. Early diagnosis and management would improve the quality of life offered to the patient and those around him and reduce the economic and social consequences of dementia. The traditional paper-and-pencil approach does not sufficiently reflect the daily reality of the person and what they are able to accomplish. The lack of ecological validity is one of the main criticisms of this approach.
A virtual reality game for cognitive impairment screening in the elderly: a user perspective
2019 10th IEEE International Conference on Cognitive Infocommunications (CogInfoCom)
Today, there are 50 million people suffering from dementia worldwide, that is a new case every 3 seconds and more than 152 million cases expected in 2050. Aging related morbidity is a real social problem making screening a major challenge. Early diagnosis and management would improve the quality of life offered to the patient and those around him and reduce the economic and social consequences of dementia. The traditional paper-and-pencil approach does not sufficiently reflect the daily reality of the person and what they are able to accomplish. The lack of ecological validity is one of the main criticisms of this approach.
Serious games for screening pre-dementia conditions: from virtuality to reality? A pilot project
Functional Neurology
Conventional cognitive assessment is based on a pencil-and-paper neuropsychological evaluation, which is time consuming, expensive and requires the involvement of several professionals. Information and communication technology could be exploited to allow the development of tools that are easy to use, reduce the amount of data processing, and provide controllable test conditions. Serious games (SGs) have the potential to be new and effective tools in the management and treatment of cognitive impairments Serious games for screening pre-dementia conditions: from virtuality to reality? A pilot project in the elderly. Moreover, by adopting SGs in 3D virtual reality settings, cognitive functions might be evaluated using tasks that simulate daily activities, increasing the "ecological validity" of the assessment. In this commentary we report our experience in the creation of the Smart Aging platform, a 3D SGand virtual environment-based platform for the early identification and c...
Cognition, technology and games for the elderly: An introduction to ELDERGAMES Project
Psychnology Journal, 2006
Eldergames is a EU-funded project to develop games using advanced visualisation and interaction interfaces to improve the cognitive, functional and social skills of older users. The project merges two major areas to which technology for elderly people is applied: health and social engagement. Its platform will allow users to improve their cognitive skills and individual well-being by playing on a mixed-reality platform; in addition, it will offer the unusual experience of communicating with people located in other countries without the need to share the same language. After introducing the field of gerontology and the project, this paper describes the main cognitive abilities that change with aging (perception, attention, memory, and other more specific processes such as decision-making), and that have to be taken into account while designing a technology for elderly people. Some guidelines that are specifically meant to ensure usability of these products are listed in the conclusions.
Lecture Notes in Computer Science
In this work, we present a case study, examining the design, development, and evaluation of an Augmented Reality serious game for cognitive screening (namely Smartkuber), which aims to provide reliable and motivating cognitive screening for the elderly. This case study can be of interest for the game designers and researchers, allowing them to build on previous experiences and lessons learned. Smartkuber's development process took place in four stages: 1) analysing the state of the art and defining characteristics, 2) setting up and examining the interaction method, 3) adding and evaluating the game content, and 4) evaluating cognitive screening performance and future direction. The "lessons learned" around the design and development of serious games for cognitive screening are discussed, with focus on Augmented Reality, interaction, test validity, and game motivation aspects.
2019
Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) occurs in older adults whose cognitive decline is greater than in normal aging, and it is a risk-factor for dementia. Cognitive training through games is a potential way to protect against further decline and delay the onset of dementia. This study investigated the usability and acceptability of a set of cognitive games for people with MCI when delivered on a robotic interface. 10 older adults played a set of cognitive games delivered on a robot with a touchscreen. Participants evaluated their experience through questionnaires. Observations of their interaction with the robot were also conducted by the researchers and experts in aged care to get further insight into the usability of these games. Findings demonstrated that both the users and experts believed the games to have potential to improve cognition in people with MCI. However, there were many functional issues with the robot that needed improvement including technical difficulties, problems wit...
2017
The aging process is often influenced by brain diseases affecting cognitive and physical abilities. From a clinical perspective, methods for neuropsychological assessment and cognitive stimulation adapted for an older population are crucial to quantify the cognitive and functional decline. Ideally, these methods should include relaxed, non-tiring and engaging tasks in order to motivate the elderly. Serious Games that adapt the current neuropsychological tests in order to assess performance of the players can enable useful data collection for medical evaluation. Here were port on initial steps for a methodology concerning the development of serious games for cognitive assessment, involving usability tests on two proposed prototypes. We present and discuss the behavior of the players during usability tests: the responses of players to the interview. An analysis of relevant points from the study concerning the challenges of working with an older population has revealed that the main ch...