Integrability and Reliability of Smart Wearables in Virtual Reality Experiences

Houzangbe, Samory; Christmann, Olivier; Gorisse, Geoffrey; Richir, Simon

doi:10.1145/3234253.3234305

Cited by 10 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…The HR was displayed on the corner of the screen. A total of three BF techniques were used in this study: (1) displaying changes in players' bodies to inform and manage anxiety [33]; (2) keeping HR within specific limits allows players to earn the game's prize, a diamond, promoting relaxation skills for stressful situations [34]; and (3) maintaining a low HR for a period allowed players to open boxes and collect more diamonds [33,35]. Trial Design, Participants, and Procedure…”

Section: Design and Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Smartphone-Gamified Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy Augmented With Biofeedback for Ailurophobia: Development and Evaluation Study

Khaleghi,

Narimani,

Aghaei

et al. 2024

JMIR Serious Games

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Background To the best of our knowledge, no specialized research has been conducted to address ailurophobia (fear of cats) in Iran or globally. This has driven our project, along with the prevalence of ailurophobia and the absence of a gamified virtual reality exposure therapy (VRET) that incorporates affordable and easily accessible biofeedback (BF) tools. We hypothesize that a gamified VRET augmented with BF will yield more positive effects than a similar device lacking BF. Objective This study primarily focuses on the development and preliminary evaluation of a smartphone-gamified VRET integrated with BF, targeting animal phobia, with a specific case study on ailurophobia. The secondary objectives are using affordable and readily available BF found in devices such as smart bands and smartwatches and creating a mobile virtual reality gamified app to improve patients’ adherence to treatments while simultaneously enhancing the app’s accessibility, scalability, and outreach. Methods Evaluations encompassed 3 methods. First, we identified the tool’s potential positive effects on phobia interventions, exploring 4 effects: intrinsic motivation, simulation of fearful situations, management of stressful circumstances without therapists’ presence and mitigation of catastrophic thoughts, and preliminary effects on ailurophobia treatment. Participants were divided into BF and non-BF groups. Second, we gathered user preferences and opinions about the treatment. Third, we conducted heuristic evaluations using 44 heuristics from existing system usability scales assessing user interfaces, virtual reality platforms, and video games’ playability. To interpret the data, mean scores; ANOVA, single factor; and ANOVA, 2-factor with replication were used. A total of 29 individuals were identified, of which 10 met the eligibility criteria or were accessible. Results The smartphone-gamified VRET augmented with BF exhibited better results on the identified effects compared with the non-BF version and contributed to normalizing encounters with cats. Moreover, 41 of the 44 heuristics achieved a percentage above 62%, indicating its potential as a therapeutic product and its ability to enhance patient adherence to treatments. Patient preferences on the treatment and its strengths and weaknesses were provided for further improvement. Conclusions The tool has the potential to evolve into a comprehensive solution by incorporating various types of cats and their behaviors, simulating environments in which they are commonly found, and enhancing its appeal through an increased sense of adventure without inducing unrealistic fears. By adapting fear elements, the game can be tailored to treat various animal phobias. Phobia-focused games should avoid action and combat scenarios to prevent reinforcement of fear responses. After rigorous evaluation, further exploration is required to provide remote use beyond clinical settings.

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Section: Design and Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Smartphone-Gamified Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy Augmented With Biofeedback for Ailurophobia: Development and Evaluation Study

Khaleghi,

Narimani,

Aghaei

et al. 2024

JMIR Serious Games

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“…At the core of our different studies, we want to explore the potential of off-the-shelf devices in providing new interaction schemes in VR. Thus, we decided to use a wearable heart rate monitor as it has been demonstrated to be accurate enough for entertainment and sports applications; it can also be easily integrated in VR experiences (Wang et al 2017;Gaskin et al 2017;Houzangbe et al 2018b).…”

Section: Apparatusmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of voluntary heart rate control on user engagement and agency in a virtual reality game

et al. 2020

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It has been demonstrated that virtual reality (VR) exposure can affect the subjective experience of different situations, cognitive capabilities or behavior. It is known that there is a link between a person's physiological state and their psychological self-report and user experience. As an immersive experience can affect users' physiological data, it is possible to adapt and enhance the content of a virtual environment in real-time base on physiological data feedback (biofeedback). With the rapid evolution of the physiological monitoring technologies, it is now possible to exploit different modalities of biofeedback, in a cheap and non-cumbersome manner, and study how they can affect user experience. While most of the studies involving physiological data use it as a measuring tool, we want to study its impact when direct and voluntary physiological control becomes a mean of interaction. To do so, we created a two-parts protocol. The first part was designed to categorize the participants on their heart rate control competency. In the second part of the study, we immersed our participants in a VR experience where they must control their heart rate to interact with the elements in the game. The results were analyzed based on the competency distribution. We observed consistent results between our competency scale and the participants' control of the biofeedback game mechanic. We also found that our direct biofeedback mechanic is highly engaging. We observed that it generated a strong feeling of agency, which is linked with users' level of heart rate control. We highlighted the richness of biofeedback as a direct game mechanic, prompting interesting perspective for personalized immersive experiences.

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“…We decided to use the Unity game engine and Android Studio IDE for the prototype development, as they are free for personal usage and are standard development tools for VR and Android applications [3,22,39,60,88]. The prototype supports Android OS only for the purpose of installation simplicity.…”

Section: Softwarementioning

confidence: 99%

“…There are several studies examining the use of smartphones or wearable devices as VR input devices [3,13,87,34,39,47,48,51,53,71,80]. To date, none was able to track the smartphone's position and orientation with off-the-shelf VR headsets without attaching a bulky VR controller or tracking device to it.…”

Section: Chapter 1: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Selection Performance Using a Smartphone in VR with Redirected Input

Kyian¹

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We present a method to track a smartphone in VR using a fiducial marker displayed on the screen. Using WebRTC transmission protocol, we capture input on the smartphone touchscreen as well as the screen contents, copying them to a virtual representation in VR. We present two Fitts' law experiments assessing the performance of selecting targets displayed on the virtual smartphone screen using this method. The first compares direct vs. indirect input (i.e., virtual smartphone co-located with the physical smartphone, or not), and reveals there is no significant difference in performance due to input indirection. The second experiment assesses the influence of input scaling, i.e., decoupling the virtual cursor from the actual finger position on the smartphone screen so as to provide a larger virtual tactile surface. Results indicate a small effect for extreme scale factors. We discuss implications for the use of smartphones as input devices in VR.

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Integrability and Reliability of Smart Wearables in Virtual Reality Experiences

Cited by 10 publications

References 10 publications

A Smartphone-Gamified Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy Augmented With Biofeedback for Ailurophobia: Development and Evaluation Study

A Smartphone-Gamified Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy Augmented With Biofeedback for Ailurophobia: Development and Evaluation Study

Effects of voluntary heart rate control on user engagement and agency in a virtual reality game

Selection Performance Using a Smartphone in VR with Redirected Input

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