Exergames are becoming increasingly popular and have shown potential for motivating physical activity. Past research suggests that social (multiplayer) exergames offer players an engaging experience and good aerobic exercises. Our systematic review summarizes existing work and identifies gaps, trends, and patterns on social exergame research in the domain of health and wellness. A search was conducted in the ACM Digital Library, IEEE Xplore, and PubMed. After screening 2272 records, we identified 73 studies from 2013 to 2023 that meet the inclusion criteria. Our results reveal that step tracking is the most commonly implemented measure of physical activity in social exergames, and that competition, rewards, and cooperation are the most common features used for designing the games. Our results also show that the effectiveness of social exergames is intricately linked to a combination of factors, including group size, player matching, and game features. The main contribution of this paper is (1) an analysis of features and group dynamics employed for designing social exergames, and (2) how game features affect the games’ outcome (both positive and negative) uncovering challenges and opportunities to advance future research in this area. Our findings in the current review provides insights for the design and implementation of social exergaming helping users to experience more socially satisfying game experiences thereby increasing the motivation for exercise, as well as gaining social benefits.

This article addresses the problem of newcomer children’s social adjustment through the use of educational games and co-design activities. While the adjustment process has been studied broadly, there are few studies on using computer games as a solution, especially the involvement of the children in the design process. This article is based on data collected from two studies aimed at understanding newcomer children’s social adjustment needs and involving them in designing game-based solutions. In the first study and as a pre-requisite to designing any effective solution, we conducted a survey of Arabic-speaking newcomer tweens (9–12 years old), parents, and teachers to understand and contextualise the social adjustment problems the children are experiencing. In the second study, we ran a series of co-design workshops and interviews to investigate what the children learn and which game-play ideas and features they use to promote solutions to the social adjustment problems identified in the first study. Corresponding to our two studies, this article has two main contributions: (1) identifying and confirming the most pressing social adjustment problems, and (2) offering new insights on running co-design workshops with children and the features and ideas that can be used in social adjustment games for newcomer children.

Fun and social affiliation are good predictors of long-term intention to use game-based interventions including those for motivating physical activity, yet current player matching algorithms are poor at facilitating social connectedness. In this paper, we report on the results of a study investigating how different player traits are associated with interest in social features of an exercise game for improving player experience through better player matching using common and complementary characteristics. Twelve conceptual scenarios were illustrated using storyboards and data was collected from 196 respondents who rated their attitudes and preferences towards gamification elements. Correlational results showed that all scenarios, except for cutting corners, were perceived as persuasive, enjoyable, engaging and are likely to increase future exercise intention for players who score high on Philanthropist- and Socialiser-oriented traits. Results also showed that many players favour the altruistic donation feature. Furthermore, qualitative results underscore that it is the player's partner that matters more than the players’ personalities. We conclude with practical recommendations for designing more personalised exercise games that can include more socially engaging game mechanics in the future.

Research suggests that 3D virtual environments can be designed to prime engagement, creativity, and improve performance on many cognitive tasks. In this paper, we report on a study that compares the efficacy of context (environmental setting) on the priming of these desired effects within Desktop Virtual Reality (DVR) environments compared to Immersive VR (IVR), viewed from within a VR Head Mounted Device (HMD). We presented a 27-minute seminar “The Creative Process of Making an Animated Movie” to 68 participants within 4 different learning spaces: two with IVR (Prime and No Prime) and two with DVR (Prime and No Prime). The priming scenarios for both IVR and DVR environments included subject matter and popular culture visual artifacts related to animated movies and characters placed within a theatre classroom. This was intended to create a situated learning effect. The No Prime condition was presented in a standard classroom theatre without visual artifacts or any subject matter augmentation. A 20-question multiple-choice content test and UX survey were administered following the seminar while an affective questionnaire measuring anxiety and positive affect were provided before and after the seminar. Increased academic performance was observed with a significant difference in both DVR and IVR priming scenarios compared to the no priming conditions.

Research suggests that virtual environments can be designed to increase engagement and performance on many cognitive tasks. This paper compares the effect of specifically designed 3D environments intended to Prime these effects within Virtual Reality (VR). A 27-minute seminar “The Creative Process of Making an Animated Movie” was presented to 51 participants within three VR learning spaces: two Prime and one No Prime. The Prime conditions included two situated learning environments; an animation studio and a theatre with animation artifacts vs. the No Prime: theatre without artifacts. A 20-question multiple-choice content test, User Experience (UX), and affective (anxiety and positive affect) surveys were completed prior to and immediately after the learning session. Increased academic performance was observed in both Prime conditions compared to the control. UX and affective surveys related to the immersive VR experience were positive, but there were no significant differences observed between the Prime and No Prime conditions in either case.

In this research, using storyboard implementation, we investigate the relationship between social game elements and the Hexad user type model for motivating exercise and play. The goal is to see if and how different gamer types are associated with interest in social features and if they can be used as the basis for player compatibility matching (similar or complementary). Participants (N = 60) rated the level of perceived persuasiveness, enjoyment, social engagement, and intention for future play on 8 social elements for step-based asynchronous exergames. Preliminary results show a significant positive relationship between social game elements and player types. Correlational analyses demonstrated that the gamification elements “Sharing Knowledge”, “Supportive Updates”, “Rotating Leadership” and “Leaderboard” were most strongly related to the “Philanthropist” player type. We conclude with recommendations for designing personalized multiplayer mobile exergames.

Recent research indicates that many post-secondary students feel overwhelming anxiety, negatively impacting academic performance and overall well-being. In this paper, based on multidisciplinary literature analysis and innovative ideas in cognitive science, learning models, and emerging technologies, we introduce a theoretical framework that shows how and when priming activities can be introduced into the experiential learning cycle to reduce anxiety and increase cognitive bandwidth. This framework proposes a Virtual Reality based priming approach that uses games and meditative interventions. Our results show this approach's potential compared to no-priming scenarios for reducing anxiety and significance for VR gaming in improving cognitive bandwidth.

In this extended abstract, we argue that for virtual reality to be a successful tool in social learning spaces (e.g. classrooms or museums) we must also look outside the virtual reality literature to provide greater focus on accessible and social collaborative content. We explore work within Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) and social VR domains to move towards developing a design framework for socio-educational VR. We also briefly describe our work-in-progress application framework, Circles, including these features in WebVR.

Gamification and exergames in particular have been broadly employed in health and fitness as an attempt to promote exercise and more active life styles. Motivated by popularity and availability of wearable activity trackers, we present the design and findings of a study on the motivational effects of using activity tracker-based games to promote daily exercise. Furthermore, we have investigated user behaviors, usage patterns, engagement, and parameters that affect them. An exergame was developed with an accompanying wearable device, for which different variations of application updates were pushed out periodically over a 70-day period. The results of this long-term study show that the usage of wearable activity trackers during exercise, even when gamified for increased entertainment, sees a consistent decline over time. This decline, however, is observed to be reversible with periodic updates to the game. This work, we believe, can make a significant contribution to solving the user retention problem of wearable-based exergames.

This paper proposes a framework for developing and accessing distributed multiplayer motion-based interactive applications. The framework provides an API for programmers to easily access users' motion data through a Kinect sensor, connect to a network of stations with similar features, and share the motion data. Using this framework, developers can create multiplayer motion-based games or other apps, and share them. The framework allows users to select both apps to play and the stations with which to play. The location-oriented nature of the framework (choosing station vs. user) makes it particularly useful for public installations. We demonstrate the functionalities of our proposed framework with a sample game.

Abstract The crucial concept of modeling and synthesis/control of human motion (including face and body) for animation has been widely studied and explored in the literature. In this regard, the audience's perception of generated or recorded animation scenes is of critical importance. In this paper, we explore and conceptualize the general notions that need to be taken into account for human motion to maintain perceptual accuracy. We propose a paradigm called Perceptual Validity composed of four major components, which are discussed in detail. The model is concerned with different aspects of the scene such as correct illustration of the stimuli, context, and local/global relations of various visual cues present in human motion. Satisfying all the proposed principles, based on the literature, seems compulsory and vital for synthesis of perceptually valid animation scenes of human motion. We investigate the relative significance of the different components of the paradigm using feedback from expert animators and conduct a case study on one of the components of the paradigm. For further evaluation and exploration, Disney's principles of animation are discussed and compared against our proposed paradigm. We argue that while there are significant parallels and overlaps, our model is only focused on and more inclusive towards human motion and can therefore provide a valuable set of guidelines for animators in the field of character animation. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

This paper presents a novel approach for modeling features of style and affect in human motion. Our approach is based on inputs collected from experienced animators. For this purpose, an interface is developed that allows for editing of motion sequences by adding a limited number of Gaussian radial basis functions (RBFs) to different joint trajectories in 3-D Cartesian space. Animators are asked to alter a neutral walking sequence to synthesize happy, sad, feminine, masculine, energetic, and tired variants. Through consolidating the sets of collected RBFs, we compute an expert-driven set of features that can transform neutral walks to the mentioned variations. Moreover, details regarding the use of posture versus movement features, the most frequently edited body joints, as well as shapes, intensities, and distributions of the edits are investigated and presented. Perception feedback from a group of nonexperts validates the proposed approach and the effectiveness, efficiency, scalability, and inversion of the proposed models. The perception study also sheds light on several aspects of perceiving style and affect from motion.

This paper proposes FML, an XML-based face modeling and animation language. FML provides a structured content description method for multimedia presentations based on face animation. The language can be used as direct input to compatible players, or be compiled within MPEG-4 XMT framework to create MPEG-4 presentations. The language allows parallel and sequential action description, decision-making and dynamic event-based scenarios, model configuration, and behavioral template definition. Facial actions include talking, expressions, head movements, and low-level MPEG-4 FAPs. The ShowFace and iFACE animation frameworks are also reviewed as example FML-based animation systems.

Abstract What visual cues do human viewers use to assign personality characteristics to animated characters? While most facial animation systems associate facial actions to limited emotional states or speech content, the present paper explores the above question by relating the perception of personality to a wide variety of facial actions (e.g., head tilting/turning, and eyebrow raising) and emotional expressions (e.g., smiles and frowns). Animated characters exhibiting these actions and expressions were presented to human viewers in brief videos. Human viewers rated the personalities of these characters using a well‐standardized adjective rating system borrowed from the psychological literature. These personality descriptors are organized in a multidimensional space that is based on the orthogonal dimensions of desire for affiliation and displays of social dominance. The main result of the personality rating data was that human viewers associated individual facial actions and emotional expressions with specific personality characteristics very reliably. In particular, dynamic facial actions such as head tilting and gaze aversion tended to spread ratings along the dominance dimension, whereas facial expressions of contempt and smiling tended to spread ratings along the affiliation dimension. Furthermore, increasing the frequency and intensity of the head actions increased the perceived social dominance of the characters. We interpret these results as pointing to a reliable link between animated facial actions/expressions and the personality attributions they evoke in human viewers. The paper shows how these findings are used in our facial animation system to create perceptually valid personality profiles based on dominance and affiliation as two parameters that control the facial actions of autonomous animated characters. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Visual presentation of a talking person requires the generation of image frames showing the speaker in various views while pronouncing various phonemes. The existing approaches, mostly use either a complex 3D geometric model to reconstruct a desired image or a set of 2D images for each viewpoint, to select from. We propose a new system which utilizes facial feature detection and image-based transformation to create any talking frame using only one given image from the desired viewpoint and a set of reference images from one standard view. The proposed approach, together with optical flow-based view morphing and a customizable concatenative text-to-speech, makes a personalized visual speech generation system which can be used for moving/talking head applications where an optimal trade-of between computational complexity and image database requirements is necessary.