DESIGN AND EVALUATION OF AFFECTIVE SERIOUS GAMES FOR EMOTION REGULATION ...

133 Pages·2014·3.95 MB·English

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Emotions are thought to be a key factor that red and analyzed. The proposed metrics for aD
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Emotion regulation can help to mitigate emo- games have been exhaustively evaluated. The fl
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lead to a better decision performance. Seri- on both quantitative and qualitative aspects, mio for emotion regulation training
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gulation, where meaningful biofeedback infor- Serious games approach to emotion regula- rf
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mation displays player’s emotional state. tion was investigated. The results suggested gec
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This thesis investigates emotions and the that two different emotion regulation strate- laiv
effect of emotion regulation on decision per- gies, suppression and cognitive reappraisal, are tioe
formance. Furthermore, it explores design and optimal for different decision tasks contexts. n
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evaluation methods for creating serious games With careful design methods, valid serious ga- r
a Petar Jerčić
where emotion regulation can be learned and mes for training those different strategies could in
practiced. be produced. Moreover, using psychophysiolo- in
g
The scope of this thesis was limited to se- gical methods, underlying emotion neural me-
rious games for emotion regulation training chanism could be mapped to provide optimal
using psychophysiological methods to com- level of arousal for a certain task.
municate user’s affective information. Using The results suggest that it is possible to de-
the psychophysiological methods, emotions sign and develop serious game applications
and their underlying neural mechanism have that provide helpful learning environment
been explored. Through design and evaluation where decision makers could practice emotion
of serious games using those methods, effects regulation and subsequently improve their de-
of emotion regulation have been investigated cision making.
where decision performance has been measu-
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Je
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č
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Blekinge Institute of Technology
Licentiate Dissertation Series No. 2013:11
2
ISSN 1650-2140 01 School of Computing
3
2013:11 ISBN: 978-91-7295-266-9 :11
Design and Evaluation of Affective Serious
Games for Emotion Regulation Training
Petar Jerčić

Blekinge Institute of Technology licentiate dissertation series
No 2013:11
Design and Evaluation of Affective Serious
Games for Emotion Regulation Training
Petar Jerčić
Licentiate Dissertation in
Game Development
School of Computing
Blekinge Institute of Technology
SWEDEN
2013 Petar Jerčić
School of Computing
Publisher: Blekinge Institute of Technology,
SE-371 79 Karlskrona, Sweden
Printed by Printfabriken, Karlskrona, Sweden 2013
ISBN: 978-91-7295-266-9
ISSN 1650-2140
urn:nbn:se:bth-00567
[...] Again among the sciences we consider that that science which is desirable in
itself and for the sake of knowledge is more nearly Wisdom than that which is
desirable for its results [...]
Aristotle, Metaphysics, London, 1933, 928a 15 (translated by Hugh Tredennick)

Abstract
Emotionsarethoughttobeakeyfactorthatcriticallyinfluenceshumandecision-
making. Emotionregulationcanhelptomitigateemotionrelateddecisionbiases
and eventually lead to a better decision performance. Serious games emerged as
a new angle introducing technological methods to learning emotion regulation,
wheremeaningfulbiofeedbackinformationdisplaysplayer’semotionalstate. This
thesis investigates emotions and the effect of emotion regulation on decision per-
formance. Furthermore, it explores design and evaluation methods for creating
seriousgameswhereemotionregulationcanbelearnedandpracticed. Thescope
of this thesis was limited to serious games for emotion regulation training using
psychophysiological methods to communicate user’s affective information. Using
the psychophysiological methods, emotions and their underlying neural mecha-
nism have been explored. Through design and evaluation of serious games using
those methods, effects of emotion regulation have been investigated where de-
cision performance has been measured and analyzed. The proposed metrics for
designingandevaluatingsuchaffectiveseriousgameshavebeenexhaustivelyeval-
uated. Theresearchmethodsusedinthisthesiswerebasedonbothquantitative
and qualitative aspects, with true experiment and evaluation research, respec-
tively. Serious games approach to emotion regulation was investigated. The
results suggested that two different emotion regulation strategies, suppression
and cognitive reappraisal, are optimal for different decision tasks contexts. With
careful design methods, valid serious games for training those different strategies
could be produced. Moreover, using psychophysiological methods, underlying
emotion neural mechanism could be mapped to provide optimal level of arousal
for a certain task. The results suggest that it is possible to design and develop
serious game applications that provide helpful learning environment where de-
cision makers could practice emotion regulation and subsequently improve their
decision making.

Contents
1 Introduction 1
2 Background 3
2.1 Related Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.1.1 Serious Games in the Field of Healthcare and Well-being . 14
2.1.2 Serious Games using Biofeedback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.1.3 Serious Games in the Context of Financial Decision Making 15
2.1.4 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
3 Approach 17
3.1 Aim and Scope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
3.2 RQs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
3.3 Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3.4 Threats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
3.5 Contributions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
3.6 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
3.7 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
3.8 Future Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
4 The Future of Brain-Computer Interface for Games and Inter-
action Design 31
4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
4.2 EPOC for Game Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
4.3 EPOC for Interaction Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
5 Evaluating Games Designed to Improve Financial Capability 35
5.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
5.2 The design and evaluation framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
5.3 A design and evaluation toolkit for financial capability games . . . 37
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