Development of adaptive human-computer interaction games to evaluate attention

In this work, several physical activity based Human-Computer Interaction(HCI) games which are developed and implemented for the improvement of attention, emotion and sensory-motor coordination will be presented. The interface, and difficulty levels of these games are specially designed for the ease of different age groups and disabilities. The games involve physical activities for the fulfillment of some basic tasks within the HCI, such as fruit picking and air hockey, with adaptive difficulty levels based on varying parameters of the games and human performance. In the fruit picking game, the player will see a number of fruits moving from top to the bottom of the screen. Objective is to collect apples while avoiding the pears. The player's hand will control the basket that collects the fruits. In the air hockey game, the player will try to score goals against computer controlled player. The player's hand will control the paddle. Both of the players will try to hit the puck to score or to defend their goals. The player's hand is recognized by Kinect RGB-D sensors in both games. Aim of the adaptive difficulty based system is keeping the players engaged in the games. Games with fixed parameters are found to be less engaging over time especially with children under special treatment or education and reduces the player performance. Also these games target children with disabilities in the long run, and adaptivity of difficulty makes the games appropriate for a larger target group. If the player's performance is relatively low, game will help them play better by decreasing the difficulty. If the player's performance is relatively high, game will increase the difficulty to increase the challenge. In both cases, adaptive difficulty system makes the games more enjoyable. The games are tested with a group of deaf children (3.5-5 years) as a part of the pilot studies of an ongoing project, to decrease the stress of the children, and increase their positive emotions, attention and sensory-motor coordination before the main tests. Both the game results, the evaluation of the therapists and the pedagogues show that the games have a positive impact on the children. The games are also tested with a group of adults as a control group and the attention levels of the adults were also observed via mobile EEG device. The children to use the EEG device in the main tests therefore the device was not integrated to their game sessions.