Ubiquitous Biofeedback Serious Game for Stress Management

• Published in: IEEE access Vol. 4; pp. 1274 - 1286
• Main Authors: Al Osman, Hussein, Haiwei Dong, El Saddik, Abdulmotaleb
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Piscataway IEEE 2016; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Affective Computing; Biofeedback; Biological control systems; Biosensors; Computer & video games; Educational software; Entertainment industry; Games; Management services; Mobile Computing; Physiology; Psychological stress; Serious Gaming; Stress; Ubiquitous Biofeedback; Ubiquitous computing; mobile computing; affective computing; Serious gaming; ubiquitous biofeedback
• ISSN: 2169-3536; 2169-3536
• DOI: 10.1109/ACCESS.2016.2548980

Serious games augment utilitarian applications with an entertainment dimension. Hence, information pertaining to a utilitarian objective is seamlessly incorporated into the gaming scenario. In this paper, we present the concept of ubiquitous biofeedback serious games (UBSGs), a family of games that integrate biofeedback processes in their operation. They rely on physiological inputs collected from the player through biological sensors for game control. These physiological inputs are converted into quantifiable parameters that reflect the status of a certain physiological process. To prove the practicality of this concept, we develop a UBSG aimed at providing mental stress management services to players. We assess the ability of the game feedback to assist players in modulating their behavior to reduce their stress levels. In our evaluation, we have shown that the majority of participating subjects showed more control over their mental stress when game feedback was enabled.