Abstract
We present Chill-Out, an adaptive biofeedback game that teaches relaxation skills by monitoring the breathing rate of the player. The game uses a positive feedback loop that penalizes fast breathing by means of a proportional-derivative control law: rapid (and/or increasing) breathing rates increase game difficulty and reduce the final score of the game. We evaluated Chill-Out against a conventional non-biofeedback game and traditional relaxation based on deep breathing. Measurements of breathing rate, electrodermal activity, and heart rate variability show that playing Chill-Out leads to lower arousal during a subsequent task designed to induce stress.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
DeVries, M.W., Wilkerson, B.: Stress, work and mental health: a global perspective. Acta Neuropsychiatr. 15(1), 44–53 (2003)
Dallman, M.F.: Stress-induced obesity and the emotional nervous system. Trends Endocrinol. Metabol. 21(3), 159–165 (2010)
Leiter, M.P., Maslach, C.: Banishing burnout: six strategies for improving your relationship with work, 1st edn., ix, 193 p. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco (2005)
Richardson, K.M., Rothstein, H.R.: Effects of occupational stress management intervention programs: A meta-analysis. J. Occup. Health Psychol. 13(1), 69 (2008)
Varvogli, L., Darviri, C.: Stress Management Techniques: evidence-based procedures that reduce stress and promote health. Health Sci. J. 5(2), 74–89 (2011)
Jerath, R., et al.: Physiology of long pranayamic breathing: neural respiratory elements provide a mechanism that explains how slow deep breathing shifts the autonomic nervous system. Med. Hypotheses 67(3), 566–571 (2006)
Henriques, G., et al.: Exploring the effectiveness of a computer-based heart rate variability biofeedback program in reducing anxiety in college students. Appl. Psychophys. Biof. 36(2), 101–112 (2011)
Driskell, J.E., Johnston, J.H.: Stress exposure training. In: Making Decisions Under Stress: Implications for Individual and Team Training, pp. 191–217 (1998)
Williams, D., et al.: The virtual census: representations of gender, race and age in video games. New Media & Society 11(5), 815–834 (2009)
Bailey, K., West, R., Anderson, C.A.: The influence of video games on social, cognitive, and affective information processing. In: Handbook Social Neurosci., pp. 1001–1014 (2011)
Parnandi, A., Son, Y., Gutierrez-Osuna, R.: A control-theoretic approach to adaptive physiological games. In: Intl Conf. Affect Comput. & Intellig. Interact. (2013)
Toivanen, H., et al.: Impact of regular relaxation training on the cardiac autonomic nervous system of hospital cleaners and bank employees. Scand. J. Work Environ. Health, 319–325 (1993)
Kuo, B.C., Golnaraghi, M.F.: Automatic Control Systems, vol. 4. John Wiley & Sons, New York (2003)
Gackenbach, J., Bown, J.: Mindfulness and Video Game Play: A Preliminary Inquiry. Mindfulness 2, 114–122 (2011)
http://www.casualgamesassociation.org (cited November 21, 2011)
Cacioppo, J.T., Tassinary, L.G., Berntson, G.: Handbook of Psychophysiology. Cambridge University Press (2007)
Boucsein, W., Haarmann, A., Schaefer, F.: Combining skin conductance and heart rate variability for adaptive automation during simulated IFR flight. In: Harris, D. (ed.) HCII 2007 and EPCE 2007. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 4562, pp. 639–647. Springer, Heidelberg (2007)
Cannon-Bowers, J.A., Salas, E.E.: Making decisions under stress: Implications for individual and team training. American Psychological Association (1998)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 ICST Institute for Computer Science, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering
About this paper
Cite this paper
Parnandi, A., Ahmed, B., Shipp, E., Gutierrez-Osuna, R. (2014). Chill-Out: Relaxation Training through Respiratory Biofeedback in a Mobile Casual Game. In: Memmi, G., Blanke, U. (eds) Mobile Computing, Applications, and Services. MobiCASE 2013. Lecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering, vol 130. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05452-0_18
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05452-0_18
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-05451-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-05452-0
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)