Examining associations between action game play and motor control.

The effects of playing action video games have been investigated across a wide range of attentional and cognitive abilities. However, few studies have examined the association between motor control and action gaming experience. We report data from two discrete pointing tasks, manipulating the index of difficulty (ID) by movement distance and target size, respectively. Participants' gaming experience ranged from non-players to individuals who played several hours a night. Our results indicated greater experience playing action games, but not video games in general, was associated with shorter movement times (MT), higher velocities, and shallower ID-MT slopes when difficulty was manipulated across increasingly further distances and smaller target sizes. Additionally casual players, those who only play action games a couple times a week, were able to achieve a similar level of performance as more experienced players.

The role of individual differences on perceptions of wearable fitness device trust, usability, and motivational impact.

Lack of physical activity is a severe health concern in the United States with fewer than half of all Americans meeting the recommended weekly physical activity guidelines. Although wearable fitness devices can be effective in motivating people to be active, consumers are abandoning this technology soon after purchase. We examined the impact of several user (i.e. personality, age, computer self-efficacy, physical activity level) and device characteristics (trust, usability, and motivational affordances) on the behavioral intentions to use a wearable fitness device. Novice users completed a brief interaction with a fitness device similar to a first purchase experience before completing questionnaires about their interaction. We found computer self-efficacy, physical activity level, as well as personality traits indirectly increased the desire to use a fitness device and influenced the saliency of perceived motivational affordances. Additionally, trust, usability, and perceived motivational affordances were associated with increased intentions to use fitness devices.

Searching for Affective and Cognitive Restoration: Examining the Restorative Effects of Casual Video Game Play.

OBJECTIVE: We investigated the effects of a passive break, relaxation activity, and casual video game on affect, stress, engagement, and cognitive performance. BACKGROUND: Reducing stress and improving cognitive performance is critical across many domains. Previous studies investigated taking a break, relaxation techniques, or playing a game; however, these methods have not been compared within a single experiment. METHOD: Participants completed a baseline affective and cognitive assessment (ACA), which included the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule, shortened version of the Dundee Stress State Questionnaire, and backward digit-span. Next, participants completed a vigilance task, followed by another ACA. Participants were then assigned at random to complete a break or relaxation activity or play a casual video game, followed by a final ACA. RESULTS: Participants who played the casual video game exhibited greater engagement and affective restoration than the relaxation condition. The break condition slightly decreased affect and prevented cognitive restoration. CONCLUSION: Playing a casual video game even briefly can restore individuals' affective abilities, making it a suitable activity to restore mood in response to stress. However, future research is needed to find activities capable of cognitive restoration. APPLICATION: Many activities in life require sustained cognitive demand, which are stressful and decrease performance, especially for workers in performance-critical domains. Our research suggests some leisure activities are better than others for restoring fatigued affective processes.

Driving under the influence of distraction: Examining dissociations between risk perception and engagement in distracted driving.

Driving while distracted is a critical and unwavering problem in the United States leading to numerous injuries and fatalities each year. While increasing legislation and developing technological interventions strive to ensure we only focus on driving, individuals still drive distracted. We surveyed college-aged adults to examine the factors that influence both their risk perception of driving while distracted and how often they engage in distracting activities and situations while driving. We found a disassociation between individuals' perception of driving distraction risk and their engagement with the distraction. Exposure, perceived knowledge of risks, fairness beliefs, and ratings of perceived visual and cognitive demands was associated with risk perception. Conversely, risk-seeking traits, how voluntary the task was perceived, and previous exposure to a distraction influenced engagement. Overall, we recommend additional research focusing on factors that predict engagement in driver distraction rather than perceived risk alone.

Intelligent Agent Transparency in Human-Agent Teaming for Multi-UxV Management.

OBJECTIVE: We investigated the effects of level of agent transparency on operator performance, trust, and workload in a context of human-agent teaming for multirobot management. BACKGROUND: Participants played the role of a heterogeneous unmanned vehicle (UxV) operator and were instructed to complete various missions by giving orders to UxVs through a computer interface. An intelligent agent (IA) assisted the participant by recommending two plans-a top recommendation and a secondary recommendation-for every mission. METHOD: A within-subjects design with three levels of agent transparency was employed in the present experiment. There were eight missions in each of three experimental blocks, grouped by level of transparency. During each experimental block, the IA was incorrect three out of eight times due to external information (e.g., commander's intent and intelligence). Operator performance, trust, workload, and usability data were collected. RESULTS: Results indicate that operator performance, trust, and perceived usability increased as a function of transparency level. Subjective and objective workload data indicate that participants' workload did not increase as a function of transparency. Furthermore, response time did not increase as a function of transparency. CONCLUSION: Unlike previous research, which showed that increased transparency resulted in increased performance and trust calibration at the cost of greater workload and longer response time, our results support the benefits of transparency for performance effectiveness without additional costs. APPLICATION: The current results will facilitate the implementation of IAs in military settings and will provide useful data to the design of heterogeneous UxV teams.

Evaluating input device usability as a function of task difficulty in a tracking task.

Game controllers are emerging as a preferred choice for the manual control of unmanned vehicles, but an understanding of their usability characteristics has yet to emerge. We compared the usability of an Xbox 360 game controller in a dual task situation using MATB II to the traditional joystick and keyboard interface in two experiments. In the first experiment, performance with the game controller was associated with fewer tracking errors. In a second experiment, we trained users on the devices, and found that even after training the game controller was still associated with fewer tracking errors as well as higher usability and lower workload ratings. These results are consistent with the idea that game controllers are highly usable input devices and do not require high mental workload to operate, thus making them suitable for complex control tasks.