Remote Heart Rate Sensing and Projection to Renew Traditional Board Games and Foster Social Interactions
This work addresses the challenge of making physiological sensing more engaging and social for general users, though it is incremental as it applies existing sensing methods to a new application domain.
The researchers tackled the problem of integrating physiological sensors into traditional board games to enhance social interactions by using remote heart rate sensing via webcams and projection to hide the technology, resulting in observations of player reactions such as stress when deprived of their own signals and providing design guidelines for game developers.
While physiological sensors enter the mass market and reach the general public, they are still mainly employed to monitor health -- whether it is for medical purpose or sports. We describe an application that uses heart rate feedback as an incentive for social interactions. A traditional board game has been "augmented" through remote physiological sensing, using webcams. Projection helped to conceal the technological aspects from users. We detail how players reacted -- stressful situations could emerge when users are deprived from their own signals -- and we give directions for game designers to integrate physiological sensors.