A Mimetic Strategy to Engage Voluntary Physical Activity In Interactive Entertainment
This work addresses the problem of providing relief for dementia caregivers and entertainment for sufferers, though it is incremental as it builds on existing interactive system designs.
The paper tackles the challenge of engaging dementia sufferers in interactive entertainment by designing a vision-based system that uses involuntary viewer input to transition to voluntary interaction, resulting in a character animation engine that simulates non-verbal mime strategies to capture attention.
We describe the design and implementation of a vision based interactive entertainment system that makes use of both involuntary and voluntary control paradigms. Unintentional input to the system from a potential viewer is used to drive attention-getting output and encourage the transition to voluntary interactive behaviour. The iMime system consists of a character animation engine based on the interaction metaphor of a mime performer that simulates non-verbal communication strategies, without spoken dialogue, to capture and hold the attention of a viewer. The system was developed in the context of a project studying care of dementia sufferers. Care for a dementia sufferer can place unreasonable demands on the time and attentional resources of their caregivers or family members. Our study contributes to the eventual development of a system aimed at providing relief to dementia caregivers, while at the same time serving as a source of pleasant interactive entertainment for viewers. The work reported here is also aimed at a more general study of the design of interactive entertainment systems involving a mixture of voluntary and involuntary control.