learning and performance research done in the context of sports provides sound theories and practices for things like optimizing feedback and considering individual differences [ 3], relatively few HCI publications on bodily interaction cite sports science papers.

Motor-skill learning is an important part of all action games in which players move their bodies or manipulate game controllers in real time to reach goals. The role of feedback in motor learning and performance has been studied extensively (e.g., [ 3, 6]), and computer-generated feedback is a field that naturally bridges HCI and sport sciences. While it has been shown that properly designed augmented feedback can both motivate and guide motor learning, motor learning in the context of non-realistic player-avatar mappings (e.g., exaggerated jump height on a trampoline) is still a new field.

Many consider it ideal to be able to learn a real sport by playing a motion game. Technology limits what can be practiced realistically, in terms of what movement qualities can be sensed.

However, we argue that what needs to
be practiced realistically is ultimately
a design choice: Why focus on teaching
an existing sport when one can create
whole new augmented sports by
designing both space and technology
for both players and spectators? One
example of this is the interactive
LED basketball court mentioned
earlier that may enable new types of
games and captivating visualizations
for the audience. Another example
is Kick Ass Kung-Fu [ 7], a full-body
martial arts game and performance
shown in Figure 4. Such experiences
can employ the principle of selective
realism and combine realism and
fantasy in appropriate proportions.

In Kick Ass Kung-Fu, one performs real kicks, punches, and acrobatics on a realistic martial arts floor, while the fantasy elements include on-screen exaggeration of jumping height and running speed, and an energy supercharge triggered by shouting.

Additionally, the lack of real contact with virtual opponents enables the exploration of aesthetic and creative movement that would be too risky in real sparring.

In the future, it will be interesting
to observe the possible fusion of
eSports (competitive tournament
gaming) with the kinds of exertion
games discussed here. Digital games
are gradually becoming socially
accepted spectator sports, and there
are already professional gamers living
off sponsorships and tournaments. In
the future there might exist exergame
professionals, such as athletes
competing in martial arts or climbing
games optimized as both user and
spectator experiences. An open question
for HCI and game research is how one
can create motion games with eSports
potential. Presently, most motion games
do not have competitive communities,
with Dance Dance Revolution as the
notable exception.

Endnotes

1. Kajastila, R., Holsti, L., and Hämäläinen, P. Empowering the exercise: A body-controlled trampoline training game. International Journal of Computer Science in Sport 13, 1 (2014).

2. Kajastila, R. and Hämäläinen, P. Augmented climbing: Interacting with projected graphics on a climbing wall. CHI 2014 Extended Abstracts. ACM, New York, 2014, 1279–1284.

3. Magill, R. A. and Anderson, D.I. The roles and uses of augmented feedback in motor skill acquisition. In Skill Acquisition in Sport: Research, Theory and Practice. N. Hodges and A. M. Williams, eds. Routledge, 2012.

4. Wulf, G., Shea, C., and Lewthwaite, R. Motor skill learning and performance: A review of influential factors. Medical Education 44, 1 (2010), 75–84.

5. Baudry, L. and Leroy, D. The effect of combined self- and expert-modelling on the performance of the double leg circle on the pommel horse. Journal of Sports Sciences 24, 10 (2006), 1055–1063.

6. Sigrist, R., Rauter, G., Riener, R., and Wolf, P. Augmented visual, auditory, haptic, and multimodal feedback in motor learning: A review. Psychon. Bull. Rev. 20, 1 (Feb. 2013), 21–53.

7. Hämäläinen, P., Ilmonen, T., Höysniemi, J., Lindholm, M., and Nykänen, A. Martial arts in artificial reality. Proc. of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, New York, 2005, 781–790.

 

Raine Kajastila is a post-doctoral researcher at Aalto University in Helsinki, Finland. Raine did his Ph.D. on eyes-free and gestural user interfaces. His current research focuses on aurally/visually augmented exercise and sports-training environments. → [e-mail]

Perttu Hämäläinen is a professor of computer games at Aalto University. His primary research goal is to advance the understanding of computer science of human movement, encompassing analysis (e.g., computer vision), synthesis (e.g., procedural animation), as well as games and augmented feedback for motor learning. → [e-mail] DOI: 10.1145/2731182 © 2015 ACM 1072-5520/15/03 $15.00

Figure 4. Kick Ass Kung-Fu, a full-body martial arts game and performance.