XR Based Sports Cognition Testing
Building an Ecological Valid Test using Exergaming
MY ROLE
UX Research
Market Analysis
Interviews
VR App Design
Development
INTRODUCTION
The domain of sports training incorporates multimodal inputs to enhance various skills of athletes. Sportspersons of the highest levels train to amplify their skills to the greatest possible extent. For this, they undergo rigorous physical training. However, performance in sports is not limited to physical ability, but is the combination of physical, technical, and psychological skills of sportspersons. This requires athletes to pay attention not only to their physical capabilities but also their cognitive abilities. To focus on their cognitive skills, athletes can undergo cognitive assessments to understand the abilities they should work on and cognitive training to hone their skills.
LANDSCAPE ANALYSIS
Keeping in mind the importance of cognitive skills in sports, we ventured into this study with a goal to find a gap in the use of cognitive abilities in the domain of sports. This involved gaining a basic knowledge of cognitive skills and their relation to sports. A landscape analysis was conducted to understand how the market leverages cognitive abilities to train and test athletes.
To proceed with our study to find gaps in the use of cognitive abilities in sports, we formulated the following research question:
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How are cognitive abilities trained and assessed in athletes?
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To answer this question, we conducted a landscape analysis to study commercial products. This was done in an attempt to understand what appeals to coaches and athletes. The aim of the analysis was to gain an understanding of what is being done in sports technology with respect to cognition and find patterns in use of cognitive abilities in training and testing. A few points of focus were kept in mind while conducting the landscape analysis-
• Cognitive abilities and sport being targetted
• The procedure of testing/training
• The medium of the intervention
The most obvious trend found from the landscape analysis was the popularity of visual perception as a cognitive ability under focus. Out of the 19 products that were analysed, 12 focus on skills under visual perception, making it the most popular ability. This was an interesting observation that pushed us to probe further into this cognitive ability and find out the reason for its popularity in commercial products.
VISUAL PERCEPTION
Perception is the use of senses to gather, identify, and interpret information. ‘Visual’ implies the sense of vision aids to see, interpret visual stimuli, and act upon it appropriately. Visual Perception is the skill that allows us to mentally organise and analyse visual sensory information in order to be aware of the environment and understand it.
Visual Perception includes seven elements-
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Visual discrimination helps distinguish shapes.
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Visual memory aids in remembering physical forms after they have been removed from sight.
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Visual-spatial relationships help in the recognition of the same form in different spatial orientations.
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Visual form constancy helps in recognition of similar forms of different sizes or orientations.
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Visual sequential memory helps in recalling two to seven items sequentially after the occlusion of vision.
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Visual figure/ground assists in recognizing forms when they are partially hidden.
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Visual closure is the ability to recognize familiar forms that are partially complete.
Importance of Visual Perception in Sports
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Visual Perception is crucial where there may exist a visual stimulus.
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Efficient visual perception skills in sports help gather Spatio-temporal information about the movements of opponents and objects in the game environment
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A specific set of visual skills needs to be trained for each sport to strengthen specific visual abilities that improve sports performance.
​To gain an in-depth understanding of how the essential skill of visual perception is used in commercial products to train and test athletes, we compared the methods used by different products and the mediums they use to deliver their service. Our focus of analysis were products from our landscape analysis that had visual perceptual skills as skills of focus. Since our main goal was to find gaps in current implementations, we focused on what is lacking in these products.​
Analysis
​Interactions
No correlation between the activities performed by users with any activity/actions in the target sports.
Example- To help football players scan the field, Reflexion uses moving LED lights on a screen. Following lights on a two dimensional screen is very different from tracking a ball on a large field.
Interfaces/Environments
Very different environments are presented to users in comparison to what exists in the sport to test their in-sport abilities.
Example- To test visual perception for football players, users interact with Nike Pro Genius by clicking on a screen with a mouse. Footballers (other than the goalkeeper) are not supposed to use their hands in the sport.
This was the point where we chose to focus on the assessment of cognitive abilities. Through our observations, we noticed a gap in both the training and testing procedures. However, to train any ability, it is essential to test it properly to know the current skill level and areas of weakness. In essence, it is crucial to have a sound assessment system to use the training equipment to the best of their abilities. This motivated us to focus on the gap in testing procedures before we look into training.
ECOLOGICAL VALIDITY
Defines whether the results of a study are generalizable from the simulated laboratory conditions to the natural real-world behavior.
Lack of Ecological Validity
Experiments in laboratory settings: Help in understanding the artificial circumstances created, but not representative of what cognition is and how it works.
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These settings invoke behaviors that are not natural, limiting generalization of results to the real world.
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Direct implication for sportspersons: Results of such experiments are not representative of their cognitive performance in the sport environment.
Ecologically valid testing would add value to testing procedures by exploring real-life cognition.
Challenges while Establishing Ecological Validity
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Working of cognition is complex and simulations to test aspects of cognition would be less interactive than situations in real life.
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This implies that it is not possible to establish ecological validity entirely but only increase it.
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Variables that moderate the degree of ecological validity in tests are not entirely explored.
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Multiple definitions of ecological validity exist. Due to its multidimensionality, there are no standard rules to evaluate the ecological validity of research.
TACKLING THE PROBLEM : A CASE STUDY APPROACH
​The domain of HCI covers an important construct of ecological validity - the test environment. Making ecological validity the lens under which we conduct our study, our research question was refined-
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​How can we adapt existing Visual Perception tests to increase their Ecological Validity?
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A Case Study Approach​
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Enables narrowing down to a sport and particular scenarios and cognitive abilities associated with it.
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Aids in making the testing of cognitive skills more ecologically valid for a sport: testing can be conducted in the environmental context to which a sportsperson would be subjected.
Table Tennis
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Fastest reaction sport
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Requires good motor coordination abilities
It is not possible to test a single cognitive skill individually in an ecologically valid environment:
it needs to be tested through a larger domain of skills, like motor skills, speed of processing, etc.
Eye-hand coordination
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Motor ability
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Stems as a result of visual perception taking place as the first step
VALIDATION OF CASE STUDY
One of the products we assessed for eye-hand coordination in Table tennis is Vienna Test System. It is a digital way of psychological testing which comes along with various hardwares to perform the testing. SMK sensomotor coordination test is one such test of the Vienna System which focusses on eye hand coordination. With the help of a joystick, user needs to manoeuvre along a circular segment which moves on its own in a 3D room environment.
Looking from the lens of ecological validity and defining the 3 dimensions, test environment consists of a joystick and a screen which displays a 3D room environment. The stimuli under examination is the viewing of the circular segment of dot which the user needs to follow in order to complete the test. The behavioral response is the movement of joystick to manoeuvre along the moving circular segment of dots.
Using the case study, formulating a solution oriented research question-
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What can be done to adapt existing Eye-Hand Coordination tests to make them more Ecologically Valid for Table Tennis players?
GOALS
1: To understand how cognitive assessments can be made more ecologically valid.
2: Narrow down to what we aim to test in eye-hand coordination.
ADAPTATION vs FORMATION
At this point, we saw great value in adaptation of a test, rather than the formation of an entirely new one-
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Adaptation of an existing test gives more credibility to the new form of testing we wish to create in a virtual environment since it is based on an already validated test.
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Enhancing an already existing and widely used form of testing not only gives our research more importance, but it improves the future of testing for the entire sports community.
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It also gives importance to the new technique we wish to propose, crediting the HCI community with a method of making testing more ecologically valid, and hence better and enhanced.
VIENNA TEST SYSTEM
What is VTS?
Computerised psychological test system that provides automatic scoring and results that need to be interpreted by an expert.
What does VTS do?
Contains 120 tests to measure intelligence, executive functions, memory, attention, etc. It uses a computer, response panel, and keyboard for most of its tests.
Areas of Use
Aviation, sports, traffic psychology, early detection of dementia, etc.
EXERGAMING
Delving into the intersection of HCI and sports, we come across the concept of exergaming. The definition of an exergame, or exertion game, closest to our context defines it as a digital game that utilizes physical exertion interactions, and physical effort is a key element to achieve the game’s goal. The spectrum of exergames lies between the following
Exergames follow a body centric approach and have added to the experience of sports by achieving goals like promoting health benefits, social play, or novel play experiences while adding playfulness to the experience.
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Exergames have connected the domain of sports and HCI through gameplay. With our re- search, we aim to connect the domain of cognitive science and HCI through exergames, creating an intersection of sports, cognitive science and HCI. Through this, we aim to make a contribution to the HCI community.
Designing Exergaming Experience
OUR TEST
EXERTION CARDS
STORYBOARD
DIGITAL TEST to VIRTUAL TEST
The first step is understanding how to convert the digital test into a virtual one. As done for the virtual version of the Multiple Errands Test, the basic actions of the original test are translated into a virtual environment. Though different versions of the Multiple Errands Test exist, all of them require participants to complete 12 tasks which are broken down into sets like errands, acquiring information, meeting the assessor at a designated time, and informing them when the test is over. Participants are required to complete their tasks and are scored based on whether they make errors, adhere to time limits, and avoid communication with others among other rules. The virtual version of the test is in a supermarket environment where participants navigate using a joystick across different aisles and perform the required tasks, similar to what is done when the test is administered at test locations.
For the reaction time test of VTS which requires users to tap on the specified button on the correct stimulus, we create a virtual environment with the same stimulus and actions to be performed. For simplicity, our initial prototype includes an auditory and visual stimulus. Users are required to tap the button when they hear the sound and see the visual cue, and then are required to return to the original position.
INCREASING ECOLOGICAL VALIDITY
We heavily focus on making the test more ecologically valid. Our case study requires us to do this specifically for the sport of table tennis. To enhance the ecological validity of our test in comparison to VTS, we follow a similar procedure as done for Look for a Match. The aim for Look for a Match is to assess a few functions which are tested by the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test. The test was recreated to combat the shortcomings of the existing test, which are namely the synthetically created environment which conducts testing unnaturally, lack of interactivity, and limitation in the application of results to real life. Tapping into the advantages of VR as a medium, a more interactive test is formed which increases the range of user freedom which induces a natural feeling in the participants as interactions are more life-like. As done in the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, participants are required to match cards to colours, objects, or numbers. The difference is that this scenario is set on a real-life beach and participants are required to deliver frisbees, sodas, popsicles, or beach balls that match with umbrellas containing information regarding the colour, object, or number. As the participant delivers different objects, they receive verbal cues like ‘that’s it’ as they would in a real life scenario, which help them identify their next actions. Such a scenario appears to be more ecologically valid since it tests real life situations. On similar grounds, we aim to make our test more ecologically valid for table tennis. To do so, we look at our virtual environment formed so far. Users are required to tap buttons depending on cues and then return to the original place. To make the test more relevant and ecologically valid for table tennis, we introduce an environment that is more familiar to players- a table and a racquet. Users are now required to hit balls based on visual and auditory cues, the visual cue being the colour of the ball. The correct colour cue is white since a white ball is a standard used in competitions. This way, we introduce an environment which is more natural to table tennis players while they are in their game, and aim to test real-life cognition by making them perform actions that are more natural to the game.
REACTION TIME TEST PROVIDING AN EXERGAMING EXPERIENCE
We consider our experience to be an in between exertion game which balances physical exertion and gameplay. The gameplay elements of the exergaming experience are used to induce a competitive spirit in users, similar to what they would have during matches. Moderated physical exertion helps players feel more sport-like as compared to an experience which does not require users to exert at all.
The basic test that we have laid out is a virtual version of the reaction time test of VTS which is a more ecologically valid test for table tennis players as compared to the state of the art. Our experience involves physical effort as a key element to achieve the goal. To make our experience more physically engaging, we tweak our system to include multiple balls to be struck. While this lays down the basic experience, we have more details to pay attention to. These details are the elements of the framework required to design an exergaming experience.
LOW FIDELITY PROTOTYPE
FUTURE WORK
We could not continue this project further due to COVID-19 and lack of physical interactions with sportsperson and they need to wear the VR gears and test out the experience.
We wished to continue with Mid and High Fidelities, but had to scrape this project. I hope sometime in future, I can continue working on this project.
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