The narrative impact of active video games on physical activity

活跃视频游戏对身体活动的叙事影响

• 批准号: 8243146
• 负责人: Amy Shirong Lu
• 金额: $ 24.9万
• 依托单位: NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2012
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2012-07-11 至 2013-04-04
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/8243146
• 关键词: Activities of Daily Living; Adherence; Affect; Affective; Arousal; Attention; Behavior Therapy; Behavioral; Beryllium; Child; Clip; Cognition; Cognitive; Collection; Data; Development; Dimensions; Energy Metabolism; Equipment; Evaluation; Event; Exercise; Face; Family; Fostering; Future; Health; Health Club; Health behavior; Heart Rate; Home environment; Human; Individual; Intervention; Lead; Longevity; Malignant Neoplasms; Manufacturer Name; Measures; Media Intervention; Mediating; Methods; Motivation; Movement; Neighborhoods; Outcome; Perception; Physical activity; Play; Property; Quality of life; Risk; Role; Schools; Series; Site; Suspension substance; Suspensions; Television; Testing; Training Programs; Translating; Transportation; Video Games; affection; aged; base; cancer type; combat; communication behavior; design; evidence base; experience; fitness; innovation; longitudinal design; novel; novel strategies; obesity in children; obesity prevention; prevent; psychologic; research study; response; sedentary

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Project Summary Physical activity (PA) is key to both preventing childhood obesity and reducing an individual's risk for certain types of cancer. While conventional PA interventions (e.g., exercise, health clubs) face problems of sustained motivation and adherence to fitness or training programs, active video games (AVGs) offer an innovative alternative for PA promotion due to their promising motivational properties. Although studies suggest that AVGs allow players to achieve the recommended levels of PA, children's motivation to play AVGs often decreases quickly. To reduce this decline, our study introduces an innovative motivating factor: a narrative. A narrative or storyline effectively draws on the human need for narrative closure (i.e., the need to find out how the story will end). A well-constructed narrative has a significant impact on cognition, affect, and health behavior. However, narrative elements are seldom incorporated into AVGs. An AVG with a storyline should encourage children to engage in more PA through increased motivation and extended play. Consequently, AVGs with compelling narratives should increase players' activity energy expenditure (AEE), PA level, and heart rate. Moreover, AVGs with narratives are likely to be more interactive, immersive, and engaging, and thereby elicit cognitive, affective, and behavioral experiences that differ both quantitatively and qualitatively from those elicited by nonnarrative AVGs. The proposed study explores both the novel addition of a compelling narrative to AVGs and its psychological and behavioral consequences on PA. It proposes to create corresponding narrative and nonnarrative cutscenes of comparable duration interspersed in an existing AVG; 40 children aged 8 to 11 will play narrative or nonnarrative versions of the games by watching corresponding cutscenes (i.e., brief, animated clips played in video games) and playing the game. Their cognitive and affective evaluation, motivation to play the games, duration of play, activity energy expenditure (AEE), PA level, and heart rate will be measured for the narrative and nonnarrative versions of the AVG. This study is a first step in a series of rigorous systematic inquiries into the behavioral potentials of narratives via AVGs for combating childhood obesity. The exploration of a narrative's motivating capacity in AVGs will inspire novel AVG designs and introduce a new dimension of PA facilitation among children with immersive and involving games, which may then be translated into school- or family-based health media interventions. Such inquiries would help to create innovative and effective media products to be applied to various health interventions. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Project Narrative/Statement of Public Health Significance This study has the potential for a significant public health impact due to the pervasiveness of video game consoles, which are present in nearly 90% of the homes and 50% of the bedrooms of US children. Narratives possess unique motivational properties that may not only make AVGs more interactive, immersive, and engaging but also elicit greater cognitive, affective, and behavioral responses than nonnarrative AVGs. Successful completion of this study will provide the empirical basis for novel design inspirations for AVGs that, when combined with involving narratives, can be directly translated into school- or community-based media interventions as a practical, cost-effective, and broadly available method for reducing childhood obesity.

描述（由申请人提供）： 项目摘要 体力活动 (PA) 是预防儿童肥胖和降低个人患某些类型癌症的风险的关键。虽然传统的 PA 干预措施（例如锻炼、健身俱乐部）面临持续激励和坚持健身或训练计划的问题，但主动视频游戏 (AVG) 由于其有前景的激励特性，为 PA 促进提供了一种创新的替代方案。尽管研究表明 AVG 可以让玩家达到推荐的 PA 水平，但孩子们玩 AVG 的动力往往会迅速下降。为了减少这种下降，我们的研究引入了一个创新的激励因素：叙事。叙事或故事情节有效地利用了人类对叙事结束的需求（即需要找出故事将如何结束）。结构良好的叙述会对认知、情感和健康行为产生重大影响。然而，AVG 中很少融入叙事元素。具有故事情节的 AVG 应鼓励孩子通过增加动力和延长游戏时间来参与更多 PA。因此，具有引人入胜的叙述的 AVG 应该会增加玩家的活动能量消耗 (AEE)、PA 水平和心率。此外，带有叙事的 AVG 可能更具互动性、身临其境和吸引力，从而引发与非叙事 AVG 所引发的认知、情感和行为体验在数量和质量上都有所不同。拟议的研究探讨了在 AVG 中新颖地添加引人入胜的叙述及其对 PA 的心理和行为影响。它建议创建相应的叙事和非叙事过场动画，时间相当，散布在现有的 AVG 中； 40 名 8 至 11 岁的儿童将通过观看相应的过场动画（即视频游戏中播放的简短动画片段）并玩游戏来玩叙事或非叙事版本的游戏。他们的认知和情感评估、玩游戏的动机、游戏持续时间、活动能量消耗 (AEE)、PA 水平和心率将针对 AVG 的叙事和非叙事版本进行测量。这项研究是对通过 AVG 叙述对抗儿童肥胖的行为潜力进行一系列严格系统调查的第一步。对 AVG 中叙事激励能力的探索将激发新颖的 AVG 设计，并通过沉浸式和涉及游戏的方式为儿童引入 PA 促进的新维度，然后可以转化为基于学校或家庭的健康媒体干预措施。此类调查将有助于创建创新且有效的媒体产品，应用于各种健康干预措施。 公共健康相关性：项目叙述/公共健康意义声明 由于电子游戏机的普遍存在（美国近 90% 的家庭和 50% 的卧室都配备了电子游戏机），这项研究有可能对公共健康产生重大影响。孩子们。叙事具有独特的动机特性，不仅可以使 AVG 更具互动性、身临其境和吸引力，而且比非叙事 AVG 能引发更大的认知、情感和行为反应。这项研究的成功完成将为 AVG 的新颖设计灵感提供经验基础，当与叙事相结合时，可以直接转化为学校或社区为基础的媒体干预措施，作为一种实用、具有成本效益且广泛可用的方法减少儿童肥胖。