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A framework for physiological indicators of flow in VR games: construction and preliminary evaluation

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Abstract

Flow experience is often considered as an important standard of ideal user experience (UX). Till now, flow is mainly measured via self-report questionnaires, which cannot evaluate flow immediately and objectively. In this paper, we constructed a physiological evaluation model to evaluate flow in virtual reality (VR) game. The evaluation model consists of five first-level indicators and their respective second-level indicators. Then, we conducted an empirical experiment to test the effectiveness of partial indicators to predict flow experience. Most results supported the model and revealed that heart rate, interbeat interval, heart rate variability (HRV), low-frequency HRV (LF-HRV), high-frequency HRV (HF-HRV), and respiratory rate are all effective indicators in predicting flow experience. Further research should be conducted to improve the evaluation model and conclude practical implications in UX and VR game design.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank all reviewers for their valuable comments. This work was supported by the Special Funds of Taishan Scholar Construction Project, the China National Key Research and Development Project (2016YFB1001400), the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant (61272243, 61472225), the Shandong Provincial Science and Technology Development Program (2013GSF11802), and Shandong Province Natural Science Foundation (BS2009DX003).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Psychology, Shandong Normal University, Jinan, China

    Yulong Bian & Fengqiang Gao

  2. School of Computer Science and Technology, Shandong University, Jinan, China

    Chenglei Yang, Huiyu Li, Shisheng Zhou, Hanchao Li, Xiaowen Sun & Xiangxu Meng

  3. Engineering Research Center of Digital Media Technology, MOE, Shandong University, Jinan, China

    Yulong Bian, Chenglei Yang & Xiangxu Meng

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  1. Yulong Bian
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Correspondence to Chenglei Yang or Fengqiang Gao.

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Bian, Y., Yang, C., Gao, F. et al. A framework for physiological indicators of flow in VR games: construction and preliminary evaluation. Pers Ubiquit Comput 20, 821–832 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-016-0953-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-016-0953-5

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