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.

身体活动（PA）是预防儿童肥胖和降低个人患某些类型癌症风险的关键。虽然传统的PA干预（例如，运动、健身俱乐部）面临持续动力和坚持健身或训练计划的问题，而主动视频游戏（AVG）因其有前途的激励特性而为PA推广提供了一种创新的替代方案。虽然研究表明，AVG允许玩家达到推荐的PA水平，但儿童玩AVG的动机往往会迅速下降。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：叙述。叙事或故事情节有效地利用了人类对叙事结束的需求（即，我想知道故事将如何结束）。一个结构良好的叙事对认知、情感和健康行为有着重要的影响。然而，叙事元素很少被纳入AVGs。一个有故事情节的AVG应该通过增加动机和延长游戏来鼓励孩子参与更多的PA。因此，具有令人信服的叙述的AVG应该增加玩家的活动能量消耗（AEE），PA水平和心率。此外，叙述性AVG可能更具互动性、沉浸性和吸引力，从而引发认知、情感和行为体验，这些体验在数量和质量上都不同于非叙述性AVG。拟议中的研究探讨了一个令人信服的叙述AVGs和PA的心理和行为后果的新增加。它建议在现有的AVG中创建相应的叙事和非叙事过场动画，其持续时间相当; 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的动画片段）和玩游戏。他们的认知和情感评估，玩游戏的动机，游戏的持续时间，活动能量消耗（AEE），PA水平和心率将被测量为叙述和非叙述版本的AVG。这项研究是一系列严格的系统性调查的第一步，通过AVGs的叙事行为潜力，以打击儿童肥胖。探索叙事的激励能力AVG将激发新颖的AVG设计，并引入一个新的层面PA促进儿童与沉浸式和涉及的游戏，然后可以转化为学校或家庭为基础的健康媒体干预。这种调查将有助于创造创新和有效的媒体产品，用于各种保健干预措施。 公共卫生关系：项目叙述/公共卫生意义声明由于视频游戏机的普及，这项研究有可能对公共卫生产生重大影响，这些游戏机存在于近90%的家庭和50%的美国儿童卧室中。叙事具有独特的动机属性，不仅可以使AVGs更具互动性，沉浸感和吸引力，而且比非叙事AVGs引起更大的认知，情感和行为反应。这项研究的成功完成将为AVG的新设计灵感提供经验基础，当与涉及叙述相结合时，可以直接转化为学校或社区媒体干预，作为一种实用，具有成本效益和广泛可用的方法，用于减少儿童肥胖。