L’être humain est doté d’une grande capacité à traiter l’information temporelle, particulièrement visible dans notre tendance à bouger avec la pulsation de la musique. Cette pulsation est appelée beat. Les capacités rythmiques sont sous-tendues par un réseau neuronal complexe, incluant les régions auditives (cortex auditif, gyrus temporal supérieur), les régions motrices et pré-motrices (les ganglions de la base, les cortex moteur et pré-moteur) et les régions de coordination motrices (par ex., le cervelet). Lorsque ces régions sont affectées par des maladies neurologiques ou développementales, les capacités rythmiques peuvent être atteintes. C’est le cas dans la maladie de Parkinson ou la dyslexie par exemple. Les déficits de rythme sont associés à des déficits moteurs et cognitifs. Une autre forme de troubles du rythme est le cas des mauvais synchroniseurs (anglais « beat deaf »), des sujets sans troubles neurologiques qui ont des difficultés à se synchroniser et/ou à percevoir le rythme.Dans cette dissertation, deux questions sont posées. Tout d’abord, est-il possible d’étendre nos connaissances des différences inter-individuelles dans les capacités de rythme avec un outil systématique, de manière à mieux comprendre les mécanismes sous-tendant le traitement du rythme ? Ensuite, les capacités de rythme peuvent-elles être entraînées, avec de potentielles applications dans l’entraînement des domaines cognitifs et moteurs associés chez les patients atteints de troubles rythmiques ?Dans la première partie de la section expérimentale, j’ai utilisé la Battery for the Assessment of Auditory Sensorimotor and Timing Abilities (BAASTA) pour évaluer systématiquement et caractériser les capacités rythmiques perceptives et sensorimotrices des individus. Les résultats obtenus à certaines tâches corrèlent hautement avec d’autres, alors que certaines tâches sont totallement indépendantes les unes des autres. Cela révèle que la batterie peut distinguer les mécanismes en commun ou différents d’une tâche à l’autre. Dans une autre étude, 20 sujets sains adultes ont été soumis à la BAASTA à deux semaines d’intervalle. La performance dans la plupart des tâches reste stable en phase de re-test. Finalement, la BAASTA a été utilisée auprès de sujets beat deaf. J’ai montré que deux individus ont des difficultés dans la perception du rythme, par exemple dans une tâche consistant à estimer si un métronome est aligné au rythme de la musique (Beat Alignment Test, BAT) alors qu’ils peuvent se synchroniser avec les mêmes stimuli. Le fait que la synchronisation au beat puisse être fonctionnelle alors que la perception est déficitaire est reporté pour la première fois. De plus, les sujets beat deaf bénéficient comme les sujets contrôles de la régularité d’une séquence (timing implicite) dans une tâche dans laquelle le but est de répondre le plus rapidement possible à une cible après une séquence de sons standards.Dans la deuxième partie de la section expérimentale, je présente un jeu sérieux pour l’entraînement des capacités de rythme (Rhythm Workers) conçu durant la thèse. J’ai développé un protocole d’entraînement des capacités de rythme progressive et conduit une étude pilote sur 20 sujets qui ont joué pendant deux semaines. Les participants ont montré une bonne adhésion au jeu et une bonne motivation à jouer. Des résultats encourageants sur l’évolution des capacités rythmiques, testés avec la version de la BAT issue de la BAASTA avant et après l’entraînement, sont présentés.En résumé, dans cette dissertation, j’ai contribué au développement d’outils pour l’évaluation et l’entraînement des capacités de rythme. Cela a permis de conduire des études pour mieux comprendre les mécanismes de traitement du rythme et d’ouvrir la voie à l’utilisation de jeux de rythme dans la réhabilitation et la remédiation cognitive et motrice. / Humans are highly skilled in processing temporal information. This is particularly visible in our compelling sense of rhythm that manifests in our tendency to move to the beat of music. Deliberately or spontaneously, we have a tendency to clap our hands, tap our feet, or dance with music. These skills are sustained by a complex neuronal network involving auditory regions (auditory cortex, superior temporal gyrus), motor and pre-motor areas (basal ganglia, motor and pre-motor cortices), as well as motor coordination regions (e.g., the cerebellum). However, rhythm skills can be disrupted in neurological diseases like Parkinson’s disease or in neuro-developmental diseases such as dyslexia. Rhythm deficits are associated with movement and cognitive disorders. Another form of rhythm disability is beat deafness, a specific condition in which healthy individuals encounter particular difficulties in synchronizing to the beat.In this dissertation, I aim at addressing two questions. First, is it possible to extend our knowledge of inter-individual differences to rhythm skills in order to better understand mechanisms underlying rhythmic processing with a systematic tool? Second, can rhythm skills be trained in order to improve the associated motor and cognitive domains in patient populations revealing rhythm disorders?In the first part of the experimental section, I used the Battery for the Assessment of Auditory Sensorimotor and Timing Abilities (BAASTA) to systematically test and characterize subjects’ perceptual and sensorimotor timing skills. I found that the results of some tasks were highly correlated with the ones of other tasks and that, on the contrary, some tasks were totally independent from each other. This reveals that the battery can discriminate between tasks involving different and common mechanisms. In a further study, 20 healthy adults were submitted twice to BAASTA at a two-week interval. The performance in most of the tasks remained stable at retest. Finally, BAASTA was used in beat-deaf individuals. I showed that two individuals performed poorly on rhythm perception tasks, such as detecting or estimating whether a metronome is aligned to the beat of the music or not (Beat Alignment Test [BAT]). Yet, they could tap to the beat of the same stimuli. The fact that synchronization to a beat can occur in the presence of poor perception is reported for the first time in this study. On top of that, beat-deaf participants benefited similarly to controls from a regular temporal pattern (implicit timing) in a task in which they had to respond as fast as possible to a different target pitch after a sequence of standard tones.In the second part of the experimental section, I present a serious game for training rhythmic skills (Rhythm Workers) designed during the doctorate. I developed a progressive rhythm training protocol with stimuli varying in rhythmic difficulty. I conducted a proof-of-concept pilot study on 20 individuals who played the game for 15 days. Participants in the experimental groups showed high compliance and motivation in playing the game. Encouraging results were found on the evolution of their rhythmic skills, as tested with the BAT taken from BAASTA that was submitted to the participants before and after the training.In sum, in this dissertation contributed to the development of tools for the assessment and training of rhythmic skills. This enabled us to design studies to better understand rhythm processing mechanisms and to pave the way for the use of rhythm games in cognitive and motor remediation and rehabilitation.

What is the difference between intention and action? To start answering this complex question, we have created a serious game that allows us to capture a large quantity of experimental data and study human behavior. In the game, users catch flies, presented to the left or to the right of the screen, by dragging the tongue of a frog across a touchscreen monitor. The movement of interest has a predefined starting point (the frog) and necessarily transits through a via-point (a narrow corridor) before it proceeds to the chosen left/right direction. Meanwhile, the game collects data about the movement performed by the player. This work is focused on the analysis of such movements. We try to find criteria that will allow us to predict (as early as possible) the direction (left/right) chosen by the player. This is done by analyzing kinematic information (e.g. trajectory, velocity profile, etc.). Also, processing such data according to the dynamical movement primitives approach, allows us to find further criteria that support a classification of human movement. Our preliminary results show that individually considered, participants tend to create and use stereotypical behaviors that can be used to formulate predictions about the subjects’ intention to reach in one direction or the other, early after the onset of the movement.

O Acidente Vascular Cerebral (AVC) é uma das maiores preocupações da saúde no mundo, sendo a segunda maior causa de morte no mundo e a terceira maior de incapacitação. Sendo a cognição uma das capacidades que são afetadas pelo AVC, é comum o uso de exames para verificar em que nível de estado mental o paciente se encontra. Os pacientes que apresentam incapacidades passam por um longo e complexo programa de reabilitação. Esses indivíduos tornam-se limitados na realização das Atividades de Vida Diárias (AVDs), como caminhar, devido a problemas envolvendo alterações da motricidade em um lado do corpo. O tornozelo é uma articulação importante pois está diretamente ligada à capacidade de caminhar e se manter em pé. Existem diversos exames cognitivos e motores para avaliar o dano causado aos indivíduos, bem como sua melhora ao longo da terapia, porém a área da saúde carece de ferramentas que possam unir a avaliação com os recursos de reabilitação. Portanto, este projeto tem como objetivo o desenvolvimento de um jogo voltado para reabilitação motora para o membro inferior e cognitiva para pessoas que sofreram AVC baseado em um exame de análise cognitiva e interface com temática familiar, utilizando um mecanismo projetado especificamente para reabilitação de tornozelo. O principal objetivo deste projeto é desenvolver um jogo que o desempenho do jogador se correlacione com o desempenho do mesmo no Addenbrooke\'s Cognitive Examination Revised (ACE-R). Pensando no público de maior incidência do AVC, o jogo tem uma temática de familiaridade visando a fácil identificação e imersão do indivíduo no processo de reabilitação, para esse fim foi desenvolvido um jogo baseado em cartas de baralho. Dessa forma o projeto focou em três frentes principais: a articulação a ser reabilitada, a patologia e o perfil de usuário. Este trabalho seguiu uma metodologia para seu desenvolvimento desde a fase de estratégia, especificações e planejamento, concepção e homologação. Os resultados se mostraram satisfatórios dentro dos objetivos estabelecidos dando abertura para diversas frentes de estudo em relação a desenvolvimento de jogos, imersão e desempenho de indivíduos em jogos virtuais, cinemática do tornozelo e níveis cognitivos. Este trabalho também pode ser utilizado como guia para novos desenvolvimentos de jogos sérios integrado com mecanismos robóticos para reabilitação. / The Cerebrovascular Accident (CVA) or Stroke is one of the greatest health concerns in the world, being the second largest cause of death in the world and the third largest cause of disability. Since cognition is one of the capacities that are affected by stroke, it is common to use tests to find out what level of the patient\'s mental state is. Patients with disabilities experiences need a long and complex rehabilitation program. They become limited in performing Daily Life Activities (DLA), such as walking, due to problems involving the movement alterations in one body\'s side. The ankle is directly linked to to walk and stand ability. There are several cognitive and motor tests to evaluate the damage caused to subjects, as well as their improvement throughout therapy, but the health care area lacks tools that can integrate the evaluation with the rehabilitation tools. Therefore, this project aims to develop an ankle rehabilitation game for people who have suffered from stroke, based on a cognitive analysis examination that has interface with family thematic, using a mechanism designed specifically for ankle rehabilitation. The main goal of this project is to develop a specifically game that correlates with Addenbrookes Cognitive Examination (ACE-R). Thinking about the audience of higher incidence of CVA, the game will have a familiar theme for the easy identification and immersion of the individual in the rehabilitation process, for this purpose a game based on playing cards was developed. In this way the project was focused on three main fronts: the articulation, the pathology and the user\'s profile. This work followed a methodology to be developed since its strategy, specifications and planning, conception, testing and homologation. The results proved to be satisfactory within the stated objectives, opening up several study fronts in relation to game development, immersion and performance of individuals in virtual games, ankle kinematics and cognitive levels. This work also can be used as a guide for new serious game development integrated with robotic mechanisms for rehabilitation.

As mudanças que as inovações tecnológicas têm promovido em nossas vidas tem se tornado cada vez mais profundas e rápidas. O convívio social, os ambientes de trabalho, as opções de entretenimento transformam-se continuamente. As crianças de hoje são nativos digitais, convivendo com videogames, smartphones e computadores algumas vezes até antes de sua alfabetização. A educação, que é uma das bases que propiciou esta revolução, e, de uma forma mais especifica o ensino de matemática, essencial no campo de ciências e engenharia, tem a necessidade de acompanhar estas mudanças, através da adoção de novas tecnologias e métodos em sala de aula. Este trabalho tem por objetivo buscar uma resposta para uma das questões levantadas por este cenário: qual a real efetividade do uso de jogos sérios eletrônicos como auxiliares no processo de ensino-aprendizagem de matemática na educação básica? Através de uma revisão sistemática apresentamos um panorama do estudo acadêmico sobre o tema nos últimos cinco anos, concluindo que realmente os jogos sérios eletrônicos são ferramentas de alavancagem no processo de ensino-aprendizagem de matemática, apontando caminhos futuros a serem explorados dentro da realidade brasileira. / Technological innovations have promoted changes our lives, in a way ever deeper and faster. Social networking, work environments, entertainment options are continually changing. Todays kids are digital natives, playing video games, using smartphones, and computers sometimes even before their literacy. Education, which is one of the foundations for this revolution, and, more specifically, the teaching of mathematics, which is essential in the field of science and engineering, has the need to follow these changes through the adoption of new technologies and methods in classroom. This paper aims to find an answer to one of the questions raised by this scenario: what is the real effectiveness of the use of serious electronic games as aids in the teaching-learning process of mathematics in basic education? Through a systematic review we present a panorama of the academic study on the subject in the last five years, concluding that serious electronic games are actually powerful tools in the teaching-learning process of mathematics, pointing out new paths to be explored within the Brazilian reality.

A big problem in the world today is vaccine hesitancy (VH), a tool to combat this could be to use serious games (SG) as a tool for education. There has been some research into this field, these studies have mainly used a single game or looked at a series of games, and they have required quite a lot of interaction. A trivia can allow the player to focus on thinking rather than performing various tasks; even if both can be equally educational. In this work a platform game was developed and used together with a questionnaire to test the knowledge of the common person in regard to vaccines and vaccine preventable diseases. 20 people participated in this study, 10 in a control group and 10 in the game group. The results in this study show that there was no significant statistical difference between a serious platform game and a compendium when it comes to learning.

The Kinect device is commonly associated to videogames, but this is not the only purpose of this device. Going into more depth, it could be a powerful tool to accomplish several goals, not only related to simple games. One such example could be Serious Games. Above all, Kinect device is a group of sensors and as such it is an attraction point in order to do experiments and measurements. This thesis tries to understand the potentiality and specifically tries to understand the precision and accuracy in the explicit area of rehabilitation. Taking advantage of the Kinect functionality, the thesis tries to enter in a young area, composed by two principal field of interest: catching and recognizing movements without the help of tool to wear, and the movements in order to do physical therapy. The result of this thesis is that the accuracy and precision of the Kinect device is sufficient for detecting therapeutic movements. Further work is however needed to be able to use Kinect for automatic discrimination of correct and incorrect physical movements.

This thesis studied the effects of ear training on motivation and the ability to identify sounds under a layer of pink noise, using two versions of a training application. The first version was a serious game that utilized common game design features with the aim of increasing the player’s motivation to keep playing. The second version, called the basic training application was used as a base-line and modeled after the training method used by Shafiro (2008) in his experiment #2. 14 participants (divided into two groups of 7) were tested on their ability to identify sounds and how motivated they felt to continue training. Results pointed to the basic training application being better at increasing the participants’ sound identification ability, and the serious game being better at retaining the participants’ motivation to keep playing. Future studies should aim to combine features from both versions of the training application.

The work deals with the term Gamification, its origin, dez/interpretation and possible future. Gamification is based on game/play and its historical development, which is described in the work from ancient times to the era of computers. This brings us to the relationship between gamification and digital technologies that can develop its true potential. Goal of the practical part is to develop own gamified solution based on identified principles of gamification. Actual creative process is preceded by an analytical part where I try to identify a niche market and fill it.

Le nombre croissant de cas de démence chez les personnes âgées attire l’attention de nombreux chercheurs de différentes disciplines. Diverses solutions non médicamenteuses ont été proposées dans lesquelles la stimulation cognitive prend place parmi les choix possibles. D’ailleurs, les jeux vidéo ont été impliqués dans de nombreux projets de santé comme soutien privilégié pour étendre et résoudre les limites des traitements non médicamenteux. Cependant, l’utilisation du jeu vidéo pour les personnes âgées avec la démence pendant une longue période est considérée comme une activité difficile. Ils n’ont pas les mêmes expériences de jeu que la jeune génération et ne peuvent pas utiliser activement et indépendamment cet outil en raison des troubles cognitifs et de la mémoire causés par la maladie. Dans cette thèse, une approche est proposée avec le but de maintenir l’engagement des personnes âgées avec la démence en interagissant avec les jeux vidéo. Cette approche vise à fournir dynamiquement les interactions appropriées aux utilisateurs en fonction de la situation courante définie par leurs activités physiques et leurs activités de jeu. Un système de support est développé pour valider l’approche à travers 3 expériences réalisées avec des participants recrutés via le centre de mémoire. Les résultats montrent que: 1) les personnes âgées atteintes de démence peuvent interagir successivement avec le système proposé 2) leur performance du jeu est maintenue, 3) l’efficacité du système de support est similaire à celle d’un thérapeute. Les futurs travaux visent à tester le système de support à domicile pendant de longues périodes avec des personnes âgées souffrant démence. / Recently, the world witnesses an increasing number of the dementia cases in the older population, which causes an important impact in the society. This phenomenon attracts the attention of many researchers in multi-disciplines. Various socio-medical non-drug solutions have been proposed in which cognitive stimulation takes a place among the possible choices. In parallel, video games have been involved in many healthcare projects as privileged support for both extending and solving the limits of non-drug treatments. However, using video game for older adults with dementia in long period of time is considered as a difficult activity. They do not have the same gaming experiences as the young generation and cannot use actively and independently this tool because of memory and cognitive troubles caused by the disease. In this thesis, an approach with the purpose of maintaining the engagement of older adults with dementia while playing video game is proposed. This approach aims to provide dynamically the appropriate interactions to the users based on the current situation encompassing their physical activities and game activities. A support system is developed for validating the approach throughout 3 experiments with participants recruited from the memory center. The results show that : 1) older adults with dementia can interact successfully with the support system, 2) their game performance (playing time, accuracy rate, learning effect) is maintained, 3) the effectiveness of the support system is similar to the one of a therapist. Future work aims at testing the support system at home for long periods of time with older adults with dementia.

With the development of the times, games, which is the basis of entertainment medium, has gradually become the tool of learning for human beings and finally promote the development of serious games. As we know that the interactive experience and aesthetic experience of games are all obtained from game icons. As the communication bridge between players and games, the functional game icons in serious games have evolved from single symbols to diversified styles icons.  With the experiment method like semantic differential and similarity computation, this paper has acquired functional icons of high matching quality and recreated them with emotional design. The case study presented in this thesis demonstrated that in a multitude of serious games, functional icons had suffered the problems of lack of interaction and difference, unbalanced unity and high similarity through comparing the cognitive level experiment of different style icons and the preference experiment of different cognitive styles. This case studies the cognition of functional icons and the types of icons preferred by different cognitive styles. In addition, different styles of functional icons have different cognitive effects, while different cognitive styles have different cognitive functions and preferences. In this case, it was found that the cognitive ergonomics of different styles of functional icons differed. For users familiar with the game, the cognitive ergonomics of flat icons were higher than that of anthropomorphic icons. The cognitive ergonomics of icons with low abstraction level was higher than that of icons with high abstraction level. Meanwhile, the cognitive efficacy and preference of different cognitive styles for different styles of functional icons are different and it is more obvious that intuiting cognitive style users prefer anthropomorphic icons. Sequential cognitive style users have higher cognitive efficacy for anthropomorphic icons than flat icons. The global cognitive style users prefer anthropomorphic icons for icons with high abstraction levels. Therefore, the design of functional icons for serious games should consider the difference in users' cognitive styles because cognitive styles can be used as an entry point for the balance between the serious part and the game part of serious games. Personalized icon design can be designed for different cognitive styles users by combining their preferences for icons, so as to increase users' interest in serious games. The symbolic icons can also be used to let players quickly understand the meaning of the game, so as to improve the learning efficiency of serious games for people with different cognitive styles. / <p>Det finns övrigt digitalt material (t.ex. film-, bild- eller ljudfiler) eller modeller/artefakter tillhörande examensarbetet som ska skickas till arkivet. / There are other digital material (eg film, image or audio files) or models/artifacts that belongs to the thesis and need to be archived. </p>