Tour de Tune - Auditory-game-motor Synchronisation in Exergames

Abstract

Exergaming has been heralded as a promising approach to increase physical activity in hard-to-reach populations such as sedentary young adults. By combining physical activity with entertainment, researchers and developers hope that the excitement and immersion provided by a computer game will result in increased motivation and dissociation from the discomfort of physical exercise. A different approach to improve physical activity is the use of music. Music, in particular if synchronised with the rhythm of exercise, has been shown to increase performance and decrease the amount of perceived effort for the same performance. So far little research has been done on the combined effect of music and gameplay in exergaming. In this paper we investigate the effect of game-music synchronisation for an immersive exergame. We present a simple yet effective music analysis algorithm, and a novel exergame enabling synchronisation of gameplay with the music's intensity. Our results indicate that our exergame significantly increases enjoyment and motivation compared to music alone. It slightly increases performance, but also increases perceived effort. We did not find any significant differences between gameplay synchronised and not synchronised with the music. Our results confirm the positive effects of music while exercising, but suggest that gameplay might have a bigger effect on exergame effectiveness, and more research on the interaction between gameplay and music needs to be done.