Apr 17 2016
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SFU’s Pain Studies Lab at Medicine Meets VR’ Conference

By | Other News

Pain Studies Lab members presented results of their research at the Medicine Meets Virtual Reality (MMVR) 2016 conference in Los Angeles, April 7-9. MMVR is an international scientific forum on advanced computer-based technologies for medical care and education. Its participants are scientists, engineers, physicians, educators, students, military and industry members, and healthcare futurists.

Dr. Chris Shaw presented a talk entitled Usability Comparisons of Head-Mounted vs. Stereoscopic Desktop Displays in a Virtual Reality Environment with Pain Patients,” an investigation of simulator sickness in VR displays when used specifically by pain patients. Weina Jin introduced the results of a clinical study involving VR as a method of pain distraction. The study examined the efficacy of a VR “game designed at the Pain Lab specifically for people who live with long-term chronic pain. An example of a serious game,” the study demonstrated that it is an effective method of pain distraction.

This and other studies were limited to measuring the short-term analgesic effects of VR, but according to Dr. Gromala, who heads the Pain Studies Lab, chronic pain patients have multiple needs for pain relief,” in the short-term, during times of breakthrough pain, and over long periods of time. She adds, “while we developed a new paradigm for VR that we hope may prove useful for the long-term, we are committed to discovering the ways that VR — or any technology — can help.

Ashfaq Amin presented Immersion in Cardboard VR Compared to a Traditional Head-Mounted Display.” This poster describes a study conducted among 30 participants who used 3 different VR displays — Cardboard VR, Oculus Rift DK2, and Desktop. Participants in the study played the same VR game, and their experience of immersion was recorded using an Immersive Experience Questionnaire. Surprisingly, the results showed that Cardboard VR, despite its low resolution, performs almost as well as the Oculus Rift head-mounted display (HMD). Ashfaq, who is exploring affordable mobile VR technologies for pain self-management, carried home a best poster award for his work.

The findings of these studies were presented by individual researchers, but are the result of a team of interdisciplinary researchers in SFU’s Pain Studies Lab. The research was made possible by support from the Canadian Foundation for Innovation (CFI), the Canada Research Chair Program, NSERC (Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada), NCE-GRAND, and Simon Fraser University; pain experts Dr. Pamela Squire, Dr. Owen Williamson and Dr. Brenda Lau; and patients/members of British Columbia’s non-profit organization PainBC.

Feb 27 2016
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AS IF is picked up for the CHI Student Game Competition

By | Conferences

AS IF, a project realized by our graduate students, Weina Jin, Servet Ulas and Xin Tong has been chosen to compete at the CHI Student Game Competition. AS IF aims to foster empathy towards patients who suffer from Chronic Pain by putting the user in the shoes of a patient and simulating the physical hindrances Chronic Pain causes. The participant is asked to complete simple motor tasks which involve touching shapes in a given order to reveal a shape. The tasks and the interactions are tied together with a narrative from the Chronic Pain patients perspective. Our team will be demoing and presenting AS IF at CHI in May 2016, see you there!

Feb 24 2016
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We were at SPIE 2016

By | Conferences

Dr. Gromala, Dr. Shaw and our new member PhD. candidate Servet Ulas was at SPIE 2016, presenting. The paper presented in the panel chaired by Ian McDowall was Mobius Floe: an Immersive Virtual Reality Game for Pain Distraction. After a brief overview of our work and what Chronic Pain is and how Pain Distraction works explained by the attention capacity theory, Servet explained the game mechanics and the design decisions involved in the creation of Mobius Floe, how the metaphors employed in the conception of the gameworld may help with the explanation of a complex affliction that can only be managed with a biopsychosocial approach.

Oct 13 2015
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Tyler Fox “hooded” by senior supervisor Dr. Gromala

By | Other News

As part of the tradition of earning a PhD, Tyler Fox was “hooded” by his senior supervisor Dr. Gromala at SFU’s Fall Convocation ceremonies in October. PhDs earn the degree and additions to the graduation gear, namely, a long silken hood and a Renaissance-looking cap. Dr. Fox is now on faculty and is the Studio Director for the Interactive Media Design program at the University of Washington.

http://www.tylersfox.com/about/

Oct 06 2015
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Xin Tongs Body Image Body Schema (BIBS) and Virtual Reality (VR) paper accepted in The Engineering Reality of Virtual Reality 2015 (SPIE) conference

By | Other News

Xins new paper is about how ideas of Body Image and Body Schema (BIBS) literature may enlarge general Virtual Reality (VR) research and how this motivates our design of VR for chronic pain patients. (space) The researchers focused on their new VR project designed for girls who undergo surgery for Scoliosis, and discussed how BIBS is used in this research more concrete ways. This project is lead by Dr. Diane Gromala and collaborator Dr. Gillian Lauder from BC Childrens and Womens Hospital in Vancouver, Canada. Her new work was built on former graduate student Ozgun Eyluls BIBS research. Tong plans to present this work as an oral presentation on 9 February 2015 at the SPIE conference. SPIE is an international society advancing an interdisciplinary approach to the science and application of light.

Sep 02 2015
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Pain Studies Lab celebrates Tong’s graduate thesis completion

By | Other News

Xin Tong successfully defended her M.Sc. thesis defence under supervisor Dr. Diane Gromala at the School of Interactive Arts and Technology, Simon Fraser University in August 2015.Tong’s thesis is titled Encouraging Physical Activity with Gamification Approaches: Goal-setting, Social Community, and “FitPet” Game-based Mobile Application. It focuses on investigating the effectiveness of certain gamification approaches for encouraging physical activity. Tong also developed the mobile interactive game — FitPet. The game associates the players physical activity (steps) to his/her virtual pets health condition and the growth level. She then compared it with two other common gamification strategies in a six-week field study. Results revealed that social interaction was the most effective one under certain condition among all three approaches. Although participants physical activity level in FitPetgroup did not have significant difference compared to the control group, participants liked the game and they gave suggestions to make the game more engaging. In her thesis, Tong also offers design implications for developing future gamification strategies for promoting physical activity, which are summarized from her interviews with the participants. Later, Pain Studies Lab researchers got together to celebrate Tong’s thesis completion.

Left to right:
Ashfaq Amin, Weina Jin, Dimple Gupta, Abhishek Gupta, Mahsoo Salimi
Mine, Servet Ulas, Xin Tong, Dr. Diane Gromala, Dr. Chris Shaw, Gillian Ramsay

Aug 31 2015
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Two graduate researchers join Pain Studies Lab in Fall, 2015

By | Other News

Servet Ulaş, digital artist and Weina Jin, digital health professional will join the Pain Studies Lab in Fall, 2015. Servet Ulaş is a Ph.D. graduate student from Istanbul, Turkey. He received his M.A. degree in Visual Communication Design from Sabanci University, under supervision of Dr. Elif Ayiter. He has industry experience as a digital art director in the advertising sector and more recently as an augmented reality creative developer. His research interests are in the areas of interaction design, game design, physical computing and bodily interaction. Weina is currently pursuing M.Sc. under the supervision of Dr.Diane Gromala. She holds a Doctor of Medicine (MD) degree from Peking University. Before joining the Pain Lab, she received two-years’ neurology residency training in Peking University First Hospital. She has also designed physician-patient communication application in a mobile health startup and is the founder of a non-profit medical website. Her research interests are in developing health-related VR, serious game and HCI.

Jun 03 2015
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Xin Tong Released FitPet App for Encouraging Physical Activities at Google Play

By | Projects

Xin Tong (game designer and developer), together with Amber Choo (game designer and artist), graduate students at Pain Studies Lab, released their App called FitPet designed for providing motivations for more physical activities. The idea is to convert the users health data grabbed by the mobile devices accelerometer (steps) into game coins, where you will need to keep your virtual pet healthy and grow up by feeding food, providing first aid, and play games with your pet. So users need to take care of their pet by taking care of their physical activities. This gamification approach was designed to promote more steps and awareness towards walking in daily routine for users who are lack of motivations and activities.

This is part of Xin Tongs Msc thesis research prototype. She is currently conducting a six-week long-term user study with 23 participants to validate her research proposal and hypothesis. Users need to set their daily activity goals and try to keep their pet in a good condition by completing goals. For more information, please contact Xin at tongxint@sfu.ca. App for iPhone is still under review process but is coming soon. Download the App to your Android phone from here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=xinAmber.FitPet.fitpet

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Mar 06 2015
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Pain Studies Lab at SPIE VR 2015 Conference

By | Conferences

Prof. Gromala, Prof Shaw, and Xin Tong showcased the Pain Studies Labs latest VR project and presented a research paper at this year’s SPIE VR conference in San Francisco. The conference is one of the important Virtual Reality conferences for scientists and artists.

Mobius Floe, a Virtual Reality game designed for pain distraction, was demonstrated in the exhibition session, attracting long lines of participants. In the paper presentation session, Xin presented the collaborative paper about Body Image Body Schema (BIBS) and Virtual Reality. In the paper, Pain Lab researchers Tong, Gromala, Williamson, Shaw and Ischen discussed the relationship between BIBS and VR, and its design implications for VR researchers.

[Paper Published]
Xin Tong, Diane Gromala, Owen Williamson, Chris Shaw, Ozgun Eylul Iscen (2015). Theory Review and Interaction Design Space of Body Image and Body Schema (BIBS) for Embodied Cognition in Virtual Reality,” in IS&T/SPIE Electronic Imaging 2015: The Engineering Reality of Virtual Reality. Vol. Number: 9013. Expected Date of Publication: 1 March 2015. (12 pages)

Feb 20 2015
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Design Principles and Practices: Graduate Scholar Award to Xin Tong

By | Papers

Xin Tong was the recently recipient of the Design Principles and Practices’ Graduate Scholar Award. This award is annually given to outstanding graduate students from around the world. Recipients of this years award are from Brazil, Canada, Columbia, England, Japan and the United States. Graduate Scholars perform a critical role in the annual conference by chairing the parallel sessions and presenting their own research papers.

Xin’s paper, “Experience and Practice: Body Image and Body Schema for Embodied Cognition in Human Computer Interaction Design,” was written in collaboration with her Senior Supervisor, Dr. Diane Gromala. This work combines their experiences with patients in pain clinics and research results from SFU’s School of Interactive Arts and Technology’s Pain Studies Lab.

[Source] http://designprinciplesandpractices.com/the-conference/graduate-scholar-awards/2015-graduate-scholar-awardees