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Gary McDarby, a principal research scientist in Media Lab Europe, is currently testing several video games aimed at helping people, principally children suffering from attention deficiency and anxiety disorders, learn the "skill" of relaxation.
"Everybody knows that video games are having an increasing impact on children even just in terms of the amount of time and money they spend on them. Given that situation, we wanted to show how that time could be used productively by teaching them how to relax because kids often find it hard to articulate how stressed they are," explained McDarby to ElectricNews.Net.
McDarby has been testing the effects of several video games that have been designed by his research team. One of these is a two-player racing game called Relax to Win. Two electrodes are attached to the players' fingers and these monitor how stressed they are by measuring changes in the ability of the skin to conduct electricity in a manner similar to the way lie detectors work. "The more relaxed you are, the faster you go, so relaxing becomes an enjoyable thing," said McDarby.
The team has also developed a more advanced game called Brainchild. This sees the players placed in a blacked-out booth and deprived of some of their senses. Their brain waves are measured using a cap packed with sensors and again their skin changes are monitored. Users can then attempt to guide themselves through the game, but can only progress, for instance open doors, if they are relaxed. "Relaxing gives you power in the game, so hopefully over time players will learn what they have do in order to relax," commented McDarby.
Although principally for children, McDarby also sees commercial applications for the technology and is hopeful that a version of the system will be available to buy by the public before the end of the year. "Chief executives, for example, could use it to relax before important meetings or executives prior to brain-storming sessions," he said. Such an offering, he added, would probably consist simply of a game CD and two sensors.
McDarby has been testing the system for the last 15 months and will shortly be conducting further trials in the children's unit of the Mater Hospital. Reaction to the games, especially from children, has been great, according to McDarby. "Users are often surprised at how they can learn to relax just by playing the games for a few minutes."
McDarby's team includes a variety of experts in areas such as psychology, graphic design, video game design and artificial intelligence. McDarby is a bio-medical engineer.
More information on MindGames can be found on Media Lab Europe's Web site.
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