'SoundWear' a heads-up sound augmentation gadget helps expand children's
play experience

Date:
July 28, 2020
Source:
The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)
Summary:
Researchers designed a wearable bracelet using sound augmentation
to leverage play benefits by employing digital technology. The
research team also investigated how sound influences children's play
experiences according to their physical, social, and imaginative
aspects.



FULL STORY ==========================================================================
In this digital era, there has been growing concern that children spend
most of their playtime watching TV, playing computer games, and staring
at mobile phones with 'head-down' posture even outdoors.


==========================================================================
To counter such concerns, KAIST researchers designed a wearable bracelet
using sound augmentation to leverage play benefits by employing digital technology.

The research team also investigated how sound influences children's play experiences according to their physical, social, and imaginative aspects.

Playing is a large part of enjoyable and rewarding lives, especially for children. Previously, a large part of children's playtime used to take
place outdoors, and playing outdoors has long been praised for playing an essential role in providing opportunities to perform physical activity,
improve social skills, and boost imaginative thinking.

Motivated by these concerns, a KAIST research team led by Professor
Woohun Lee and his researcher Jiwoo Hong from the Department of Industrial Design made use of sound augmentation, which is beneficial for motivating playful experiences by facilitating imagination and enhancing social
awareness with its ambient and omnidirectional characteristics.

Despite the beneficial characteristics of sound augmentation, only a
few studies have explored sound interaction as a technology to augment
outdoor play due to its abstractness when conveying information in an
open space outdoors.

There is also a lack of empirical evidence regarding its effect on
children's play experiences.

Professor Lee's team designed and implemented an original bracelet-type wearable device called SoundWear. This device uses non-speech sound as
a core digital feature for children to broaden their imaginations and
improvise their outdoor games.

Children equipped with SoundWear were allowed to explore multiple sounds
(i.e., everyday and instrumental sounds) on SoundPalette, pick a desired
sound, generate the sound with a swinging movement, and transfer the
sound between multiple devices for their outdoor play.

Both the quantitative and qualitative results of a user study indicated
that augmenting playtime with everyday sounds triggered children's
imagination and resulted in distinct play behaviors, whereas instrumental sounds were transparently integrated with existing outdoor games while
fully preserving play benefits in physical, social, and imaginative ways.

The team also found that the gestural interaction of SoundWear and the
free sound choice on SoundPalette helped children to gain a sense of achievement and ownership toward sound. This led children to be physically
and socially active while playing.

PhD candidate Hong said, "Our work can encourage the discussion on
using digital technology that entails sound augmentation and gestural interactions for understanding and cultivating creative improvisations,
social pretenses, and ownership of digital materials in digitally
augmented play experiences." Professor Lee also envisioned that the
findings being helpful to parents and educators saying, "I hope the
verified effect of digital technology on children's play informs parents
and educators to help them make more informed decisions and incorporate
the playful and creative usage of new media, such as mobile phones
and smart toys, for young children." This research titled "SoundWear:
Effect of Non-speech Sound Augmentation on the Outdoor Play Experience
of Children" was presented at DIS 2020 (the ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems) taking place virtually in Eindhoven, Netherlands,
from July 6 to 20. This work received an Honorable Mention Award for
being in the top 5% of all the submissions to the conference.


========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by The_Korea_Advanced_Institute_of_Science_and_Technology_ (KAIST). Note:
Content may be edited for style and length.


==========================================================================


Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/07/200728113607.htm

--- up 1 week, 6 days, 1 hour, 55 minutes
* Origin: -=> Castle Rock BBS <=- Now Husky HPT Powered! (1337:3/111)