Dr. Anna Lisa Martin-Niedecken leitet das Institut für Designforschung an der Zürcher Hochschule der Künste und ist Professorin für Sport Management (Schwerpunkte: Esports & Gaming, Sportwissenschaft, Gesundheit und digitale Innovation) an der Hochschule für angewandtes Management.
In ihrer interdisziplinär geprägten Forschung fokussiert sie sich insbesondere auf die Exploration und Stärkung der Rolle der Designdisziplin im Sport- und Gesundheitskontext. Mit ihrem sportwissenschaftlichen Hintergrund (PhD, TU Darmstadt) und ihrer Expertise im Game/HCI Research spezialisierte sie sich u.a. auf das nutzerzentrierte Design und die Evaluation von Serious & Applied Games im Kontext von Gesundheit, Fitness, (e)Sport und Rehabilitation. Für ihre Forschungs- und Entwicklungsarbeit wurde Anna mehrfach ausgezeichnet (z.B. SIGCHI Outstanding Dissertation Award), war u.a. Speakerin bei TEDxZurich und wurde vom Schweizer Wirtschaftsmagazin Bilanz zu einer von «Switzerland’s 100 Digital Shapers 2020» gekürt.
Neben ihrer akademischen Arbeit ist Anna Gründerin und CEO des Fitness Gaming Startups Sphery AG, das mehrfach mit renommierten Preisen (z.B. FIBO Innovation & Trend Awards 2020 und 2021, German Innovation Award 2020) ausgezeichnet wurde. Des Weiteren ist Anna Gründungsmitglied und Chairwoman der International Mixed Reality Sports (XRS) Association sowie Gründungsmitglied und 2. Vorsitzende der RAL Gütegemeinschaft «Serious Games e.V.»
Innovative Technologien erlauben heute nicht mehr nur das Eintauchen in immersive Welten. Sie ermöglichen auch die Testung, Analyse und das gezielte Training physischer, kognitiver und mentaler Fähigkeiten samt deren komplexen Zusammenspiel. Insbesondere Virtual-, Augmented- und Mixed-Reality-Anwendungen bieten alleine oder in Kombination mit anderen Technologien wie KI oder Wearables großes Potenzial für den Gesundheits-, Fitness-, Sport- und Rehabilitationssektor. Die Bandbreite reicht von sensorbasierten motorisch-kognitiven Assessments über virtuelle Coaches bis hin zu gamifizierten Trainings- oder Therapieansätzen.
Ausgehend von Ergebnissen aus Evaluationen der Technologien werden häufig spezifische Anforderungen an die Produkte (z.B. Personalisierbarkeit, Skalierbarkeit, Modularität und Sicherheit) und Entwicklungsprozesse (z.B. Interdisziplinarität und Nutzerzentriertheit) definiert, deren Umsetzung die Ausschöpfung des vollen Potenzials ermöglichen soll.
Der Vortrag bietet zunächst einen Überblick über bestehende Anwendungen von Virtual-, Augmented- und Mixed-Reality im Bereich von Assessments, Interventionen und Analysen in der Gesundheitsförderung, im Fitnesstraining, der Rehabilitation und im Sport. Am konkreten Beispiel von bewegungsbasierten digitalen Spielen, sogenannten Exergames, werden vertiefende Einblicke in die interdisziplinäre, forschungsbasierte und iterative Entwicklungsarbeit sowie in verschiedene Studien gegeben. Dabei wird ein spezieller Fokus auf die Anforderungen bei der (Aus-)Gestaltung und Implementierung dieser Technologien gelegt. Es wird aufgezeigt, wie die Potenziale und Limitationen gegenwärtiger Technologien bestmöglich nutzbar gemacht werden können, um maßgeschneiderte attraktive und effektive Lösungen für unterschiedlichste Nutzergruppen und Anwendungskontexte zu entwickeln. Abschließend werden einige Zukunftsszenarien skizziert.
Dr. Charles Hillman received his doctorate from the University of Maryland in 2000, and then began his career at the University of Illinois, where he was a Professor in the Department of Kinesiology and Community Health for 16 years. He also held appointments in five other units including the Department of Psychology, the Division of Neuroscience, and was an affiliate of the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science & Technology. In 2016, he continued his career at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, where he currently holds appointments in the Department of Psychology and the Department of Physical Therapy, Movement, & Rehabilitation Sciences. He is the Associate Director in the Center for Cognitive and Brain Health, which has the mission of understanding the role of lifestyle behaviors on brain and cognition to maximize health and well-being, and promote the effective functioning of individuals across the lifespan. Dr. Hillman has published ~300 refereed journal articles, 16 book chapters, and 2 edited texts. He served on the 2018 Health and Human Services Physical Activity Guidelines for American’s Scientific Advisory Committee, and is a fellow of the National Academy of Kinesiology and the Association for Psychological Science. His work has been funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for the past 20 years, and he has also received funding from several other federal and private sponsors. Lastly, his research has been featured in the media including: CNN, National Public Radio, Good Morning America, Newsweek, and the New York Times.
Charles H. Hillman, Ph.D.
Center for Cognitive & Brain Health
Department of Psychology
Department of Physical Therapy, Movement, & Rehabilitation Sciences
Northeastern University
The use of neuroimaging tools in exercise and sport sciences is relatively nascent, with the first studies appearing in 1984. In that year, two seminal publications appeared in the psychophysiology literature with very different foci, but each led to a framework that has impacted their field over the following decades. One study was focused on sport performance via the assessment of spectral-derived measures of electroencephalography (EEG) to study elite performance using a marksmanship model, and the second study was focused on the influence of cardiorespiratory fitness during older adulthood using event-related brain potentials (ERPs) among a larger battery of cognitive and brain outcomes. Arguably, these two psychophysiological studies have paved the way for the use of neuroimaging tools in the field of exercise and sport sciences. In the new millennium, the field of exercise and sport sciences has begun to incorporate aspects of cognitive neuroscience, which has led to considerable growth due to an influx of interdisciplinary scholars and the advent of new neuroimaging tools and measures. However, in recent years, the focus of this ‘new’ area of research has gravitated toward the beneficial relationship of physical activity on brain health and cognition using a variety of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques aimed at understanding fitness-related differences in brain structure (e.g., voxel-based morphometry, diffusion tensor imaging) and brain function (e.g., blood oxygen level dependent signal changes within specific neural structures, functional network connectivity). Although EEG and ERPs have remained viable tools for understanding fitness effects on brain function, this approach has also moved away, in part, from its sport performance roots toward more health- and lifestyle-focused models of brain function. Accordingly, this presentation will investigate the history and use of neuroimaging tools in exercise and sport sciences from 1984 to the present day. The most impactful publications in this field will be discussed, followed by a discussion of the future directions of the field.
Albrecht Schmidt is a professor of computer science at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) in Munich, where he holds a chair for Human-Centered Ubiquitous Media. His teaching and research interests are in human-centered artificial intelligence, intelligent interactive systems, ubiquitous computing, multimodal user interfaces, and digital media technologies. Prior to his current position, he was a professor at the University of Stuttgart, the University of Duisburg-Essen and he had a joint position between the Fraunhofer Institute for Intelligent Analysis and Information Systems (IAIS) and the the University of Bonn (Germany). During his sabbatical in 2015 he was a visiting academic at the Engineering Department at the University of Cambridge in the UK and he worked at Microsoft Research in Cambridge (UK). He studied computer science at the University of Ulm (Germany) and at the Manchester Metropolitan University and in 2003 he completed his PhD on the topic of „Ubiquitous Computing – Computing in Context“ at Lancaster University. Albrecht is co-chair of the ACM SIGCHI 2023 conference, he is on the editorial board of the ACM TOCHI journal, and he is the cofounder of the ACM conference TEI and Automotive User interfaces. In 2018, he was inducted into the ACM SIGCHI Academy and in 2020; he was elected into Leopoldina, the Germany academy of science.
The quest to enhance and expand human capabilities has been a catalyst for innovation throughout history. Human evolution and development are tied to tools and technologies that make us stronger, faster, healthier, and smarter. Technological and methodological inventions have made people more effective in their interactions with each other and their environment. For example, technology has expanded our range of communication from meters to global connections, and we have developed machines that can literally move mountains. With humans learning to write and read and the Internet, human knowledge became widely available and enhanced human cognitive abilities. How will recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) push this to new limits? Will this allow human augmentation and the enhancement of cognitive and perceptual abilities to a whole new level? In our research, we experimentally explore digital technologies for non-invasive human augmentation and enhancement. In particular, we focus on how to create and design tools that enable seamless interaction with new tools and technologies. The goal of such augmentation technologies is that users should no longer be aware that they are receiving technical assistance. The enhanced and augmented capabilities should feel natural. Control of the augmentations should be implicit and not add to their cognitive load. It should just feel like getting a superpower. At this point, we have ample opportunity to collect data in the field, and we have advanced machine learning techniques to process and analyze the data. But so far, we still seem to be struggling to find ways to use data and digital insights to create compelling superpowers to increase our physical and cognitive abilities.