Real-Time Heart Rate Visualization for Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder: An Evaluation of Technology Assisted Physical Activity Application to Increase Exercise Intensity

Bo Fu, Katrina Orevillo, Dennis Lo, Andrew Bae, Melissa Bittner

2024

Abstract

Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often experience negative relationships with physical activity and a severe lack of motivation for exercise. While specialized exercise technologies such as internet-enabled machines and mobile applications have provided some solutions for typically developing individuals, there is a lack of research in providing exercise technology that specifically considers the needs of individuals with ASD. This paper presents a real-time heart-rate visualization application, namely the HeartRunner 2.0 App, which aims to engage individuals with ASD to exercise at higher intensity. When used to supplement exercise sessions, amongst a group of 20 participants with ASD, evaluation results showed that the App helped 83% of participants achieve higher heart rates, 66.6% to maintain heart rates at or above 90 BPM, and 27.7% to re-engage and achieve heart rates at or above 90 BPM after dropping below that threshold. Furthermore, eye tracking analyses indicate that those individuals who achieved higher heart rates have employed a more focused gaze patterns with less distributed fixations in their visual searches, as well as greater efforts in scanning various cues in the given visual scene, suggesting that visual interaction with the App may have contributed to elevated performance in the experiment.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Fu B., Orevillo K., Lo D., Bae A. and Bittner M. (2024). Real-Time Heart Rate Visualization for Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder: An Evaluation of Technology Assisted Physical Activity Application to Increase Exercise Intensity. In Proceedings of the 19th International Joint Conference on Computer Vision, Imaging and Computer Graphics Theory and Applications - Volume 1: HUCAPP; ISBN 978-989-758-679-8, SciTePress, pages 455-463. DOI: 10.5220/0012354500003660

in Bibtex Style

@conference{hucapp24,
author={Bo Fu and Katrina Orevillo and Dennis Lo and Andrew Bae and Melissa Bittner},
title={Real-Time Heart Rate Visualization for Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder: An Evaluation of Technology Assisted Physical Activity Application to Increase Exercise Intensity},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 19th International Joint Conference on Computer Vision, Imaging and Computer Graphics Theory and Applications - Volume 1: HUCAPP},
year={2024},
pages={455-463},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0012354500003660},
isbn={978-989-758-679-8},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF

JO - Proceedings of the 19th International Joint Conference on Computer Vision, Imaging and Computer Graphics Theory and Applications - Volume 1: HUCAPP
TI - Real-Time Heart Rate Visualization for Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder: An Evaluation of Technology Assisted Physical Activity Application to Increase Exercise Intensity
SN - 978-989-758-679-8
AU - Fu B.
AU - Orevillo K.
AU - Lo D.
AU - Bae A.
AU - Bittner M.
PY - 2024
SP - 455
EP - 463
DO - 10.5220/0012354500003660
PB - SciTePress