Assistant prof. and data geek at the GEMH lab, dynamical modelling, personalisation, wants to put the I back into AI, news junkie, cat lover.
"It’s all fun and games until someone divides by zero"
I am assistant professor at the Games for Emotional and Mental Health Lab and the department of Developmental Psychopathology. I have a cross-disciplinary background and received both my B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Applied Mathematics from Delft University of Technology, where I later also held my first postdoc postdoc position in Affective Computing. I received my Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology from the University of Cincinnati, OH. My research interests include nonlinear dynamical systems modelling, applied games, and behavioural and clinical change processes. My specific focus is on the analysis of in-game behaviour and physiological states towards real-time personalization of game interventions for children and adolescents with mental health problems (work that is supported by a ZonMw Off-Road grant). I am involved in many of the GEMH Lab projects and the daily supervision of several of its students.
This project aims to develop and assess the use of biofeedback videogames to help youth cope with stress and anxiety. In addition it aims to identify physiological markers and patterns of emotion regulation. The current studies within this project focus on exploring the potential of the virtual reality biofeedback game DEEP where players use deep diaphragmatic breathing to move through a beautiful underwater world.
Anxiety disorders are among the most common psychopathologies in children. This project investigates the effects of a biofeedback virtual reality game (DEEP) on breathing and anxiety-related symptoms in anxious children and develops new algorithms to detect changes in the player’s behavior during the game. The aim is to enable game interventions that are personalized to each individual child.
In this project, we aim to take a closer look at the way in which information is being sampled and integrated in individuals suffering from or at risk for depression. Since human beings are only able to perceive and process a limited amount of information, we have evolved to sample parts of information instead and attempt to draw accurate and workable conclusions based on the sample available to us. We have reason, however, to think that this process may be affected in depression, and aim to find out how exactly using methods such as behavioural computational modeling.
People with large social networks on average live longer, happier, less stressed lives. We can potentially leverage virtual reality to increase the experience of social support and impact daily stress and anxiety. Therefore, this project aims to pinpoint which aspects of virtual social interaction are needed to convey a sense of social support.
RT @AniekWols: Thanks to everyone who attended our symposium today at #eara2018 'Promoting emotional resilience through games for emotional…
Do schools kill our kids' creativity?
Report by the RSPH about the relationship between social media and young people’s mental health and wellbeing: https://www.rsph.org.uk/our-work/policy/social-media-and-young-people-s-mental-health-and-wellbeing.html
Check out this interesting article about using the tabletop roleplaying classic D&D to help kids improve their emotional and/or mental health.
The GEMH Lab is looking for a full-time research assistant to model physiological data from players of a virtual reality biofeedback game using machine learning methodology.
A large group of GEMH Lab members will be presenting our various study findings in a series of symposia, talks and poster sessions. We'll be sharing our latest findings, our challenges, our breakthroughs and, of course, our games!
The symposium will be held in the renovated building 'Collegium Veteranorum'
Nonlinear Methods, Dynamical Systems Theory, Affective Computing, Applied Games
Author: Marieke van Rooij
Upload date: 02-19-2019
van Rooij, M., Lobel, A., Harris, O., Smit, N., & Granic, I. (2016). CHI'16 Extended Abstracts, May 07-12, 2016, San Jose, CA, USA
Author: Marieke van Rooij
Upload date: 05-07-2016
Weerdmeester, J., van Rooij, M., Harris, O., Smit, N., Engels, R. C., & Granic, I. (2017, October). Exploring the role of self-efficacy in biofeedback video games. In Extended Abstracts Publication of the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play (pp. 453-461). ACM.
Author: Joanneke Weerdmeester
Upload date: 10-15-2017