RemoteChess: Enhancing Older Adults' Social Connectedness via Designing a Virtual Reality Chinese Chess (Xiangqi) Community

Research Background and Issues

• Identified Problems and Challenges: The article explores the challenges of social isolation faced by older adults due to physical health decline, geographical distance, or economic constraints. These issues lead to emotional loneliness and cognitive decline, while also impacting mental and physical health. Virtual Reality (VR) is considered a potential solution to enable social connections across geographical barriers. However, existing social VR designs primarily focus on language-based interactions, neglecting the importance of shared activities in strengthening social connections.
• Significance: Social connections are crucial for the mental and physical health of older adults, helping to reduce feelings of loneliness, support cognitive maintenance, and enhance overall life satisfaction. Exploring how to integrate shared activities into VR design can address the limited opportunities for face-to-face social interactions among older adults.
• Research Motivation and Related Work: Studies show that culturally relevant activities not only enrich mental well-being but also have a significant impact on the psychological health, social interactions, and quality of life of older adults. At the same time, VR designs incorporating shared activities and cultural significance to foster social connections among older adults remain rare. This paper proposes to fill this research gap by creating a culturally relevant VR community centered around Chinese chess (Xiangqi).

Solution

• Proposed Method/Solution:

  1. Develop RemoteChess, a multi-user virtual reality platform that integrates cultural elements, shared activities, and asymmetric interaction role design.
  2. Use Chinese chess as the core activity, with virtual community scenes including a "Cultural Corridor" (Scene 1) showcasing the history and culture of Chinese chess, and a "Chess Table" (Scene 2) simulating chess matches.
  3. Introduce asymmetric role assignments, including players and spectators, to simulate the social dynamics of older adults playing chess in real life.

• Innovations:

  1. Combine culturally relevant activities (e.g., Chinese chess) with VR community design to create a familiar and immersive social environment for older adults.
  2. Asymmetric role design enhances interaction diversity while simulating real-world social dynamics.
  3. Use multi-sensory elements (e.g., ambient sound and visual effects) to enhance immersion, leveraging cultural elements as social catalysts to foster discussion and interaction.

• Implementation Steps:

  1. Analyze 40 video recordings of older adults playing Chinese chess to extract real-world scenarios and social dynamics to guide VR design.
  2. Develop the RemoteChess platform based on three proposed design principles: simulating familiar environments, supporting asymmetric interactions, and integrating cultural elements.
  3. Use Unity 3D and VR multi-user interaction technologies to implement the two scenes and refine the design through iterative processes.

Research Outcomes

• Specific Outcomes:

  1. RemoteChess significantly enhances older adults' sense of social connection, including feelings of inclusion, belonging, and comfort in interacting with others.
  2. The two scenes provide distinct social tendencies, catering to the diverse social needs of older users.
  3. Multi-sensory elements and cultural catalysts enhance immersion while triggering discussions and personal narratives related to cultural memories.

• Advantages Over Existing Solutions:

  1. Promotes social interaction not only through language but also by stimulating deeper social engagement via shared activities and cultural elements.
  2. Offers more dynamic interaction options (e.g., expanded gameplay participation through asymmetric role design), providing a richer experience compared to traditional chess games.

• Experimental or Evaluation Results:

  1. A user study with 18 older adults found that the Chess Table scene facilitated higher interaction frequency, including more conversational turns, verbal communication time, and vocabulary usage.
  2. The Cultural Corridor scene, through cultural exhibitions, encouraged memory recall and discussions related to the history of Chinese chess.

• Limitations and Future Directions:

  1. The short-term experiment did not fully verify the long-term effects on social connectivity; future research could extend to long-term studies.
  2. Participants were all from a single cultural background; future work should test the solution's generalizability across other cultural contexts.
  3. The focus on a single activity, Chinese chess, may limit long-term user interest; future designs could incorporate more culturally relevant activities (e.g., music, calligraphy) to enrich the experience.

Conclusion and Contributions

• Provides a groundbreaking VR system design that combines shared activities with cultural elements to enhance social interactions among older adults.
• Validates the effectiveness of the design in improving older adults' sense of social connection and engagement through user studies.
• Proposes design principles, including simulating familiar environments, designing multi-level participation methods, and incorporating diverse social catalysts, offering guidance for future VR designs aimed at enhancing social connectivity for older adults.