Motivating people to perform better in exergames: Collaboration vs. competition in virtual environments

Abstract

Repetitive indoor exercises as running on a treadmill or cycling on an exercise bike use to be tedious and hard to keep in diary basis. In sports, social relationships are an important source of stimulus to achieve a goal. Better performances can be achieved when one compete against others, as well as when a group collaborate to achieve a common target. In this work we propose a motivational system to help people to perform better in exergames using a virtual environment and testing the effects of collaboration and competition in such environment. © 2013 IEEE.