Abstract
The real world is multisensory and our experiences in this world are constructed by the stimulation of all our senses including visual, auditory, touch, olfactory, and taste. However, virtual environments including virtual simulations and serious games, and the human-computer interface more generally, have focused on the visual and auditory senses. Simulating the other senses such as the sense of smell (olfaction) can be beneficial for supporting learning. In this paper we present a simple and cost-effective olfactory interface constructed using an Arduino Uno microcontroller board, a small fan, an off-the-shelf air freshener to deliver scents to a user of a serious game. A fuzzy logic system regulated the amount of scent delivered to the user based on their distance to the display. As a proof-of-concept, we developed a serious game intended to teach basic math (counting) skills to children. Learners (players) collect pineapples from the scene and then enter the amount of pineapples collected. As the pineapples are collected, a pineapple scent is emitted from the olfactory interface thus serving to supplement or complement the learner’s senses and stimulate their affection and cognition. As part of our proof-of-concept, a 10 year old learner played the game and provided us with feedback regarding the olfactory interface and illustrated the potential of the system.
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Garcia-Ruiz, M., Kapralos, B., Rebolledo-Mendez, G. (2021). Towards Effective Odor Diffusion with Fuzzy Logic in an Olfactory Interface for a Serious Game. In: Stephanidis, C., et al. HCI International 2021 - Late Breaking Papers: Multimodality, eXtended Reality, and Artificial Intelligence. HCII 2021. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 13095. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-90963-5_1
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