Immersion experiences in a tablet-based markerless augmented reality working memory game: Randomized controlled trial and user experience study

Background: In recent years, augmented reality (AR), especially markerless augmented reality (MAR), has been used moreprevalently to create training games in an attempt to improve humans' cognitive functions. This has been driven by studies claimingthat MAR provides users with more immersive experiences that are situated in the real world. Currently, no studies havescientifically investigated the immersion experience of users in a MAR cognitive training game. Moreover, there is an observedlack of instruments on measuring immersion in MAR cognitive training games.Objective: This study, using two existing immersion questionnaires, investigates students' immersion experiences in a novelMAR n-back game.Methods: The n-back task is a continuous performance task that taps working memory (WM) capacity. We compared twoversions of n-back training. One was presented in a traditional 2D format, while the second version used MAR. There were 2experiments conducted in this study that coordinated with 2 types of immersion questionnaires: The modified Immersive ExperiencesQuestionnaire (IEQ) and the Augmented Reality Immersion (ARI) questionnaire. Two groups of students from two universitiesin China joined the study, with 60 participants for the first experiment (a randomized controlled experiment) and 51 participantsfor the second.Results: Both groups of students experienced immersion in the MAR n-back game. However, the MAR n-back training groupdid not experience stronger immersion than the traditional (2D) n-back control group in the first experiment. The results of thesecond experiment showed that males felt deeply involved with the AR environment, which resulted in obtaining higher levelsof immersion than females in the MAR n-back game.Conclusions: Both groups of students experienced immersion in the MAR n-back game. Moreover, both the modified IEQ andARI have the potential to be used as instruments to measure immersion in MAR game settings.