Burstiness of human physical activities and their characterization

TL;DR

This study investigates the burstiness in human physical activities across different age groups and situations, revealing unique IET distribution characteristics and confirming burstiness in both children and adults.

Contribution

It is the first to analyze burstiness in physical activities of children aged 2-5 and links activity context to IET distribution features.

Findings

Confirmed burstiness in children and adults

Identified unique IET distribution patterns per activity situation

First analysis of burstiness in young children's physical activities

Abstract

Human behaviour is heterogeneous and temporally fluctuates. Many studies have focused on inter-event time (IET) fluctuations and have reported that the IET distributions have a long-tailed distribution, which cannot be explained by a stationary Poisson point process. Such phenomenon observed in IET distributions are known as burstiness. Burstiness has also been reported for human physical activity, but the mechanism underlying it has not been clarified. In this study, we collected human physical activity data while specifying the age of the subjects and their situations (for example, children's play and adults' housework), and we analysed their event time-series data. We confirmed the burstiness in both children and adults. For the first time, burstiness studied in physical activities of children between the ages 2 and 5. We also confirmed that the characteristics of the IET distribution are unique to each activity situation. Our results may be critical in the identification of the burstiness mechanisms in human physical activity.