A shift in military training is underway from a traditional emphasis on classroom instruction to a more learner-centric model of training. In this approach, where training may be delivered "anytime, anywhere," trainees are often dispersed, and there is a greater responsibility on the learner to maintain motivation for his or her own learning. Although instructional games can provide a learning environment that actively engages the learner, this remains a relatively new instructional technology with limited empirical support. Several studies have examined the effects of game-based instructional programs on learning. For example, both Whitehall and McDonald (1993) and Ricci, Salas, and Cannon-Bowers (1996) found that instruction incorporating game features led to improved learning. In addition, Ricci, et. al (1996) proposed that instruction that incorporated game features enhanced student motivation, which led to greater attention to training content and greater retention. There is an implicit model of learning that is inherent in these studies. First, the goal is to design an instructional program that incorporates certain features or characteristics of games. Second, these features trigger a game cycle, a repeating cycle of user judgments, behavior, and feedback that characterizes the game player's self-motivated engagement and task persistence (Garris, Ahlers, and Driskell, 2001). To the extent that training designers are successful in pairing instructional content with appropriate game features, this engagement in game play leads to the achievement of training objectives and specific learning outcomes. Although many have noted the potential benefits that may be gained from incorporating game characteristics into instructional applications, there is clearly little consensus regarding what the essential characteristics are and how they should be implemented. Based on a review of the literature about games, motivational training, and motivation-related constructs, we synthesized a model of motivational training using game features and predicted training and motivation outcomes. In this paper, we describe essential game features, how they were implemented for this research, and report a subset of the results of an empirical study to assess the effectiveness of a game-based trainer to enhance submarine technical skills and the effects of the training approach on student motivation. Bottom Gun, a game-based periscope trainer developed in support of this research, is a simulation-based game that incorporates simulated contacts, a high rate of interactivity, scoring, and visual and sound effects. The control training condition provided the same contacts within the same scenarios minus the game characteristics. The proposed approach to designing and evaluating the effectiveness of games was generally supported. Despite holding training objectives and content constant, Bottom Gun was perceived as more game-like than the control condition. Results indicated that both training conditions resulted in significant improvements in accuracy in calling angle-on-the-bow, a difficult visual perception task. However, the game-based training resulted in smaller visual estimation errors than the control training condition. Additionally, four context-specific measures of components of motivation, including locus of control, self-efficacy, valence, and goal commitment were found to have shifted in a positive direction at the post-test. Read more...

This study considered whether the distinction between core and peripheral criteria for behavioral addiction, previously drawn with respect to computing activities in general, applies in the specific area of Massively Multiplayer Online Game playing. Questionnaire items were administered over the Internet to 442 game players. Factor-analysis of the data supported the previous findings for computing in general. An addiction factor loaded on items tapping previously identified core criteria (conflict, withdrawal symptoms, relapse and reinstatement and behavioral salience) and a (non-pathological) engagement factor loaded on items tapping previously identified peripheral criteria (cognitive salience, tolerance and euphoria). Analysis of response frequencies supported the existence of a developmental process whereby peripheral criteria are met before core criteria. Players who might be considered addicted using a monothetic classification system involving only the core criteria were shown to spend a significantly greater amount of time playing per week than those endorsing only the peripheral criteria. It is concluded that the study supports the idea that it is inappropriate to use some of the previously used criteria for addiction when researching or diagnosing computer-related addictions. Implications of the present findings for Internet-mediated data collection methodologies are also discussed. Read more...

We present research in synthetic social behavior for interactive virtual characters. We describe. a model from the natural world, the gray wolf (Cams lupus), and the social behavior exhibited by packs of wolves, to use as the target for an interactive installation entitled AlphaWolf, which was shown at SIGGRAPH 2001. We offer a computational model that captures a subset of the social behavior of wild wolves, involving models of learning, emotion and development. There is a range of real-world applications of synthetic social behavior, from short-term possibilities such as autonomous characters for computer games, to long-term applications such as computer interfaces that can interact more appropriately with humans by utilizing human social abilities. Our research offers initial steps toward computational systems with social behavior, in hope of making interactions with them more functional and more inherently rewarding. Read more...

For many users, the first real encounter with a computer occurs when taking an introductory course to computers at a college. To the extent that these training courses impact user understanding and motivation, they are important determinants of the user attitudes towards computers and merit serious assessment. Using 327 business undergraduates at two universities in the US, this paper reports on the reactions of students to computers and computer-related tasks before and after an introductory course to computers. Responses to a 20-item scale were analysed to examine the pattern of attitude change experienced by students in their training course. Factor analysis revealed five constructs for describing patterns of computer user attitude: negative reaction to computers; positive reaction to computers; reaction to computers for children education; reaction to computer-mediated services; and reaction to computer games. Four factors show significant change in mean scores after the training courses. The attitudes changed for males more than females, indicating improvement in attitudes. The respondents' attitude to computer-mediated services remained unchanged. While the directions of changes indicate an overall improvement in respondents' reactions, many attitudes did not change significantly after having taken the training courses. This may be due to the content or the format of these courses. Read more...

We propose a real-time 3D audio rendering pipeline for complex virtual scenes containing hundreds of moving sound sources. The approach, based on auditory culling and spatial level-of-detail, can handle more than ten times the number of sources commonly available on consumer 3D audio hardware, with minimal decrease in audio quality. The method performs well for both indoor and outdoor environments. It leverages the limited capabilities of audio hardware for many applications, including interactive architectural acoustics simulations and automatic 3D voice management for video games. Our approach dynamically eliminates inaudible sources and groups the remaining audible sources into a budget number of clusters. Each cluster is represented by one impostor sound source, positioned using perceptual criteria. Spatial audio processing is then performed only on the impostor sound sources rather than on every original source thus greatly reducing the computational cost. A pilot validation study shows that degradation in audio quality, as well as localization impairment, are limited and do not seem to vary significantly with the cluster budget. We conclude that our real-time perceptual audio rendering pipeline can generate spatialized audio for complex auditory environments without introducing disturbing changes in the resulting perceived soundfield. Read more...

Computer modelling of personality and behaviour is becoming increasingly important in many fields of computer science and psychology. Personality and emotion-driven Believable Agents are needed in areas like human-machine interfaces, electronic advertising and, most notably, electronic entertainment. Computer models of personality can help explain personality by illustrating its underlying structure and dynamics. This work presents a neural network model of personality and personality change. The goals are to help understand personality and create more realistic and believable characters for interactive video games. The model is based largely on trait theories of personality. Behaviour in the model results from the interaction of three components: (1) personality-based predispositions for behaviour, (2) moods/emotions and (3) environmental situations. Personality develops gradually over time depending on the situations encountered. Modelling personality change produces interesting and believable virtual characters whose behaviours change in psychologically plausible ways. Read more...

This paper presents a dynamic motion control technique for human-like articulated figures in a physically based character animation system. This method controls a figure such that the figure tracks input motion specified by a user. When environmental physical input such as an external force or a collision impulse are applied to the figure, this method generates dynamically changing motion in response to the physical input. Me have introduced comfort and balance control to compute the angular acceleration of the figure's joints, Our algorithm controls the several parts of a human-like articulated figure separetely through the minimum number of degrees-of-freedom. Using this approach, our algorithm simulates realistic human motions at efficient computational cost, Unlike existing dynamic simulation systems, out, method assumes that input motion is already realistic, and is aimed at dynamically, changing the input motion in real-time only when tin expected physical input is applied to the figure. As such, our method works efficiently in the framework of current computer games. Read more...

The widespread use of on-line computer games makes this medium a valuable vehicle for information sharing, while scalability facilitates global collaboration between players in the game space. Came engines generally provide an intuitive interface allowing attention to be shifted to the understanding of scientific elements rather than hiding them between a wealth of menus and other counterintuitive user interfaces. These strengths are applied towards promoting the understanding of planetary systems and climate change. Unconventional interaction and visualization techniques are introduced as a method to experience geophysical environments. Players are provided with dynamic visualization assets, which enable them to discover, interrogate and correlate scientific data in the game space. The spirit of exploration is to give players the impetus to conceptualize how complex Earth and planetary systems work, understand their intrinsic beauty and the impact of humans, while providing a sense of responsibility for those systems. Read more...

The emergence of human communication systems is typically investigated via 2 approaches with complementary strengths and weaknesses: naturalistic studies and computer simulations. This study was conducted with a method that combines these approaches. Pairs of participants played video games requiring communication. Members of a pair were physically separated but exchanged graphic signals through a medium that prevented the use of standard symbols (e.g., letters). Communication systems emerged and developed rapidly during the games, integrating the use of explicit signs with information implicitly' available to players and silent behavior-coordinating procedures. The systems that emerged suggest 3 conclusions: (a) signs originate from different mappings; (b) sign systems develop parsimoniously; (c) sign forms are perceptually distinct, easy to produce, and tolerant to variations. Read more...

Three experiments examined the effects of rewarding and punishing violent actions in video games on later aggression-related variables. Participants played one of three versions of the same race-car video game: (a) a version in which all violence was rewarded, (b) a version in which all violence was punished, and (c) a nonviolent version. Participants were then measured for aggressive affect (Experiment 1), aggressive cognition (Experiment 2), and aggressive behavior (Experiment 3). Rewarding violent game actions increased hostile emotion, aggressive thinking, and aggressive behavior. Punishing violent actions increased hostile emotion, but did not increase aggressive thinking or aggressive behavior. Results suggest that games that reward violent actions can increase aggressive behavior by increasing aggressive thinking. Read more...