The paper examines the physiological response – as manifest as heart rate changes – and subjective impressions of presence, of a group of players of 1st Person Simulations. Varied experimental factors include two different simulations – VBS1 and Joint Ops: Typhoon Rising, solo and multi-player team play, and different types of scenarios. Across the population heart rate increase from resting to game play was found to be relatively minor – far less than the increase for light exercise (walking). However physiological response to game play was found to be highly individual with two subjects showing an actual drop in heart rate, while one showed a very significant increase. Subjective impressions of presence, obtained via questionnaire, showed that players were significantly engaged with the game. However no correlation existed between subjective measures and heart rate changes. Differences in game setting – game engine, solo versus multi-player - manifested as relatively minor differences in objective (heart rate) and subjective (questionnaire) measures. Read more...

Many popular digital games have historical themes or settings. Taking its cue from recent research emphasizing the educational value of computer and video games, this article investigates the bias of the medium in presenting history. Although sharing an appreciation for the cultural value of history simulations and games, the author argues that the digital game medium currently tends to result in stereotypically masculine, mechanical, and spatially oriented interactive presentations of history. This article does not take a technological determinist stance nor a simplistic view of interpretation. Nevertheless, the author believes that the weight and momentum of the historical development of the digital game medium, its technological structure, and its institutional character have encouraged certain patterns in digital games that should be critically examined. Read more...

In post-9/11 America, digital war games have increasingly come to provide a space of cyber-deterrence where Americans are able to 'play through' the anxieties that attend uncertain times and new configurations of power. This article seeks to examine the increasingly close relationship between the US military and the digital-game industry, along with the geographies of militarism that this has produced. Focusing on the contribution that digital war games make to a culture of perpetual war and in the manufacture of consent for US domestic and foreign policy, the Pentagon's mobilization and deployment of digital games as an attempt to create a modern version of the noble war fantasy is critically examined. With particular reference to America's Army, the official US Army game, the article seeks to examine the influence of digital war games in the militarization of popular culture and in shaping popular understandings of geopolitics. Read more...

Visuospatial abilities have been demonstrated to predict the performance of medical students in simulated endoscopy. However, little has been reported whether differences in visuospatial abilities influence the performance of senior endoscopists or whether their vast endoscopy experience reduces the importance of these abilities. Eleven senior endoscopists were included in our study. Before the simulated endoscopies in GI Mentor II. (gastroscopy: case 3, module 1 and colonoscopy: case 3, module 1), the endoscopists; performed three visuospatial tests: (1) pictorial surface orientation (PicSOr), (2) card rotation, and (3) cube comparison tests that monitor the ability of the tested person to re-create a three-dimensional image from a two-dimensional presentation as well as mentally manipulate that re-created image. The results of the visuospatial tests were cot-related to the performance parameters of the virtual-reality endoscopy simulator. The percent of time spent with clear view in the simulated colonoscopy correlated well with the performance in the visuospatial PicSOr (r = -0.75, P = 0.01), card rotation (r = 0.75, P = 0.01), and cube comparison (r = 0.79, P = 0.004) tests. The endoscopists who performed better in the visuospatial tests also were better at maintaining visualization of the colon lumen. Those who performed better in the PicSOr test formed fewer loops during colonoscopy (r = 0.60, P = 0.05). In the technically less demanding simulated gastroscopy, there were no Such correlations. The visuospatial tests performed better in endoscopists not playing computer games. Good visuospatial ability correlates significantly with the performance of experienced endoscopists in a technically demanding simulated colonoscopy, but not in the less demanding simulated gastroscopy. Read more...

Purpose - The aim of this paper is to describe the potential of the videogame as a mass communication medium and to propose a videogame-based public outreach strategy for education and inspiration to space science and space activities. Design/methodology/approach - The objective was achieved by means of a semiotic approach to the medium under discussion. The subject scope of the paper was further developed and supported by an overview of existing case studies related to the topic. Based on the aforementioned analysis and on original ideas, new concepts and strategies on the subject are proposed. Findings - The videogame medium has excellent potential for promotion, marketing and educational applications. Moreover, spin-off applications in the field of simulation-based research can also be envisioned. The proposed concepts, although specifically referring to the space sector, are applicable to many other industrial and non-industrial fields, including libraries. Practical implications - The paper hints at many possible spin-off applications for videogames in the field of communication, marketing and simulation-based research. Originality/value - The concepts proposed in the paper outline novel marketing and outreach strategies (together with other spin-off applications) based on a rather underestimated medium, i.e. the videogame, which has yet to receive proper attention from scholars. Read more...

This study investigated students’ understanding of a virtual infectious disease in relation to their understanding of natural infectious diseases. Two sixth grade classrooms of students between the ages 10 to 12 (46 students) participated in a participatory simulation of a virtual infectious disease as part of their science curriculum that took place in a university-laboratory school in Los Angeles, California. The results from our analyses revealed that the immersive components of the simulation afforded students the opportunity to discuss their understandings of natural disease and to compare them to their experiences with the virtual disease. We found that while the virtual disease capitalized on students’ knowledge of natural infectious disease through virtual symptoms, these symptoms and a missing curricular piece of computational viruses may have led students to think of its transfer more as an observable or mechanical event rather than as a biological process. These findings provide helpful indicators to science educators and educational designers interested in creating and implementing such online simulations to further students’ conceptual understanding. Read more...

Although one of the fundamental goals of Al is to understand and develop intelligent systems that have all the capabilities of humans, there is little active research directly pursuing this goal. We propose that Al for interactive computer games is an emerging application area in which this goal of human-level Al can successfully be pursued. Interactive computer games have increasingly complex and realistic worlds and increasingly complex and intelligent computer-controlled characters. In this article, we further motivate our proposal of using interactive computer games for Al research, review previous research on Al and games, and present the different game genres and the roles that human-level Al could play within these genres. We then describe the research issues and Al techniques that are relevant to each of these roles. Our conclusion is that interactive computer games provide a rich environment for incremental research on human-level AI. Read more...

Those who are involved in research in gaming and simulation find themselves in a dual position. One reason for this duality relates to the fact that researchers in gaming and simulation represent two distinct branches of science: the design and analytical sciences. The basic idea of the design sciences is to build and assess artifacts. The scientific method of the analytical sciences aims at developing and testing theories. Both pay attention to different notions of causality, and apply different criteria of success. This article presents a framework both for artifact assessment and theory testing, which helps to better understand the distinct scientific and professional issues involved, and to offer directions for cross-fertilization. Read more...

Real-time graphic applications and specifically videogames, follow a paradigm of continuous simulation that couples the simulation phase and the rendering phase. This paradigm can be inefficient (inadequate computer power distribution) or it can produce incorrect simulations (disordered events execution or events lost). The use of a decoupled discrete paradigm avoids incorrect simulations, besides it improves the simulation quality and efficiency. GDESK is a discrete decoupled simulation kernel that can be integrated in any videogame or real-time graphic application to change its simulation paradigm to a discrete decoupled one. Once GDESK is integrated inside the videogame, it becomes into a set of objects being communicated by messages. Messages are modeled using discrete events. GDESK manages the messages exchange process (events synchronization, messages sending and reception process, etc.). Read more...

Simulation is often used to solve problems in many areas in the form of problem analysis. Real time graphic applications such as videogames typically use a continuous simulation scheme. This operating scheme has disadvantages that can be avoided by using a discrete event simulator as the application kernel. This paper proposes the integration of a discrete event simulator into a real time graphic application to control the kernel simulation. Using a discrete methodology avoids disorderly event execution or the execution of cancelled events. The use of this methodology involves using events as the method of modeling the system dynamics and the interaction and behavior of the objects. Read more...