Actor & Avatar: A Scientific and Artistic Catalog

What kind of relationship do we have with artificial beings (avatars, puppets, robots, etc.)? What does it mean to mirror ourselves in them, to perform them or to play trial identity games with them? Actor & Avatar addresses these questions from artistic and scholarly angles. Contributions on the making of "technical others" and philosophical reflections on artificial alterity are flanked by neuroscientific studies on different ways of perceiving living persons and artificial counterparts. The contributors have achieved a successful artistic-scientific collaboration with extensive visual material

Let There Be Dragons! Towards Designing an Engaging Quest that Enhances Curiosity and Learning About Genetics

This study implemented a convergent parallel mixed methods approach to investigate game-based learning within an educational game compared to a modified entertainment game. Participants (N=31) were recruited from public middle and high schools as well as home school groups. Comparative data of participants’ perceptions, preferences and learning outcomes were investigated to inform better educational game design. This study also considers player personality to determine how dispositional curiosity influences an individual’s approach, acceptance, and interaction with novel learning environments, specifically games. Findings show a statistically significant gain in genetics academic knowledge after the game-based learning intervention. The difference in knowledge gained for the two games was not statistically significant. All dimensions of engagement, motivation and curiosity were statistically significantly higher for the modified entertainment game. Increases in scientific curiosity was statistically significantly higher for the modified entertainment game while scientific curiosity statistically significantly decreased after playing the educational game. Qualitative analysis revealed five themes and provided deeper understanding of game design features that enhance learning, curiosity and engagement from the player’s perception. Integration of quantitative and qualitative results suggest overall convergence and enhanced understanding of theoretical and practical implications of this research and identifies key relationships between game design, player perceptions and learning outcomes to inform better educational game design and implementation