Game Transfer Phenomena in video game playing: a qualitative interview study

Video game playing is a popular activity and its enjoyment among frequent players has been associated with absorption and immersion experiences. This paper examines how immersion in the video game environment can influence the player during the game and afterwards (including fantasies, thoughts, and actions). This is what we describe as Game Transfer Phenomena (GTP). GTP occurs when video game elements are associated with real life elements triggering subsequent thoughts, sensations and/or player actions. To investigate this further, a total of 42 frequent video game players aged between 15 and 21 years old were interviewed. Thematic analysis showed that many players experienced GTP, where players appeared to integrate elements of video game playing into their real lives. These GTP were then classified as either intentional or automatic experiences. Results also showed that players used video games for interacting with others as a form of amusement, modeling or mimicking video game content, and daydreaming about video games. Furthermore, the findings demonstrate how video games sometimes triggered intrusive thoughts, sensations, impulses, reflexes, optical illusions, and dissociations

How Fast Can We Play Tetris Greedily With Rectangular Pieces?

Consider a variant of Tetris played on a board of width $w$ and infinite height, where the pieces are axis-aligned rectangles of arbitrary integer dimensions, the pieces can only be moved before letting them drop, and a row does not disappear once it is full. Suppose we want to follow a greedy strategy: let each rectangle fall where it will end up the lowest given the current state of the board. To do so, we want a data structure which can always suggest a greedy move. In other words, we want a data structure which maintains a set of $O(n)$ rectangles, supports queries which return where to drop the rectangle, and updates which insert a rectangle dropped at a certain position and return the height of the highest point in the updated set of rectangles. We show via a reduction to the Multiphase problem [P\u{a}tra\c{s}cu, 2010] that on a board of width $w=\Theta(n)$, if the OMv conjecture [Henzinger et al., 2015] is true, then both operations cannot be supported in time $O(n^{1/2-\epsilon})$ simultaneously. The reduction also implies polynomial bounds from the 3-SUM conjecture and the APSP conjecture. On the other hand, we show that there is a data structure supporting both operations in $O(n^{1/2}\log^{3/2}n)$ time on boards of width $n^{O(1)}$, matching the lower bound up to a $n^{o(1)}$ factor.Comment: Correction of typos and other minor correction

Stress Relieving Video Games: Creating a Game for the Purpose of Stress Relief and Analyzing Its Effectiveness

Stress is an inevitable part of human life that can have both physical and mental repercussions if left to simmer. The purpose of this project was to make a simple game-like application that will be at least as effective at relieving stress as other games referenced in my research below. To accomplish this, I took common ideas known to relieve stress and designed a game that incorporates them, programming the game in Java. Then, to test the effectiveness of the created game, I had several subjects fill out a questionnaire about their stress levels and took their blood pressure. One group was tasked with playing the game I had specifically designed to de-stress them, the second group did a relaxing breathing exercise, and a third group played Tetris. The groups were then compared by their differences in stress levels. It is my hope that this experiment will provide insight into what helps relieve stress. As stress is a common part of people\u27s lives, finding a simple way to remove such an ailment would be beneficial to a great number of people. Although the created game was not as successful relieving stress as the researched games, the experiment provided insight into changes that could be made to make a game more effective at relieving stress

On Birthing Dancing Stars: The Need for Bounded Chaos in Information Interaction

While computers causing chaos is acommon social trope, nearly the entirety of the history of computing is dedicated to generating order. Typical interactive information retrieval tasks ask computers to support the traversal and exploration of large, complex information spaces. The implicit assumption is that they are to support users in simplifying the complexity (i.e. in creating order from chaos). But for some types of task, particularly those that involve the creative application or synthesis of knowledge or the creation of new knowledge, this assumption may be incorrect. It is increasingly evident that perfect order—and the systems we create with it—support highly-structured information tasks well, but provide poor support for less-structured tasks.We need digital information environments that help create a little more chaos from order to spark creative thinking and knowledge creation. This paper argues for the need for information systems that offerwhat we term ‘bounded chaos’, and offers research directions that may support the creation of such interface

Developing Particulate Layers for a Light Scattering Model as Potential Means of Interpreting Remote Sensing Data of Planetary Surfaces

The study of terrestrial surfaces (regolith) of celestial bodies on a large scale is only realistic if conducted remotely. One method of achieving this is through investigating the directional properties of light scattered from them. This light contains information that can be used to interpret their origin, structure and taken as a whole, the evolution of the solar system. Previous studies into photometric properties of light scattered as a function of phase angle, with particular attention to the feature known as surge is reviewed. Surge is where there is a sudden increase in brightness of an object when the backscattering angle approaches the source of the illumination. For celestial objects this is only seen when the celestial body in question is in opposition, i.e. the Earth is directly between the celestial object being studies and the Sun. It is therefore also known as the opposition effect. Features such as shadow hiding and coherent backscatter are explored and explained as are their individual contributions to surge. There is some discussion given to the merits and inherent flaws taken by previous studies of this effect, namely the empirical best fit approach compared with various computational methods in determining probable surface features. This thesis explores a method of simulating light scattering by particulate layers. This differs mostly from previous computational work concerning coherent backscatter in that this uses non‐spherical particles as opposed to spheres (Mishchenko et al.) or aggregates of spheres (Litvinov et al.). The method is tested against backscattering measurements on snow layers by Kaasalainen et al.. For this purpose model layers have been constructed according to the snow layer descriptions (dominating crystal shape, mean snow/grain size, layer density). According to private communication with the authors, ice crystals are assumed to be randomly aligned. The method employed here is similar to the one described by Shkuratov at al.: Particles are randomly distributed in a cuboid, the lateral and bottom sides of which are cyclically closed. Light scattering by these model layers and the resulting phase functions are computed by a ray tracing model in which incident rays have a given finite diameter and are associated with the electric field (not irradiance). Incident rays are arranged in a regular array covering the projected cross section of the layer. The sum of the cross sections of the normally incident rays is equal to the projected cross section of the layer. Diffraction is calculated for individual rays leaving the layer and the complex electric field values are added to the respective angular bins of the electric field distribution. In this way, the diffraction integral of a facet or sub‐facet area is approximated by the sum of the diffraction integrals of the individual rays leaving the facet/ sub‐facet area. When raytracing has finished the phase function is calculated. Comparisons of modelling results with measurements have been carried out for two samples: one of compact hexagonal columns and one of thin plates. For comparison with the experimental results, the same four‐parameter empirical fitting function as in Kaasalainen et al. was used. The phase functions of the compact particles can be compared directly. Similarities were found in the case of the improved seeding technique for needles and compact columns, though analysis of the field measurements and images presented in the Kaasalainen papers has called into question the similarities in the similarities between their samples and the simulations. For non‐compact particles such as hexagonal plates and needles the layer densities measured in the experiment could not be achieved for the model layer. This also enhances the problem of incomplete randomisation due to the limited layer cross section area (which is probably also the reason for the strong oscillations in the measured phase function of the compact hexagonal columns). Since particle size, shape and alignment distributions affect the width of the backscattering peak, it would have been helpful, if more information about these properties had been available

Exploring Privacy Leakage from the Resource Usage Patterns of Mobile Apps

Due to the popularity of smart phones and mobile apps, a potential privacy risk with the usage of mobile apps is that, from the usage information of mobile apps (e.g., how many hours a user plays mobile games in each day), private information about a user’s living habits and personal activities can be inferred. To assess this risk, this thesis answers the following research question: can the type of a mobile app (e.g., email, web browsing, mobile game, music streaming, etc.) used by a user be inferred from the resource (e.g., CPU, memory, network, etc.) usage patterns of the mobile app? This thesis answers this question for two kinds of systems, a single mobile device and a mobile cloud computing system. First, two privacy attacks under the same framework are proposed based on supervised learning algorithms. Then these attacks are implemented and explored in a mobile device and in a cloud computing environment. Experimental evaluations show that the type of app can be inferred with high probability. In particular, the attacks achieve up to 100% accuracy on a mobile device, and 66.7% accuracy in the mobile cloud computing environment. This study shows that resource usage patterns of mobile apps can be used to infer the type of apps being used, and thus can cause privacy leakage if not protected

Can We Predict and Manipulate Memory Intrusions in a Laboratory Setting?

Memory intrusions, a type of involuntary memory, are experienced by people on a daily basis yet are an under-researched phenomenon in psychology. This study examined how to better describe, manipulate, and predict memory intrusions. Participants (n=47) were tested using the stressful film paradigm to elicit memory intrusions, which were recorded over the following week. Three individual difference measures, working memory, physiological arousal, and anxiety sensitivity, were utilized for comparative analysis. The study was unable to manipulate memory intrusions with visuospatial or eye movement task conditions. Memory intrusion incidence was found to be correlated with anxiety sensitivity cognitive concerns and peaks in heart rate while no correlation with working memory was found. These results add to the current knowledge about memory intrusions phenomenology and correlates. Results also emphasize the need for future research on manipulating memory intrusions and curvilinear relationships between memory intrusion occurrence and both anxiety sensitivity and physiological arousal