Game location influences basketball players performance across playing positions.

Home advantage in sport has been the subject of much empirical work, although the 3 causes underlying this effect are still unclear. In team sports such as Basketball, available 4 literature has analyzed home versus away performances at a team level. The present study 5 investigated the presence of home advantage at the level of the individual player’s position. It 6 also attempted to identify a subset of game-related statistics that could discriminate home and 7 away performances according to each player’s position. To achieve these aims, archival data 8 were obtained from 225 games for the 2004-2005 Euroleague. Players were subdivided so 9 that the “point guards” and “offguards” were pooled as guards (n=493), the “small forwards” 10 and “power forwards” were grouped as forwards (n=485) and the centres (n=233). A 2x3 11 (game location: home and away; playing position: guards, forwards and centres) factorial 12 MANOVA followed by a discriminant analysis was performed. For the guards, the 13 discriminant function was significant and the game-related statistics that differentiated most 14 home and away performances were the successful two point field-goals, defensive rebounds, 15 assists, steals, blocks and committed fouls. The forwards’ home and away performances were 16 discriminated by successful free-throws, assists, steals, blocks and committed fouls. The 17 function for centres was non significant. Results suggested a differential effect of home 18 advantage in basketball players by role in the team, with guards from home teams playing 19 more assertively, whereas in away teams forwards played more assertively. These results 20 provide initial evidence to support a position specific approach when preparing for home and 21 away games in team sports

It’s not the model that doesn’t fit, it’s the controller! The role of cognitive skills in understanding the links between natural mapping, performance, and enjoyment of console video games

This study examines differences in performance, frustration, and game ratings of individuals playing first person shooter video games using two different controllers (motion controller and a traditional, pushbutton controller) in a within-subjects, randomized order design. Structural equation modeling was used to demonstrate that cognitive skills such as mental rotation ability and eye/hand coordination predicted performance for both controllers, but the motion control was significantly more frustrating. Moreover, increased performance was only related to game ratings for the traditional controller input. We interpret these data as evidence that, contrary to the assumption that motion controlled interfaces are more naturally mapped than traditional push-button controllers, the traditional controller was more naturally mapped as an interface for gameplay

Coming Out of the Dungeon: Mathematics and Role-Playing Games

After hiding it for many years, I have a confession to make. Throughout middle school and high school my friends and I would gather almost every weekend, spending hours using numbers, probability, and optimization to build models that we could use to simulate almost anything. That’s right. My big secret is simple. I was a high school mathematical modeler. Of course, our weekend mathematical models didn’t bear any direct relationship to the models we explored in our mathematics and science classes. You would probably not even recognize our regular gatherings as mathematical exercises. If you looked into the room, you’d see a group of us gathered around a table, scribbling on sheets of paper, rolling dice, eating pizza, and talking about dragons, magical spells, and sword fighting. So while I claim we were engaged in mathematical modeling, I suspect that very few math classes built models like ours. After all, how many math teachers have constructed or had their students construct a mathematical representation of a dragon, a magical spell, or a swordfight? And yet, our role-playing games (RPGs) were very much mathematical models of reality — certainly not the reality of our everyday experience, but a reality nonetheless, one intended to simulate a particular kind of world. Most often for us this was the medieval, high-fantasy world of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), but we also played games with science fiction or modern-day espionage settings. We learned a lot about math, mythology, medieval history, teamwork, storytelling, and imagination in the process. And, when existing games were inadequate vehicles for our imagination, we modified them or created new ones. In doing so, we learned even more about math. Now that I am a mathematics professor, I find myself reflecting on those days as a “fantasy modeler” and considering various questions. What is the relationship between my two interests of fantasy games and mathematics? Does having been a gamer make me a better mathematician or modeler? Does my mathematical experience make me a better gamer? These different aspects of my life may seem mostly unconnected; indeed, the “nerd” stereotype is associated with both activities, but despite public perception, the community of role-players includes many people who are not scientifically-minded. So we cannot say that role-players like math, or math-lovers role-play, because “that is simply what nerds do.” To get at the deeper question of how mathematics and role-playing are related, we first need to look at the processes of gaming, game designing, and modeling