Education vs. Entertainment: A Cultural History of Children's Software

Part of the Volume on the Ecology of Games: Connecting Youth, Games, and Learning This chapter draws on ethnographic material to consider the cultural politics and recent history of children's software and reflects on how this past can inform our current efforts to mobilize games for learning. The analysis uses a concept of genre as a way of making linkages across the distributed but interconnected circuit of everyday play, software content, and industry context. Organized through three genres in children's software -- academic, entertainment, and construction -- the body of the chapter describes how these genres play out within a production and advertising context, in the design of particular software titles, and at sites of play in after-school computer centers where the fieldwork was conducted

Animal crossing: New leaf and the diversity of horror in video games

This paper explores the diverse ways horror can be conveyed in games by investigating how games that are not associated with the horror genre can produce unsettling or scary experiences. To conduct this exploration, this study uses interaction mapping, as outlined by Consalvo and Dutton (2006), to examine a game that has thoroughly pleasant and cutesy trappings: Animal Crossing: New Leaf (Nintendo 2013). The interactions were analysed according to three themes prevalent within literature on horror and horror games: the loss of agency, the Freudian uncanny, and the Heideggerian uncanny. Ultimately, this paper demonstrates that a game which is not explicitly scary is occasionally made so through its rudimentary simulation of human behaviour and societal constructs as well as its autonomous functions and inclusion of real-world time, showing that games have very diverse means of conveying unsettling or horrifying experiences. The paper also shows how frameworks used to analyse games in the horror genre can be applicable to critical readings of non-horror games in order to understand the unexpected player reactions they can evoke

Visualization in cyber-geography: reconsidering cartography's concept of visualization in current usercentric cybergeographic cosmologies

This article discusses some epistemological problems of a semiotic and cybernetic character in two current scientific cosmologies in the study of geographic information systems (GIS) with special reference to the concept of visualization in modern cartography. Setting off from Michael Batty’s prolegomena for a virtual geography and Michael Goodchild’s “Human-Computer-Reality-Interaction” as the field of a new media convergence and networking of GIS-computation of geo-data, the paper outlines preliminarily a common field of study, namely that of cybernetic geography, or just “cyber-geography) owing to the principal similarities with second order cybernetics. Relating these geographical cosmologies to some of Science’s dominant, historical perceptions of the exploring and appropriating of Nature as an “inventory of knowledge”, the article seeks to identify some basic ontological and epistemological dimensions of cybernetic geography and visualization in modern cartography. The points made is that a generalized notion of visualization understood as the use of maps, or more precisely as cybergeographic GIS-thinking seems necessary as an epistemological as well as a methodological prerequisite to scientific knowledge in cybergeography. Moreover do these generalized concept seem to lead to a displacement of the positions traditionally held by the scientist and lay-man citizen, that is not only in respect of the perception of the matter studied, i.e. the field of geography, but also of the manner in which the scientist informs the lay-man citizen in the course of action in the public participation in decision making; a displacement that seems to lead to a more critical, or perhaps even quasi-scientific approach as concerns the lay-man user

Web based computer games as an educational tools: mapping the Malaysian surrounding issues

The advancement of computer and web technology has enabled the growth of one of the most popular application nowadays: online computer games. Thousands of online games are available on the internet consists of different genre, graphics and patterns which enable gamers around the world play their favourite games alone or simultaneously. The engagement and immersion provided by games is no doubt is very high. For this matter, the games should be exploited as a medium for teaching and learning because we may never have experienced same level of engagement in our conventional teaching and learning medium among our students. However, designing and developing educational computer games is a multidisciplinary activity involving computer expert, educational expert, art designers and story creator. Therefore, the process of creating such games is never be easy especially if we want to achieved something the best in terms of good game play and by the same time gaining lot of learning benefits. This study will define the issues and elements needed in this multidisciplinary activity. This will be as a guide in the design and development of an online computer games for teaching and learning purposes

Sexual diversity on the small screen : mapping LGBT+ characters in Flemish television fiction (2001 – 2016)

Apart from figures on LGBT+ characters in television fiction produced by the American television industry, such as the ‘Where We Are On TV’ – reports by the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), quantitative data on LGBT+ representation television fiction series remains scarce internationally. With this working paper, we aim to address this lack in the context of Flemish television fiction. To meet the challenges posed by a lack of centralized data on Flemish television fiction in general, and LGBT+ characters and storylines specifically, we constructed a three-tiered database. Comprising of all 156 domestic television fiction series between 2001 and 2016, the quantitative presence of LGBT+ characters in these series, and individual traits of the 117 collected LGBT+ characters respectively. In doing so, we provide an overview of Flemish television fiction in general, the distribution in these series of characters who identify as LGBT+ and the storylines that relate to sexual and gender diversity, and offer a tool to identify individual pertinent characters. Flanders presents itself as having a dynamic television fiction industry in the past fifteen years, with genre diversity and a sizeable output. In its general output, LGBT+ characters have had a significant habitual presence since 2001, with a noted correlation to specific ‘lowbrow’ genres, and a noted lack in ‘quality’ series. The collected characters display a severe lack of diversity, with most LGBT+ characters being gay male characters, a significant majority being middle class, and few non- white LGBT+ characters

Earlier visual N1 latencies in expert video-game players: a temporal basis of enhanced visuospatial performance.

Increasing behavioural evidence suggests that expert video game players (VGPs) show enhanced visual attention and visuospatial abilities, but what underlies these enhancements remains unclear. We administered the Poffenberger paradigm with concurrent electroencephalogram (EEG) recording to assess occipital N1 latencies and interhemispheric transfer time (IHTT) in expert VGPs. Participants comprised 15 right-handed male expert VGPs and 16 non-VGP controls matched for age, handedness, IQ and years of education. Expert VGPs began playing before age 10, had a minimum 8 years experience, and maintained playtime of at least 20 hours per week over the last 6 months. Non-VGPs had little-to-no game play experience (maximum 1.5 years). Participants responded to checkerboard stimuli presented to the left and right visual fields while 128-channel EEG was recorded. Expert VGPs responded significantly more quickly than non-VGPs. Expert VGPs also had significantly earlier occipital N1s in direct visual pathways (the hemisphere contralateral to the visual field in which the stimulus was presented). IHTT was calculated by comparing the latencies of occipital N1 components between hemispheres. No significant between-group differences in electrophysiological estimates of IHTT were found. Shorter N1 latencies may enable expert VGPs to discriminate attended visual stimuli significantly earlier than non-VGPs and contribute to faster responding in visual tasks. As successful video-game play requires precise, time pressured, bimanual motor movements in response to complex visual stimuli, which in this sample began during early childhood, these differences may reflect the experience and training involved during the development of video-game expertise, but training studies are needed to test this prediction

Spectators’ aesthetic experiences of sound and movement in dance performance

In this paper we present a study of spectators’ aesthetic experiences of sound and movement in live dance performance. A multidisciplinary team comprising a choreographer, neuroscientists and qualitative researchers investigated the effects of different sound scores on dance spectators. What would be the impact of auditory stimulation on kinesthetic experience and/or aesthetic appreciation of the dance? What would be the effect of removing music altogether, so that spectators watched dance while hearing only the performers’ breathing and footfalls? We investigated audience experience through qualitative research, using post-performance focus groups, while a separately conducted functional brain imaging (fMRI) study measured the synchrony in brain activity across spectators when they watched dance with sound or breathing only. When audiences watched dance accompanied by music the fMRI data revealed evidence of greater intersubject synchronisation in a brain region consistent with complex auditory processing. The audience research found that some spectators derived pleasure from finding convergences between two complex stimuli (dance and music). The removal of music and the resulting audibility of the performers’ breathing had a significant impact on spectators’ aesthetic experience. The fMRI analysis showed increased synchronisation among observers, suggesting greater influence of the body when interpreting the dance stimuli. The audience research found evidence of similar corporeally focused experience. The paper discusses possible connections between the findings of our different approaches, and considers the implications of this study for interdisciplinary research collaborations between arts and sciences