Reducing the effect of network delay on tightly-coupled interaction

Tightly-coupled interaction is shared work in which each person’s actions immediately and continuously influence the actions of others. Tightly-coupled interaction is a hallmark of expert behaviour in face-to-face activity, but becomes extremely difficult to accomplish in distributed groupware. The main cause of this difficulty is network delay – even amounts as small as 100ms – that disrupts people’s ability to synchronize their actions with another person. To reduce the effects of delay on tightly-coupled interaction, I introduce a new technique called Feedback-Feedthrough Synchronization (FFS). FFS causes visual feedback from an action to occur at approximately the same time for both the local and the remote person, preventing one person from getting ahead of the other in the coordinated interaction. I tested the effects of FFS on group performance in several delay conditions, and my study showed that FFS substantially improved users’ performance: accuracy was significantly improved at all levels of delay, and without noticeable increase in perceived effort or frustration. Techniques like FFS that support the requirements of tightly-coupled interaction provide new means for improving the usability of groupware that operates on real-world networks

A behavioural analysis of computer game playing competence, experience and related physiological processes

The current research programme represents a rst step in the psychological analysis of on-line game playing. In the literature review presented in Chapter 1, Network Latency and 'game challenge' were identied as two important variables affecting participants' enjoyment of on-line games. The experiments presented in Chapter 2 define 'game challenge' in terms of levels of derived relational responding, and found that participants were able to consistently respond in accordance with both one and three-node derived relations in the context of a computer game. The presence of Network Latency in a game was found to be detrimental to the game playing experience, but increasing the length of those delays was not. The experiments presented in Chapter 3 defined 'game challenge' in terms of more complex forms of derived relational responding and found that participants were able to consistently respond in accordance with derived 'Same' and 'Opposite'relations in the context of a computer game. As in Chapter 2, the presence of Network Latency in a game was found to be detrimental to the game playing experience, but increasing the length of those delays was not. Participants were more successful at and preferred the simpler levels of the games examined in Chapter 3. Experiments in both Chapters 2 and 3 successfully modeled on-line game playing in terms of derived relational responding. The experiments reported in Chapter 4 were conducted in order to develop novel behavioural and physiological measures of enjoyment in game playing. It was found that participants' preference for games of varying diculty was dependent on their experience with those games. In addition, a novel methodology was developed for analyzing electro-dermal activity, which successfully differentiated games on the basis of the preference shown for them by participants. Finally, Chapter 5 reviewed the relevance of the research findings to the research literature

A behavioural analysis of computer game playing competence, experience and related physiological processes

The current research programme represents a rst step in the psychological analysis of on-line game playing. In the literature review presented in Chapter 1, Network Latency and 'game challenge' were identied as two important variables affecting participants' enjoyment of on-line games. The experiments presented in Chapter 2 define 'game challenge' in terms of levels of derived relational responding, and found that participants were able to consistently respond in accordance with both one and three-node derived relations in the context of a computer game. The presence of Network Latency in a game was found to be detrimental to the game playing experience, but increasing the length of those delays was not. The experiments presented in Chapter 3 defined 'game challenge' in terms of more complex forms of derived relational responding and found that participants were able to consistently respond in accordance with derived 'Same' and 'Opposite'relations in the context of a computer game. As in Chapter 2, the presence of Network Latency in a game was found to be detrimental to the game playing experience, but increasing the length of those delays was not. Participants were more successful at and preferred the simpler levels of the games examined in Chapter 3. Experiments in both Chapters 2 and 3 successfully modeled on-line game playing in terms of derived relational responding. The experiments reported in Chapter 4 were conducted in order to develop novel behavioural and physiological measures of enjoyment in game playing. It was found that participants' preference for games of varying diculty was dependent on their experience with those games. In addition, a novel methodology was developed for analyzing electro-dermal activity, which successfully differentiated games on the basis of the preference shown for them by participants. Finally, Chapter 5 reviewed the relevance of the research findings to the research literature