Parental influences on children's eating behaviour and characteristics of successful parent-focussed interventions

Parental reports suggest that difficulties related to child-feeding and children's eating behaviour are extremely common. While 'fussy eating' does not pose an immediate threat to health, over the long-term, consumption of a poor diet can contribute to the development of a range of otherwise preventable diseases. In addition, the stress and anxiety that can surround difficult mealtimes can have a detrimental impact upon both child and parental psychological wellbeing. Since parents have a great influence over what, when, and how much food is offered, feeding difficulties may be preventable by better parental awareness. The aim of this review is to describe how parental factors contribute to the development of common feeding problems, and to discuss the merits of existing interventions aimed at parents/primary caregivers to improve child-feeding and children's eating behaviour. The potential for different technologies to be harnessed in order to deliver interventions in new ways will also be discussed

Gear Acquisition Syndrome

"Gear Acquisition Syndrome, also known as GAS, is commonly understood as the musicians’ unrelenting urge to buy and own instruments and equipment as an anticipated catalyst of creative energy and bringer of happiness. For many musicians, it involves the unavoidable compulsion to spend money one does not have on gear perhaps not even needed. The urge is directed by the belief that acquiring another instrument will make one a better player. This book pioneers research into the complex phenomenon named GAS from a variety of disciplines, including popular music studies and music technology, cultural and leisure studies, consumption research, sociology, psychology and psychiatry. The newly created theoretical framework and empirical studies of online communities and offline music stores allow the study to consider musical, social and personal motives, which influence the way musicians think about and deal with equipment. As is shown, GAS encompasses a variety of practices and psychological processes. In an often life-long endeavour, upgrading the rig is accompanied by musical learning processes in popular music.

Growing up in Technoculture: The ontological and perceptual significance of media in the lives of infants and toddlers

It is well documented that young children understand media differently to older children and adults, yet despite years of debate surrounding the psycho-social impact that media may have on children and youth, very little remains known about how they intercede into infants’ and toddlers’ lived experiences. We cannot assume that media have no significance in the lives of infants and toddlers simply because they may not understand the content. The particularities of very young children’s experiences of, engagement with and understanding of media cannot be expected to necessarily relate solely, or even primarily, to the media content. As an alternative this thesis focuses on the relations between very young children and media in terms of their material and corporeal effects and in this respect how media interfaces, as part of infants’ and toddlers’ environments literally mediate very young children’s possibilities for perception and action within 21st century media saturated environments. By focusing on children from birth to three years of age and their contingent material, physical environments, this thesis presents a chronology of child-technology relations as mediated relations which is necessary to understand the effect of media (conventionally understood) on their lived experience. In adopting an interdisciplinary ecological approach which relies on Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology (1962), Donald W. Winnicott’s psychoanalysis (1957, 1960) and Don Ihde’s post-phenomenology (1995), this thesis revolves around four central concepts: embodiment, transitional objects, holding spaces and both James Gibson’s (1982) and Donald Norman’s (1990) affordances to offer a complex understanding of the significance of media as material objects in the lives of infants and toddlers. In doing so, it argues that media effect infants and toddlers in ways that are specific to the media themselves, the particular time and place in which they emerge and are used, and to babies’ and toddlers’ situatedness and capacity to act within the world

Método de evaluación de la usabilidad de juegos serios para la mejora de las funciones cognitivas de atención y memoria

En los últimos años, el desarrollo y utilización de juegos serios se ha masificado y está siendo utilizado de manera recurrente en varios entornos en los cuales el aprendizaje de un tema específico se junta con aspectos lúdicos. Estos juegos tienen el objetivo de enseñar a la población en diferentes áreas (p. ej. salud, educación, gobierno, negocios) por lo cual tienden a estimular funciones cognitivas tales como memoria, lenguaje, razonamiento, atención, entre otras. Sin embargo, con el aumento del desarrollo también nace la necesidad de presentar juegos de buena calidad que mejoren la experiencia del usuario considerando que los usuarios son diversos (p. ej. niños, adultos mayores, personas con discapacidad). De allí que, en este trabajo de titulación, se propone el método SG-QUAM, que tiene como objetivo, evaluar la calidad de juegos serios y está alineado con en el estándar ISO/IEC 25040. Además, presenta un modelo de calidad en uso y producto basado en la ISO/IEC 25010, con varios atributos para el proceso de evaluación de juegos serios. Adicionalmente, presenta la validez de este método a través del desarrollo de un cuasiexperimento; en el mismo, participaron 17 personas, los resultados dan a conocer que, el método puede ser aplicado en la práctica; asimismo, se presenta un caso de estudio en donde se muestra paso a paso la evaluación de calidad de un juego serio, para de esta manera, evaluar su aceptación tecnológicaIn recent years, the development and use of serious games has become widespread and is being used recurrently in various environments in which the learning of a specific subject is combined with ludic aspects. These games have the objective of teaching the population in different areas (e.g. health, education, government, business) and therefore tend to stimulate cognitive functions such as memory, language, reasoning, attention, among others. However, with the increase of development also comes the need to present good quality games that improve the user experience considering that users are diverse (e.g. children, elderly, people with disabilities). Hence, in this degree work, the SG-QUAM method is proposed, which aims to evaluate the quality of serious games and is aligned with the ISO/IEC 25040 standard. It also presents a quality model in use and product based on ISO/IEC 25010, with several attributes for the serious games evaluation process. Additionally, it presents the validity of this method through the development of a quasi-experiment; 17 people participated in it, the results show that the method can be applied in practice; also, a case study is presented where the quality evaluation of a serious game is shown step by step, in order to evaluate its technological acceptanceIngeniero de SistemasCuenc

Players Unleashed! Modding The Sims and the Culture of Gaming

Siirretty Doriast

How play moves us: Toys, technologies, and mobility in a digital world

The 21st century has been described as the Century of Play. The change in current play is particularly noticeable when looking at technological developments. This thesis deals with the technologization, digitalization, and connectedness of play between 2010–2020. The research explores forms of contemporary play, playthings, and players in a time when digitalization and connectedness have extended to various tools and realms of play—devices, toys, games, apps, and mediated playful environments. At the heart of the research are playthings and technologies conceptualized here as play machines, players using these tools within their communities and contexts, and, due to technological change, play research that increasingly expands into digital and networked cultures. Interactive digital devices have made play ubiquitous, and this includes play activities related to toys, mobile technologies, digital cameras, smartphones, digital toys, social media, and social robotics. The purpose of the thesis is to increase the understanding of what the rapid technologization of play, or what is conceptualized in the thesis as the digital leap of play, means in terms of mobilizing the players physically, cognitively, and emotionally. The thesis opens up prospects for technology-enriched play by presenting a range of empirical studies interested in the mobilization tendencies of current digital devices, toys, and connected media cultures that inform and inspire contemporary play and players of different ages as a form of digital culture that unites players and generations. The assumption is that digital technology connected to modern play experiences can move players in physical, cognitive, and emotional terms. Through six qualitative case studies, the thesis proposes to answer the central question: “How has play moved human players of the Western world in 2010–2020 in terms of physical, cognitive, and emotional mobility/movement?” The sub-question inquires what kinds of digital play are encountered in interactions of people of different ages as part of technologically enhanced leisure, learning, and environments where play is increasingly happening with and through machines and social media platforms by asking: “How are the acts of play realized in each instance of digital play through technology use, and what are the functions of the play for the players in each study?” The thesis seeks to understand the nature and various aspects of the digital transformation of play and balance the prevailing negative assumptions with more positive and optimistic views on the effect of technology-oriented play on the lives of players of different ages. The scholarly contribution of the thesis is to generate new play knowledge: The publications included in the thesis highlight various play patterns and practices among children of preschool age, adults, and seniors who engage in digital play through the use of digital devices or digital toys, either solitarily or socially, as part of intergenerational play. The findings of the thesis illustrate how changes in the ecosystem of play (primarily made possible by developing mobile technology and social media) are linked to the opportunities for players to engage in creative play activities, their documentation, and their social sharing. The connections of evolving digital technology (for example, digital toys, social media networking, and social robotics) to play are diverse; mobile devices with and without screens are used as an extension of play to enrich the experiences and outcomes of play and to empower the players by allowing them to showcase their imagination, creativity, and ability to connect with peers and other player communities. The thesis concludes that contemporary technology embodied in digital devices and Internet-connected playthings as the play machines of 2010–2020 allows for the expansion of play into human and toy interactions that non-technological playthings would not support. Technological development thus expands the historical, digital-material, and narrative dimensions of play. Social, technology-supported play triggers cultural processes that also support intergenerational interaction in play. Consequently, this thesis suggests that 1) digital technology is a driver for societal changes that affect play, 2) digital technology is a mobilizer of players in a physical, cognitive, emotional, and social sense, and 3) digital technology is an enabling, empowering, and enriching resource for contemporary digital play

Players Unleashed ! Modding The Sims and the Culture of Gaming

The author of this hugely informative study explores the question of what happens when players practise and negotiate computer code, various ideologies, and the game itself by modding (modifying a game) in the context of The Sims, the bestselling computer game of all time.Sihvonen examines the technical and material specificities of The Sims mods, as well as their cultural context. Viewed as a manifestation of participatory culture, modding makes PC games ultimately malleable: players reconfigure the game by creating new content, altering the code and changing the behaviours of the game engine. Using a semiotic framework, Sihvonen suggests a signification process that includes representation, interpretation, investigation and experimentation with the game system and rules. From its historical roots in the shoot’em up games, the author bares the fascinating evolution and dynamics of modding, where gender stereotypes, the thrills of hacking and living the Sims’ American Dream intersect with the aesthetic and operational dimensions of modding