Towards a Trait Model of Video Game Preferences

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction on 2018-04-19, available online: https://doi.org/10.1080/10447318.2018.1461765Typologies for understanding players’ preferences toward different gameplay styles have gained popularity in research. However, attempts to model players’ preferences are based on type models instead of trait models, contrary to the latest personality research. One such model, BrainHex, was designed as an interim model to enable investigations toward a definitive player trait model. However, it lacks empirical validation in support of its psychometric properties. The present work analyzed a dataset with over 50,000 respondents to devise a player traits model based off the BrainHex scale. Results indicate three player traits: action, esthetic, and goal orientation. Furthermore, we analyzed the games listed by participants as examples of what they enjoy, to understand which factors influence player preferences. Results illustrate that the emergent player traits and participants’ genders and attitudes toward story can partially explain player preferences toward certain games. Finally, we present the implications toward a definitive player traits model.NSERC || RGPIN-418622-2012, Discovery, SWaGUR CREATE SSHRC || 895-2011-1014, IMMERSe CFI || 35819 Mitacs || IT07255 CNPq, Brasil NSERC Bantin

Smiling is a Costly Signal of Cooperation Opportunities: Experimental Evidence from a Trust Game

We test the hypothesis that "genuine" or "convincing" smiling is a costly signal that has evolved to induce cooperation in situations requiring mutual trust. Potential trustees in a trust game made video clips for viewing by potential trusters before the latter decided whether to send them money. Ratings of the genuineness of smiles vary across clips; it is difficult to make convincing smiles to order. We argue that smiling convincingly is costly, because smiles from trustees playing for higher stakes are rated as significantly more convincing, so that rewards appear to induce effort. We show that it induces cooperation: smiles rated as more convincing strongly predict judgments about the trustworthiness of trustees, and willingness to send them money. Finally, we show that it is a honest signal: those smiling convincingly return more money on average to senders. Convincing smiles are to some extent a signal of the intrinsic character of trustees: less honest individuals find smiling convincingly more difficult. They are also informative about the greater amounts that trustees playing for higher stakes have available to share: it is harder to smile convincingly if you have less to offer.

Unveiling the multimedia unconscious: implicit cognitive processes and multimedia content analysis

One of the main findings of cognitive sciences is that automatic processes of which we are unaware shape, to a significant extent, our perception of the environment. The phenomenon applies not only to the real world, but also to multimedia data we consume every day. Whenever we look at pictures, watch a video or listen to audio recordings, our conscious attention efforts focus on the observable content, but our cognition spontaneously perceives intentions, beliefs, values, attitudes and other constructs that, while being outside of our conscious awareness, still shape our reactions and behavior. So far, multimedia technologies have neglected such a phenomenon to a large extent. This paper argues that taking into account cognitive effects is possible and it can also improve multimedia approaches. As a supporting proof-of-concept, the paper shows not only that there are visual patterns correlated with the personality traits of 300 Flickr users to a statistically significant extent, but also that the personality traits (both self-assessed and attributed by others) of those users can be inferred from the images these latter post as "favourite"

Racial Conflict and the Malignancy of Identity

This paper demonstrates how our sense of identity can emerge out of mere markers of social distinction that may have no innate significance, but, nevertheless, spread to various aspects of our lives and be the root of conflict. The basis of such conflicts could arise from the use of race to form conditional judgments about people's behavior. Moreover, there are contexts where racial conflict is inevitable even though, if individuals had common knowledge of one another's preferences, there would be no conflict. It is argued that this kind of conflict, where many individuals have no innate aggressive preference, is widespread and understanding the process that gives rise to such conflict is the key to crafting effective policy that contains it.

Negotiating over mobile phones: calling or being called can make the difference

Mobile phones pervade our everyday life like no other technology, but the effects they have on one-to-one conversations are still relatively unknown. This paper focuses on how mobile phones influence negotiations, i.e., on discussions where two parties try to reach an agreement starting from opposing preferences. The experiments involve 60 pairs of unacquainted individuals (120 subjects). They must make a “yes” or “no” decision on whether several objects increase the chances of survival in a polar environment or not. When the participants disagree about a given object (one says “yes” and the other says “no”), they must try to convince one another and reach a common decision. Since the subjects discuss via phone, one of them (selected randomly) calls while the other is called. The results show that the caller convinces the receiver in 70 % of the cases ( p value = 0.005 according to a two-tailed binomial test). Gender, age, personality and conflict handling style, measured during the experiment, fail in explaining such a persuasiveness difference. Calling or being called appears to be the most important factor behind the observed result

Games as affective medium, A theoretical framework for studying emotions in the context of digital games

This thesis explores emotion processes in the context of digital games and game research and proposes a framework for studying emotions and emotional individuality in the context of digital games. The focus is on the positive effects of digital games on subjective emotional experiences and well-being, and especially the differences in affective styles since individual differences in emotionality may influence the effects of playing digital games. This thesis is formed from three parts: a literature review, a framework I have built based on the literat­ure, and a pilot study that explores the relation of the suggested two aspects of the framework. The literat­ure review gives an overview of the current knowledge of the emotion processes as large scale neural net­works that are partly developed evolutively and partly through learning throughout life. The emotion pro­cesses are claimed to have three layers: core affects, conditionally learnt emotions, and complex emotional experiences. The positive core affect processes SEEKING and PLAY are claimed to be related to curiosity, positive anticipation, intrinsic motivation and playfulness, which are further linked to increased positive emotionality and may influence the individual's well-being. Interestingly, digital games may elicit the foundations of these positive emotional experiences. I propose that each game has emotion-eliciting elements and that the gameplay influences the player's emotion processes which show as changes in the emotion components and result in different affective states, which may include subjective emotional experiences. The proposed framework introduces four dimensions on how games affect the player: 1) con­text, embodied in the game elements; 2) the player’s affective style; 3) the player’s emotional state; 4) outside of the game context. Aspects of the first two dimensions of the framework, suggested three emotional game elements and two affective traits were tested in a pilot study. The methods include textual analysis, and the pilot study was conducted with self-reports using a questionnaire that gathered data about the participants' emotional game element preferences and affective traits. The questionnaire included a modified version of the short affective neuroscientific personality scale (ANPS-S) questionnaire to gather the affective trait scores. I focused on Seeking and Play ANPS-S scores and analyzed all findings in a person-centred method. The two proposed Seeking game elements divided the participants into six clusters based on their preferences. Interestingly, all participants had high or very high ANPS-S Seeking score, and all parti­cipants reported preferences for one or more Seeking related game element. This finding may indicate that the proposed two elements may be associated with the Seeking trait, however, this finding may also indic­ate that individuals who play digital games have a high Seeking trait or curiosity in general. All participants reported average or high ANPS-S Play score, however, the results varied on the preference for the Playful­ness element, which may indicate the ANPS-S Play questions measure more social patterns than gameplay. Future studies could explore the differences between affective styles and game element preferences when aiming to understand the effects of digital games. Furthermore, there should be more studies comparing players to non-players and their affective styles and effects of digital games.Tässä opinnäytetyössä tarkastellaan emootioprosesseja digitaalisten pelien ja pelitutkimuksen kontekstissa, ja ehdotetaan viitekehystä emootioiden, emotionaalisen yksilöllisyyden ja pelien vaikutusten tutkimiseen. Tutkimuksen fokuksena ovat digitaalisten pelien positiiviset vaikutukset emootioihin, mielialaan ja hyvinvointiin, sekä yksilölliset erot affektityyleissä, koska yksilöllinen emotionaalisuus voi vaikuttaa digitaalisten pelien aiheuttamiin seurauksiin. Tämä opinnäytetyö muodostuu kolmesta osasta: kirjallisuuskatsauksesta, viitekehyksestä jonka olen muodostanut kirjallisuuden pohjalta, ja pilottitutkimuksesta joka tutkii kahden viitekehyksessä ehdotetun ulottuvuuden suhdetta. Kirjallisuuskatsauksessa esitetään yleiskuva nykytiedosta emootiotutkimuksen alueella emootioista laajoina neuraalisten verkostojen prosesseina, jotka ovat kehittyneet sekä evolutiivisesti että muotoutuvat oppimisen ja aivojen plastisuuden seurauksena koko elämän ajan. Emootioprosesseilla väitetään olevan kolme eri tasoa: primäärit perusaffektit, konditionaalisesti opitut emootiot ja kompleksiset emotionaaliset kokemukset. Positiivisten perusaffektien SEEKING ja PLAY väitetään olevan kytköksissä lisääntyneeseen positiiviseen emotionaalisuuteen ja niillä voi olla vaikutuksia yksilön hyvinvointiin. Digitaaliset pelit voivat aktivoida näiden positiivisten emootiokokemusten perustuksia, mutta tämä alue vaatii lisää tutkimuksia. Ehdotan, että jokaisella digitaalisella pelillä on emootioita herättäviä elementtejä, ja että pelaaminen vaikuttaa pelaajan emootioprosesseihin, mikä näkyy muutoksina emootiokomponenteissa. Nämä muutokset aiheuttavat erilaisia affektiivisia tiloja ja voivat ilmetä myös subjektiivisina emotionaalisina kokemuksina. Ehdotettu viitekehys esittelee pelien neljä ulottuvuutta jotka vaikuttavat pelaajaan: 1) konteksti, joka ilmenee sisällössä; 2) pelaajan affektiivinen tyyli; 3) pelaajan emotionaalinen tila; ja 4) pelin ulkopuolinen konteksti. Viitekehyksen kahden ensimmäisen dimension osia tutkitaan opinnäytetyön pilottitutkimuksessa. Metodologia sisältää tekstianalyysin ja itseraportointiin pohjautuvan kyselyn, jolla kerättiin dataa osallistujien pelielementtimieltymyksistä ja affektityyleistä. Kyselyssä oli mukautettu ANPS-S -osio, jonka tarkoituksena oli kerätä tietoa osallistujien affektiivisista tyyleistä. Analyysi keskittyi vain Seeking- ja Play-ominaisuuksiin, ja kaikki tulokset analysoitiin yksilökeskeisesti. Kaksi esitettyä Seeking pelielementtiä jakoi osallistujat kuuteen eri ryhmään. Kaikilla osallistujilla oli korkeat tai hyvin korkeat ANPS-S Seeking -tulokset, ja lisäksi kaikki suosivat yhtä tai useampaa Seeking-pelielementtiä. Tämä voi tarkoittaa että ehdotetut emotionaaliset pelielementit voidaan mahdollisesti yhdistää yksilön Seeking -ominaisuuteen, tai että uteliaisuus on yleinen piirre pelaavilla yksilöillä. Kaikki osallistujat raportoivat keskinkertaista korkeampia ANPS-S Play -tuloksia, mutta yksilöiden tulokset vaihtelivat suuresti Playfulness-elementtiä kohtaan. Tämä löydös voi tarkoittaa, että ANPS-S Play kartoittaa enemmän sosiaalista pelaamista tai leikkiä kuin pelaamista. Tulevat tutkimukset voisivat kartoittaa digitaalisten pelien vaikutuksia yksityiskohtaisemmin vertaamalla affektityyppejä ja suosittuja pelielementtejä, sekä yksilöllisiä eroja pelaamisen vaikutuksista emootiokomponentteihin. Lisäksi tarvitaan lisää tutkimusta, joka vertaa aktiivisesti pelaavia ja ei-pelaajia keskenään, sekä heidän affektityyppejään ja pelien vaikutuksia

What characteristics of the gamers' profile should be taken into account in player-centred game design?

In this paper, we introduce the theory of trait Emotional Intelligence ('trait EI') as a personality theory that could assist in exemplifying the gamers' profile and contribute to the design of player-center game experiences. Data from two studies (a game-specific and a game-general one) led to a number of player-centered playability principles that could inform the design of adaptable games and games targeting specific gaming audiences. The gamers' emotional characteristics were found to be of prominent importance to the design of good games

ATITIUDES TOW ARDS COMPUTER GAMES FOR LEARNING AND Pl.A YER ARCHETYPES: AN EXPLORATION OF MEASURES ON PREINTERVENTION PLAYER CHARACTERISTICS FOR SERIOUS GAME-BASED INTERVENTIONS

Serious game-based interventions offer promising health outcome results with the aid of pre-intervention player tailoring and the development of measurements that evaluate pre-intervention player characteristics and subgroups. Video gaming measures can potentially provide helpful tailoring information that discerns individual video gaming preferences which could influence their overall user experience. It is critical that measures that target adolescent video gaming be psychometrically validated. There is a gap in the literature with psychometrically validated measures evaluating adolescent attitudes towards computer games for learning and gaming archetypes. Therefore the aims of this dissertation were to 1) evaluate the psychometric properties (i.e., reliability and validity) of the Attitudes Towards Computer Games for Learning (ATCGFL) adapted from Askar et al.’s Attitudes towards computer-assisted learning (CAL) scale that assessed attitudes towards computer games for learning among a sample of adolescents, and 2) explore and identify the latent class structure (LCA) of the BrainHex measure among the same sample of adolescents. Secondary data analysis of a data set extricated from the “It’s Your Game-Family” study was conducted. Participants were youth aged 11-14 years in Houston, TX, who answered self-guided questionnaires in their home. Exploratory data analysis of the ATCGFL scale was performed. Reliability testing through analyzing internal consistency and test-retest reliability were also performed with the ATCGFL scale. Then, exploratory data analysis of the BrainHex measure was performed through latent class analysis. Results from the exploratory analysis of the ATCGFL scale suggest the adapted attitudes scale supports a 3-factor solution (Satisfaction, Motivation, and Cognition). The 3-factor solution indicates the scale has a mixed quality level of internal consistency because Factor 1 and Factor 2 we have an acceptable level of internal consistency, but Factor 3 has a questionable level of internal consistency. The test-retest reliability of the ATCGFL scale was low, but significant. Last, the latent class analysis of the BrainHex measure results revealed a 3-class model (low probability of gaming element likability gamers, moderate probability of gaming element likability gamers, and high probability of gaming element likability gamers). Overall, these findings suggest the Attitudes Towards Computer Games for Learning scale and BrainHex measure both possess promising utility as measures in tandem with serious game-based interventions, and that further research to conduct confirmatory analysis with both measures is merited