The reality paradox: Authenticity, fidelity, and the real in Battlefield 4

This article examines how the ‘Battlefield’ (EA Games) series of games generates authenticity in its soundtrack both through a meticulous approach to modelling the physical world and through the appropriation of audio characteristics from our, typically mediated, experience of conflict. It goes on to examine how we might reconcile such ‘authentic’ audio with the more ludic features of the soundtrack, required to support gameplay, that are typically presented as inauthentic. The absence of these sounds during narrative-based sequences and the acceptance of them without negative impact on immersion during gameplay implies that these inauthentic sounds appear not to disrupt the immersive qualities of the ‘authentic’ but only when clearly positioned as ego-ludic (heard only by the player, non-spatialized and synthetic in quality) and only within the context of challenge-based sequences of the game

The adaptive value of camouflage and colour change in a polymorphic prawn

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Springer Nature via the DOI in this record.Camouflage has been a textbook example of natural selection and adaptation since the time of the earliest evolutionists. However, aside from correlational evidence and studies using artificial dummy prey, experiments directly showing that better camouflaged prey to predator vision are at reduced risk of attack are lacking. Here, we show that the level of camouflage achieved through colour adjustments towards the appearance of seaweed habitats is adaptive in reducing predation pressure in the prawn Hippolyte obliquimanus. Digital image analysis and visual modelling of a fish predator (seahorse) predicted that brown prawns would be imperfectly concealed against both brown and red seaweed respectively, whereas pink prawns should be well camouflaged only in red weed. Predation trials with captive seahorses (Hippocampus reidi), coupled with high-speed video analyses, closely matched model predictions: predation rates were similar for brown prawns between seaweed types, but pink individuals were attacked significantly less on red than brown weed. Our work provides some of the clearest direct evidence to date that colour polymorphism and colour change provides a clear adaptive advantage for camouflage, and also highlights how this can be asymmetric across morphs and habitats (i.e. dependent on the specific background-morph combination).This study was funded by the Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) which granted a PhD fellowship to RCD (#2012/17003-0, #2015/04484-8), and a visiting professor grant to MS (#2015/22258-5)

The inherent conflicts of musical interactivity in video games

Within narrative-based video games the integration of storytelling, where experiences are necessarily directed, and of gameplay, where the player has a degree of autonomy, continues to be one of the most significant challenges that developers face. In order to mitigate this potential dichotomy a common approach is to rely upon cutscenes to progress the narrative. Within these passive episodes where interaction is not possible, or within other episodes of constrained outcome where the temporality of the episode is fixed, it is possible to score a game in exactly the same way as one might score a film or television episode. It could therefore be argued that the music in these sections of a video game is the least idiomatic of the medium. This chapter will instead focus on active gameplay episodes, and interactive music, where the unique challenges lie. When music accompanies active gameplay a number of conflicts, tensions and paradoxes arise. In this chapter these will be articulated and interrogated through three key questions: In the following discussion there are few certainties, and many more questions. The intention is to highlight the issues, to provoke discussion and to forewarn

Different ontogenetic trajectories of body colour, pattern, and crypsis in two sympatric intertidal crab species

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Oxford University Press via the DOI in this recordAnimals frequently exhibit high appearance variation, especially in heterogeneous habitats where individuals may be differentially concealed against backgrounds. While background matching is a common anti-predator strategy, gaps exist in understanding within- and among-species variation. Specifically, the drivers of appearance changes associated with habitat use and occurring through ontogeny are poorly understood. Using image analysis, we tested how individual appearance and camouflage in two intertidal crab species – the mud crab Panopeus americanus and the mottled crab Pachygrapsus transversus – relates to ontogeny and habitat use. We predicted that both species would change appearance with ontogeny, but resident mud crabs would exhibit higher background similarity than generalist mottled crabs. Both species showed ontogenetic changes, but while mud crabs become darker, mottled crabs turn greener. Small mud crabs were highly variable in colour and pattern, likely stemming from utilising camouflage in heterogeneous habitats during the most vulnerable life-stage. Being habitat specialists, mud crabs concealed better against all backgrounds than mottled crabs. Mottled crabs are motile and generalist, occupying macroalgal-covered rocks when adults, which explain why they are greener and why matches to specific habitats are less valuable. Differential habitat use in crabs can be associated with different coloration and camouflage strategies to avoid predation.Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológic

Are You Seeing What I'm Seeing? An Eye-Tracking Evaluation of Dynamic Scenes

Based on the data from the 2006/7 multimedia exhibition, RePossessed, during which over 400 members of the public watched scenes from Hitchcock's Vertigo, this paper describes the basis of an approach to the use of eye-tracking techniques, visualisations, and metrics to measure the influence of directorial techniques on film viewers' experience. Used as part of a repertoire of tools, the visualisation and quantitative evaluation of eye movement data can provide an intuitive and accessible approach to the evaluation of moving image based media and allow the conventions, assumptions and intuitive practices of film-making to be examined

Advances in GPCR Modeling Evaluated by the GPCR Dock 2013 Assessment: Meeting New Challenges

Despite tremendous successes of GPCR crystallography, the receptors with available structures represent only a small fraction of human GPCRs. An important role of the modeling community is to maximize structural insights for the remaining receptors and complexes. The community-wide GPCR Dock assessment was established to stimulate and monitor the progress in molecular modeling and ligand docking for GPCRs. The four targets in the present third assessment round presented new and diverse challenges for modelers, including prediction of allosteric ligand interaction and activation states in 5-hydroxytryptamine receptors 1B and 2B, and modeling by extremely distant homology for smoothened receptor. Forty-four modeling groups participated in the assessment. State-of-the-art modeling approaches achieved close-to-experimental accuracy for small rigid orthosteric ligands and models built by close homology, and they correctly predicted protein fold for distant homology targets. Predictions of long loops and GPCR activation states remain unsolved problems

A framework for power analysis using a structural equation modelling procedure

BACKGROUND: This paper demonstrates how structural equation modelling (SEM) can be used as a tool to aid in carrying out power analyses. For many complex multivariate designs that are increasingly being employed, power analyses can be difficult to carry out, because the software available lacks sufficient flexibility. Satorra and Saris developed a method for estimating the power of the likelihood ratio test for structural equation models. Whilst the Satorra and Saris approach is familiar to researchers who use the structural equation modelling approach, it is less well known amongst other researchers. The SEM approach can be equivalent to other multivariate statistical tests, and therefore the Satorra and Saris approach to power analysis can be used. METHODS: The covariance matrix, along with a vector of means, relating to the alternative hypothesis is generated. This represents the hypothesised population effects. A model (representing the null hypothesis) is then tested in a structural equation model, using the population parameters as input. An analysis based on the chi-square of this model can provide estimates of the sample size required for different levels of power to reject the null hypothesis. CONCLUSIONS: The SEM based power analysis approach may prove useful for researchers designing research in the health and medical spheres

The effect of intervertebral cartilage on neutral posture and range of motion in the necks of sauropod dinosaurs

The necks of sauropod dinosaurs were a key factor in their evolution. The habitual posture and range of motion of these necks has been controversial, and computer-aided studies have argued for an obligatory sub-horizontal pose. However, such studies are compromised by their failure to take into account the important role of intervertebral cartilage. This cartilage takes very different forms in different animals. Mammals and crocodilians have intervertebral discs, while birds have synovial joints in their necks. The form and thickness of cartilage varies significantly even among closely related taxa. We cannot yet tell whether the neck joints of sauropods more closely resembled those of birds or mammals. Inspection of CT scans showed cartilage:bone ratios of 4.5% for Sauroposeidon and about 20% and 15% for two juvenile Apatosaurus individuals. In extant animals, this ratio varied from 2.59% for the rhea to 24% for a juvenile giraffe. It is not yet possible to disentangle ontogenetic and taxonomic signals, but mammal cartilage is generally three times as thick as that of birds. Our most detailed work, on a turkey, yielded a cartilage:bone ratio of 4.56%. Articular cartilage also added 11% to the length of the turkey's zygapophyseal facets. Simple image manipulation suggests that incorporating 4.56% of neck cartilage into an intervertebral joint of a turkey raises neutral posture by 15°. If this were also true of sauropods, the true neutral pose of the neck would be much higher than has been depicted. An additional 11% of zygapophyseal facet length translates to 11% more range of motion at each joint. More precise quantitative results must await detailed modelling. In summary, including cartilage in our models of sauropod necks shows that they were longer, more elevated and more flexible than previously recognised

Psychological and Psychophysiological Effects of Recuperative Music Postexercise

Purpose: Few studies have examined the psychological and psychophysiological effects of recuperative music after exhaustive exercise. The main purpose of the present study was to examine the effects of two music conditions compared with a no-music control on psychological and psychophysiological recovery processes after exercise. Methods: A randomized, fully counterbalanced, crossover design was used. Core affect, salivary cortisol, heart rate, and blood pressure were measured before exhaustive exercise, immediately after, and in 10-, 20-, and 30-min intervals during passive recovery (21 women and 21 men; 20.9 T 1.7 yr) over three separate trials (slow, sedative music; fast, stimulative music; no-music control). The exercise task entailed incremental cycle ergometry performed at 75 rpm with an increase in intensity of 22.5 WIminj1 at the end of each minute until exhaustion. Data were analyzed using mixed-model 3 (condition) 4 (time) 2 (gender) MANOVA/ANCOVA. Results: The largest decline in affective arousal between active and passive recovery phases was evident in the slow, sedative condition (Gp 2 = 0.50). Women had a more pronounced reduction in arousal than did men in the slow, sedative music condition. Heart rate measures showed that fast, stimulative music inhibited the return of heart rate toward resting levels (Gp 2 = 0.06). Similarly, salivary cortisol levels tended to be lower in response to slow, sedative music (Gp 2 = 0.11). There was a main effect of condition for affective valence indicating that the slow, sedative condition elicited more positive affective responses compared with the control and fast, stimulative conditions (Gp 2 = 0.12). Conclusions: The present findings support the notion that slow, sedative music can expedite the recovery process immediately after strenuous exercise. Key Words: AFFECT, CORTISOL, ENTRAINMENT, RECOVERY, PSYCHOBIOLOGY, SEDATIO