2,590 research outputs found
Predicting In-game Actions from Interviews of NBA Players
Sports competitions are widely researched in computer and social science,
with the goal of understanding how players act under uncertainty. While there
is an abundance of computational work on player metrics prediction based on
past performance, very few attempts to incorporate out-of-game signals have
been made. Specifically, it was previously unclear whether linguistic signals
gathered from players' interviews can add information which does not appear in
performance metrics. To bridge that gap, we define text classification tasks of
predicting deviations from mean in NBA players' in-game actions, which are
associated with strategic choices, player behavior and risk, using their choice
of language prior to the game. We collected a dataset of transcripts from key
NBA players' pre-game interviews and their in-game performance metrics,
totalling in 5,226 interview-metric pairs. We design neural models for players'
action prediction based on increasingly more complex aspects of the language
signals in their open-ended interviews. Our models can make their predictions
based on the textual signal alone, or on a combination with signals from
past-performance metrics. Our text-based models outperform strong baselines
trained on performance metrics only, demonstrating the importance of language
usage for action prediction. Moreover, the models that employ both textual
input and past-performance metrics produced the best results. Finally, as
neural networks are notoriously difficult to interpret, we propose a method for
gaining further insight into what our models have learned. Particularly, we
present an LDA-based analysis, where we interpret model predictions in terms of
correlated topics. We find that our best performing textual model is most
associated with topics that are intuitively related to each prediction task and
that better models yield higher correlation with more informative topics.Comment: First two authors contributed equally. To be published in the
Computational Linguistics journal. Code is available at:
https://github.com/nadavo/moo
In-Game, In-Room, In-World: Reconnecting Video Game Play to the Rest of Kids' Lives
Part of the Volume on the Ecology of Games: Connecting Youth, Games, and Learning The focus of this chapter is on how young people learn to play video games. We have approached this question ethnographically, studying young people playing in their own homes among friends and family. The primary data analyzed for the chapter are videorecordings of play from two perspectives -- in-game and in-room -- which we synchronized into a single side-by-side video record. By looking at in-room actions along with in-game actions, the chapter expands on a separate worlds view that holds video games as a world apart from the rest of kids' lives. Our case material shows instead how game play is quite tangled up with young people's lives, including relations with siblings and parents, patterns of learning at home and school, as well their own imagined futures. Our analysis also documents a remarkable diversity of what we call learning arrangements that young people create among themselves while playing together
Thereʼs no ʻIʼ in ʻEmergency Management Team:ʼ designing and evaluating a serious game for training emergency managers in group decision making skills
Serious games are games that are designed to educate rather
than entertain. The game outlined and evaluated here was
commissioned and designed as a tool to improve the group
decision making skills of people who manage real-world
emergencies such as floods, fires, volcanoes and chemical
spills. The game design exploits research on decision making
groups and applies pedagogically sound games design
principles. An evaluation of the game design was carried out
based on a paper prototype. Eight participants were recruited and assigned to two groups of four participants each. These groups were video recorded while playing the game and the video was analysed in terms of game actions and member participation. Results indicate that the group who behaved in a more appropriate manner for a decision making group were rewarded with more positive feedback from the game state. These findings suggest that the game itself delivers appropriate feedback to players on their collaborative behaviour and is thus fit for the purposes intended in the current project
How players exploit variability and regularity of game actions in female volleyball teams
Variability analysis has been used to understand how competitive constraints shape different behaviours in team sports. In this study, we analysed and compared variability of tactical performance indices in players within complex I at two different competitive levels in volleyball. We also examined whether variability was influenced by set type and period. Eight matches from the 2012 Olympics competition and from the Portuguese national league in the 2014–2015 season were analysed (1496 rallies). Variability of setting conditions, attack zone, attack tempo and block opposition was assessed using Shannon entropy measures. Magnitude-based inferences were used to analyse the practical significance of compared values of selected variables. Results showed differences between elite and national teams for all variables, which were co-adapted to the competitive constraints of set type and set periods. Elite teams exploited system stability in setting conditions and block opposition, but greater unpredictability in zone and tempo of attack. These findings suggest that uncertainty in attacking actions was a key factor that could only be achieved with greater performance stability in other game actions. Data suggested how coaches could help setters develop the capacity to play at faster tempos, diversifying attack zones, especially at critical moments in competition
Factors Used to Make Appropriate Decisions in Youth Categories in Volleyball
Acknowledgments: This article will be part of the Doctoral Thesis titled: “Study of cognitive skills in volleyball
players in Spain and Brazil”, by Manuel Conejero Suárez, at the University of Extremadura. This work was conducted with thanks to the Fernando Valhondo Calaff Foundation for the contribution of predoctoral contracts
to young researchers.The study aim was to examine the associations between the category of play and the
factors athletes use to make appropriate decisions. We observed 6567 game actions performed by 144
athletes. All game actions involved appropriate decisions. The study variables were factors on which
appropriate decision-making is based (for five game actions in volleyball: serve, reception, setting,
attack, block) and game category (Under-14, Under-16, Under-19). Our analysis—using contingency
tables, the Chi-square test, and Cramer’s V—revealed a significant association between the two
variables across the five actions. In the U-14 category, and sometimes in the U-16 category, it was
more frequent than the expected random frequency that appropriate decisions were of low tactical
complexity, focused on the performance of the skill, with an attentional focus on close elements, of
low risk, and with actions of reduced difficulty and precision. For the U-19 category, it was more
frequent than the expected random frequency that decisions were of greater tactical complexity, with
an attentional focus on the opposing team, considering more relevant stimuli, with greater risk, and
with greater time pressure. There is, therefore, a need for coaches to understand the decision-making
skills of athletes from early on, as this will allow them to develop tasks and apply cognitive strategies
that are adapted to the level of the athlete and that can ultimately improve decision-making further.Catedra del Real Madrid-European University
2017/RM02Consejeria de Economia e Infraectructuras de la Junta de Extremadura (Spain) through the European Regional Development fund: A way to make Europe
GR1812
Indirect Match Highlights Detection with Deep Convolutional Neural Networks
Highlights in a sport video are usually referred as actions that stimulate
excitement or attract attention of the audience. A big effort is spent in
designing techniques which find automatically highlights, in order to
automatize the otherwise manual editing process. Most of the state-of-the-art
approaches try to solve the problem by training a classifier using the
information extracted on the tv-like framing of players playing on the game
pitch, learning to detect game actions which are labeled by human observers
according to their perception of highlight. Obviously, this is a long and
expensive work. In this paper, we reverse the paradigm: instead of looking at
the gameplay, inferring what could be exciting for the audience, we directly
analyze the audience behavior, which we assume is triggered by events happening
during the game. We apply deep 3D Convolutional Neural Network (3D-CNN) to
extract visual features from cropped video recordings of the supporters that
are attending the event. Outputs of the crops belonging to the same frame are
then accumulated to produce a value indicating the Highlight Likelihood (HL)
which is then used to discriminate between positive (i.e. when a highlight
occurs) and negative samples (i.e. standard play or time-outs). Experimental
results on a public dataset of ice-hockey matches demonstrate the effectiveness
of our method and promote further research in this new exciting direction.Comment: "Social Signal Processing and Beyond" workshop, in conjunction with
ICIAP 201
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AnswerTree – a hyperplace-based game for collaborative mobile learning
In this paper we present AnswerTree, a collaborative mobile location-based educational game designed to teach 8-12 year olds about trees and wildlife within the University of Nottingham campus. The activity is designed around collecting virtual cards (similar in nature to the popular Top TrumpsTM games) containing graphics and information about notable trees. Each player begins by collecting one card from a game location, but then he or she can only collect further cards by answering questions – whose solutions are obtainable through sharing knowledge with other cardholders. This ostensibly allows each player to become a subject expert at the start of the game, encouraging collaborative interaction for the game to be successfully completed. In this initial paper we will outline the structure and background of this location based game. AnswerTree has been authored within the Hyperplace framework, and is a first implementation of a wider process to develop a flexible, multi-purpose platform for both individual and group location-based mobile learning
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