A Dictionary of Video Game Theory. Preface This dictionary of video game theory is a companion to my book, Half-Real. With the dictionary, I hope to provide a resource for students, researchers, teachers, and game players looking for terminological clarifications and pointers to further reading. A list of works cited can be found at the bottom of the page. The dictionary is not intended to be encyclopedic, but takes its starting point from the issues discussed in the book. The sign indicates an issue that is elaborated in Half-Real.
If there is any term that you would like to see listed in the dictionary, please send me a mail with your request . Jesper Juul, Copenhagen, November 2005. Abstract game An abstract game has rules, but no fictional world. Half-Real, chapter 4. Aesthetic index "The aesthetic index of a puzzle, as it may be called, seems to be inversely proportional to the complexity of its solution or to the obviousness of the pattern, trap, or trick it hides. " Half-Real, chapter 3. Aesthetic goal Half-Real, chapter 2. Choice-supportive bias. In cognitive science, choice-supportive bias is the tendency to retroactively ascribe positive attributes to an option one has selected. It is a cognitive bias. For example, if a person buys a computer from Apple instead of a computer (PC) running Windows, he is likely to ignore or downplay the faults of Apple computers while amplifying those of Windows computers.
Conversely, he is also likely to notice and amplify advantages of Apple computers and not notice or de-emphasize those of Windows computers. General definition[edit] The tendency to remember one’s choices as better than they actually were, where people tend to over attribute positive features to options they chose and negative features to options not chosen.[1] Theory[edit] Experiments in cognitive science and social psychology have revealed a wide variety of biases in areas such as statistical reasoning, social attribution, and memory.[2] Making a selection[edit] The objective of a choice is generally to pick the best option. The Psychology of Video Games. Www.digra.org/dl/db/09287.52575.pdf. Social Games Do Psychology the Best. The following is a guest post by Vancouver's Michael Fergusson, CEO of Ayogo Games. This post is part of an ongoing series – originally posted on Ayogo's blog – that discusses the business side of casual social games. In our last post, we discussed how engaging game design might be able to motivate the frequency and the amount of microtransactions that take place in social games.
As we explained, building game mechanics like compulsion-loops can encourage microtransactions to take place (more than 60% are non-cash transactions), because they keep players motivated. Since we were on this topic, we thought we’d take a closer at look at the game mechanic or feature of collecting (and achievement sharing) in social games and on a few other popular sites. The Psychology of Item-Collecting Whether it’s bookmarking your favourite links, filing old newspaper clippings or racking up points in a game, everybody collects something. Just One More Bite of That Cookie.
Bem: Self Perception Theory. Bem, D. J., Self Perception Theory. In L. Berkowitz (ed). Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, Vol 6, 1972. "Indi viduals come to know their own attitudes, emotions and internal states by inferring them from observations of their own behavior and circumstances in which they occur. Skinner Children learn by "point and name" with even internal stimuli. Schachter & Singer's studies of drug-induced arousal show people can infer emotional sates from their environmental cues. Personal behavior is another clue to inner state (in the context of the situation different attributions may be made).
A person might infer his own beliefs from his behavior if there are no external situational reasons for the behavior (ex Festingers $1/$20 study). Support for Theory In one study subjects are told to speak the truth when an amber light is on and lie when a green light is on. Many of the pain perception experiments also support self-perception theory. Reinterpretation of Cognitive Dissonance. Benign vs Malicious Jealousy | Michael Gugel.
Posted on Sep 05, 2011 by Michael Gugel in Gaming, Psychology Benign vs Malicious Jealousy People expect the world to be fair. If you work hard, you’ll be rewarded for your efforts. If you’re lazy, you won’t get much. You can be jealous of both the hard-worker and lazy luckbox, but it’s quite useful to classify that jealousy into two types: Benign Envy: You feel benign envy when you see someone you admire and you think their possessions / status are well deserved (e.g. a person who accumulated their wealth from a lifetime of hard work).Malicious Envy: You feel malicious envy when you think someone doesn’t deserve their possessions / status (e.g. a lottery winner). Gamers feel benign and malicious envy too. Practical Advice: Don’t make it easy for users to spot the people that spent money in your game and the people that grinded their way to the top.
Www.bunchball.com/sites/default/files/white_papers/bunchball_gamification_at_work.pdf.
Self. Learning to Love Your AP History Assignments: How to Hack the Psychology of Student Motivation. {*style:<b>The War Against Extrinsic Motivation </b>*} In 1999, Alfie Kohn , an education writer described by magazine as “perhaps the country’s most outspoken critic of education’s fixation on grades,” published an article in titled “From Degrading to De-Grading.” It listed many arguments against grades, but its first is the most repeated: As Kohn explained: “One of the most well-researched findings in the field of motivational psychology is that the more people are rewarded for doing something, the more they tend to lose interest.” Kohn is referring to the voluminous research on the difference between and motivation. The former describes motivation that comes from rewards or punishments outside the task, like studying to achieve a good grade. The latter describes motivation for the task itself, like practicing the guitar simply because you enjoy practicing the guitar.
It would be great, of course, if students could find motivation for all academic work, but this is a pipe dream. The Roberts Method: A Professor’s Advice for Falling in Love With Your Major. November 3rd, 2010 · 32 comments Major Doubts “I’m enrolled to study computer science…a choice that was heavily influenced by my parents.” So began a recent e-mail — one of many I receive that echo the same theme.
“I think that if I continue on in computer science I might find a love for it eventually,” the student said optimistically, before adding: “but a few days ago I saw that the university still has some open slots in the psychology program…” The exams in this student’s computer science courses were getting tougher, and she began to wonder if she had missed her true calling in another field, like psychology. I see this all the time: students who question whether or not they chose the right major.
Some students in this situation respond with action, switching concentrations, sometimes multiple times, in a fruitless search for the perfect fit. I got Professor Roberts on the phone and asked him to share his advice for falling in love with your major. The Roberts Method Rule #1: Do Less. Coaching Questions: Encouraging Divergent (“If”) Thinking | Library of Professional Coaching. In coachbook: A Guide to Organizational Coaching Strategies and Practices, Agnes Mura and I present a series of “If” questions that encourage a coaching client to expand their horizon and move in new directions with regard to both their thinking and their actions.
This encouragement of divergent thinking and actions is particularly appropriate and timely if a coaching client is mired in a difficult situation and caught up in feelings of helplessness and hopelessness. I present additional “If” questions below that similarly encourage divergence (1) If you could work in any contemporary organization in the world, which one would it be and why would you want to work there? (2) If you could work for five years alongside anyone in the world who would it be and why would you want to work with them (3) If you could spend the rest of your life doing one thing twelve hours a day what would it be? (7) If you could be any one person in history during the past century, who would it be? Parasocial.
Acknowledgement. Theme 1: Avatars and Empathy in video games | Curated matter. Dissertation_revision.doc. Tom Chatfield: 7 ways games reward the brain. Intrinsic & extrinsic. Classical vs Operant Conditioning. Classical and operant conditioning are two important concepts central to behavioral psychology. While both result in learning, the processes are quite different. In order to understand how each of these behavior modification techniques can be used, it is also essential to understand how classical conditioning and operant conditioning differ from one another.
Let's start by looking at some of the most basic differences. Classical Conditioning First described by Ivan Pavlov, a Russian physiologistInvolves placing a neutral signal before a reflexFocuses on involuntary, automatic behaviors Operant Conditioning First described by B. How Classical Conditioning Works Even if you are not a psychology student, you have probably at least heard about Pavlov's dogs. Classical conditioning involves pairing a previously neutral stimulus (such as the sound of a bell) with an unconditioned stimulus (the taste of food). How Operant Conditioning Works The Differences Between Classical and Operant Conditioning. More on Behavioural Game Design. Variable Ratio Schedule. Conditioning. By I don't know who first drew a comparison between video games and a "Skinner box.
" I heard the term "Virtual Skinner Box" several years ago and have since seen the occasional reference to this term on various games design discussion forums. The term has been heavily used in recent years in relation to links between violence and video games, and in relation to video game addiction. Basic Principles of Operant Conditioning What is Operant Conditioning? The basic principal of operant conditioning is simply that the frequency of a behavior will increase if it is rewarded, and that it will decrease if it is punished. For instance, a hungry rat in a Skinner box will at first act in a manner that is natural to a hungry rat; e.g., running around the cage, squeaking, trying to escape, etc. Another principal of operant conditioning is that once a behavior is learned, the frequency of the reward can be reduced. Concurrent Reinforcement Schedules Continued 1 | 2 | Next>> Copyright Sean Butcher, 2004. Operant conditioning.
BF Skinner Foundation - Pigeon Ping Pong Clip. Rat Basketball at Wofford College. Rats playing basketball (championship game) Psychology of rewards in web design. Categorized in: rewards, fixed rewards, variable rewards, reward schedules, contingencies There are two fundamental types of reward schedules which fundamentally change how rewards are experienced: fixed- and variable reward schedules. Fixed rewards Fixed rewards are given out at a set time, amount, and type and are opposed to variable rewards, which feel more like random rewards.
In computer games, fixed rewards are given out when you complete a level or achieve some other kind of clearly defined goal. Variable rewards are usually given out when killing monsters. In web applications fixed rewards are the most commonly used type of reward as they provide clear goals for users to strive for. At Hacker News, features such as voting on comments, or changing template colors are unlocked as you collect Karma points for your activities. The right reward at the right time and amount What rewards is the system giving at the moment? Positive and negative rewards (and punishments) Variable rewards Notes. Schedules of Reinforcement - Operant Conditioning. In operant conditioning, schedules of reinforcement are an important component of the learning process. When and how often we reinforce a behavior can have a dramatic impact on the strength and rate of the response.
A schedule of reinforcement is basically a rule stating which instances of a behavior will be reinforced. In some case, a behavior might be reinforced every time it occurs. Sometimes, a behavior might not be reinforced at all. Either positive reinforcement or negative reinforcement might be used, depending on the situation. In real-world settings, behaviors are probably not going to be reinforced each and every time they occur. Certain schedules of reinforcement may be more effective in specific situations. 1. In continuous reinforcement, the desired behavior is reinforced every single time it occurs. 2. In partial reinforcement, the response is reinforced only part of the time. There are four schedules of partial reinforcement: Choosing a Schedule References. Skinner's Cubicle. The subject knows that their next action might be rewarded regardless if they just received a reward.
There's always that chance, and that chance as a reinforcer drives their desire for a subsequent action. This type of conditioning is the driving force behind a successful business: pathological pursuit of pleasure through action. Disregarding negative aspect models and dependent on the manner of the reinforcer there are two different forms of Variable Ratio distribution: incremental and whole. For instance this can be a possible intact or whole Variable Ratio Reward: 2.3.3 Interval Schedule TopInterval Schedule is something everyone is familiar with: a pay check, an extra vacation day per month worked, a reward based on time and not necessarily effort. 2.3.4 Variable Interval Schedule TopVariable Interval Schedule is a peculiar vehicle in that it can carry some of the benefits of Variable Ratio without the same intensity of a negative point in Interval Schedule. 3. 4. 5. Hebb.mit.edu/courses/9.29/2004/lectures/matching1.pdf. Dan Ariely: Adaptive Responses.
Humans trained to hunger like Pavlov's dogs - 21 August 2003. Humans can be trained to crave food in response to abstract prompts just like Pavlov's dogs, reveals new research. But whereas Pavlov's dogs were conditioned to drool at the sound of a bell, Jay Gottfried and colleagues at University College London, UK, trained humans to yearn for vanilla ice cream and peanut butter at the sight of fractal-based computer images. Importantly, the team also showed that the human brain can put a "brake" on the powerful desire for certain foods once the appetite has been sated. This system to turn the "delectable into the distasteful" may be crucial in regulating behaviour, they say. Detecting faults in this system might in future help shed light on compulsive eating disorders and substance addictions, speculates Gottfried, a neurologist. "If food cravings in general are being triggered by environmental cues associated with food, [compulsive eaters] could have a disturbance in the way the brain puts a brake on the system," he told New Scientist.
Brain activity. Nostalgia, False Memories, and the ‘Other Half’ | Psychopoeia. Memory is a reconstruction. For a while, the theory on memory was that all of our experiences, perceptions, sensory input, etc. got stored somewhere in our brain as they happened, then sent off to some other part of the brain shortly thereafter for long-term storage. Like an infinite tape recorder or, perhaps more accurately, a movie of your life, a lifetime’s worth of memories are just sitting there, somewhere in the deep dark recesses of your hippocampus, available for remembering given the right circumstances. And that’s just not how it really works. The classic example used to disprove the “tape recorder” theory of memory involves, believe it or not, the implantation of false memories. Now, false memories and therapy have something of a tempestuous past. . - wait, did somebody say childhood satanic ritual abuse ?
Yes, there’s been a bad history. Yes, it’s more accurate to think of memory as being constantly reconstructed. I think things always seem way better when you remember them.
Game Design, Psychology, Flow, and Mastery - Playing to Win Inde. Flow. Welcome to Flow in Games. The Psychology of Video Games. Your Brain on Games: The Hidden Psychology of Gaming | DETSARIDIS, FERGUSSON, LAZZARO, TERCEK. Jesse Schell: Visions of the Gamepocalypse. Habituation - (getting used to something)
Features - Persuasive Games: Familiarity, Habituation, and Catchiness. Schema - What Is a Schema. Behaviorism Terms and Concepts.