Raessens 7 Sandra Calvert: Cognitive Effects of Video Games

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Raessens 7Sandra Calvert Cognitive Effects of
Video Games
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Is There Embodiment in WoW?
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WoW Characters
Are characters conceptual or concrete? Why? How?
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Player Interaction in WoW
Conceptual or concrete? Why is this motivating?
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The World of Second Life
Is the world of Second Life conceptual or
concrete? What is wrong with the existing world?
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Why create avatars?
What are avatars and why are they needed? What
characteristics are valued?
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Chapter Overview

• Calvert was one of the first people to
  investigate computer games.
• Her information recapitulates some of what is in
  other chapters.
• She tends to reference some primary sources
  (McLuhan, Piaget) that, while influence, are a
  bit dated.
• I will add information from more recent research.

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Information Processing Theories

• Berlyne (really based on Claude Shannons models
  of uncertainty and structure)
• She ties that to Huston and Wright (who based
  some of their work on Krull and Watt, who based
  their work on Shannon).
• Huston and Wright used analogies to refer to the
  same sort of ideas as Shannons numbers action,
  pacing, visual and auditory special effects,
  character vocalizations.
• What is the brain physiology for this stuff?

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Collecting Sensory Input

• 1. Stimulus in the world
• 2. Sensory organ
• 3. Nerve pathway to the brain
• 4. Area of the brain to receive and process
  neuronal impulses

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Two Modes of Information Processing
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Hemispherical Specialization
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External Brain Anatomy
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Summary of Brain Anatomy

• Conscious cognition is only one of many brain
  processes.
• Human activity requires several simultaneous
  brain processes.
• The brain controls the body through conscious and
  automatic processes.
• Sub-sections of the brain control specific
  processes. (e.g. vision motor behavior)

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Visual Processing
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Summary of Visual Processing

• Vision involves the eyes, optical pathway,
  primary visual areas of the brain, and links to
  other areas.
• Automatic (involuntary) visual processes are fast
  and adapt to the environment.
• Conscious (voluntary) visual processes are slow
  but support communication and task completion.

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Fine Motor Control

• The brain and spinal column control the body.
• Some actions occur without conscious control.
• Some learned actions occur without conscious
  control.
• New and very fine actions may require conscious
  control.
• Conscious control is slow.

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Fine Motor Control
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Brain Processes 1

• The areas of the brain activated depend on the
  perceptual channel of the information, user
  goals, and tasks.
• Some activation is spread across major brain
  areas (e.g. semantic processing in both visual
  and auditory areas).
• Some activation is specific to processes and
  areas (e.g. visual versus auditory areas surface
  versus semantic processing).

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Brain Processes 2

• Mirror Neurons related areas of the brain are
  activated when
• We do a task
• We watch a task done
• We imagine a task
• We read about a task being done. (Tettamanti, et
  al.)
• Example
• When experts watch someone else perform a task,
  the parts of their motor cortex involved in doing
  the task becomes active. (Calvo-Merino, et al.
  Haslinger Erhard Baldisera, et al.)

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Brain Processes 3

• Our brains use different vision areas to handle
  object-based than body-based information (Milner
  and Goodale).
• Our brains use different areas to process
  information about inanimate objects than animate
  ones, based on our inferences about their
  intentionality (Borghi Rizzoletti Arbib
  Wheatly, et al. Weisberg, et al. Chaminade, et
  al. Mar, et al.).
• Our brains process information about objects with
  similar areas (e.g. processing of their
  perceptible features) as from prior contact with
  objects (Borghi).
• Some perceptual and semantic processes are shared
  by vision and hearing and some are distinct
  (Vandeberghe, et al.).
• Language areas can be activated during
  observations of peoples performing tasks and
  using tools (Willems, et al. Kan, et al.).

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Embodiment Theorists (sort of)

• Arthur Glenberg
• Language processing as a clue to mental processes
• Integration of text and graphics
• Barbara Tversky
• Visual and verbal information processing of
  assembly instructions, maps, and machines
• Milner and Goodale
• The brain handles visual information using
  multiple systems the predator-system
  (body-centered orientation) object-centered
  orientation in space

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Glenberg Space derived from text 1

• Spatial environments derived from textual
  descriptions should activate noticing of spatial
  placements.
• Support is inconsistent.
• Verbal description of action orders may affect
  spatial perception, but illustrations may modify
  that.
• Indexical hypothesis
• If we just manipulate abstract symbols, we cant
  be sure what we are talking about.
• The meaning of a situation is the set of actions
  available.
• Sentence meaning requires 1. meaning of words,
  2. Grammatical forms, 3. restrictions of semantic
  relations, 4. symbols must appear in proper
  relations based on experience or grammatical
  class.

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Glenberg Space derived from text 2

• Comprehension 1. noun phrases mapped onto actual
  objects, 2. affordances are derived from the
  indexed objects, 3. affordances are meshed under
  sentence syntax
• Sentences make sense if they form a doable set of
  objects.
• Language is ambiguous because it ignores details
  images show details that make affordances clear.

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Tversky 1

• Bryant, Tversky and Franklin Descriptions from
  participants and viewers perspectives produce
  different speeds of retrieval for positions and
  directions of objects.
• Tversky, Lee and Mainwaring the literature
  suggests that writers should adopt a single
  perspective on scenes, yet communicators
  frequently do switch perspectives.
• Point of view can be seen in several ways (e.g.
  the fountain is to the left of City Hall really
  involves two objects and the viewer of the
  scene) relative (gaze), intrinsic (route) and
  absolute (extrinsic).
• Or, gaze tour (external speakers fixed point of
  view), route tour (changing point of view of
  someone moving through an environment), survey
  perspective (overview from above)
• When environments are well learned, speakers can
  mix perspectives without confusing their
  audience.
• Perspective switching does slow reading times,
  though not all switches produced the same
  differences.

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Tversky 2

• Consistent uses of a route perspective or a
  survey perspective does involve changes of
  descriptions of objects relative to environments,
  but not in the same way. Some switches within
  perspectives are easier to manage than others.
• People seem to switch macro-perspectives when
  changes of scene within a perspective entail
  higher mental costs.
• Principle of salience choose a salient object
  (big).
• Principle of ease choose terms of reference
  (e.g. north-south and east-west) that are easy to
  produce and comprehend.

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Tversky 3

• Tversky and Lee how space structures language
• Language is good for some spatial topics
  (physical spaces) and poor for others (faces)
• Schematization similarity to the extent that
  language and ception (perception and conception)
  schematize things similarly, language will be
  successful at communicating space.
• Peoples perception of space is dependent on that
  people are thinking, how they construe a scene,
  goals at hand, past experience, available
  knowledge structures.
• We perceive objects as distinct and having parts.
  How?
• Figures tend to have characteristics familiar
  from Gestalt psych. Backgrounds tend to be more
  complex and have more features. In language we
  tend to focus on figures, and describe fewer
  details of backgrounds.
• People tend to describe objects in terms of more
  specific categories (apple) than general
  categories (fruit).

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Brain Processes 3

• Our brains use different vision areas to handle
  object-based than body-based information (Milner
  and Goodale).
• Our brains use different areas to process
  information about inanimate objects than animate
  ones, based on our inferences about their
  intentionality (Borghi Rizzoletti Arbib
  Wheatly, et al. Weisberg, et al. Chaminade, et
  al. Mar, et al.).
• Our brains process information about objects with
  similar areas (e.g. processing of their
  perceptible features) as from prior contact with
  objects (Borghi).
• Some perceptual and semantic processes are shared
  by vision and hearing and some are distinct
  (Vandeberghe, et al.).
• Language areas can be activated during
  observations of peoples performing tasks and
  using tools (Willems, et al. Kan, et al.).

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Naming Pix of Tools versus Naming Animals
Naming Animals Naming Tools
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Processing Audio, Visual, Moving Still
Information
Comparative information of material presented in
various modalities
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Calverts view of information processing 1

• Visual attention
• Salient (bright, bold, ) features draw
  involuntary attention.
• Marker features (learned cues) can draw voluntary
  attention after practice.
• Players learn where to pay attention.
• Representation and memory
• Players build schemas of games and apply them
  during play.
• But what are schemas like?

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Calverts view of information processing 2

• A Piagetian model
• Enactive representation similar to embodiment
• Iconic representation concrete visual symbols
• Player spatial skills e.g. game spaces and
  folding paper (similar to work by Heiser and
  Tversky on maps, instructions, etc. also mental
  rotations of objects by Parsons, Krull, others)
• Symbolic representation words
• Could be truly abstract, in the mode of
  traditional linguistics
• Or, embodied language
• Output could be connected to the above
• If users receive enactive and iconic
  representations, they may respond with twitches.
• Symbolic input may lead to symbolic output.