Presentation at IVA 2015 in Delft. I explain how we made a serious game for training social skills of police students and evaluated this at the Dutch Police Academy.

1. IMPROVING SOCIAL AWARENESS
THROUGH THOUGHT BUBBLES AND
FLASHBACKS OF VIRTUAL CHARACTERS
Jeroen Linssen + Mariët Theune +
Thomas de Groot + Dirk Heylen

2. MOTIVATION
GOAL
Feedback in a
serious game for
social skills training
IMPROVING SOCIAL AWARENESS THROUGH THOUGHT BUBBLES AND FLASHBACKS - IVA 2015 2/11
LEARNING GOALS DOMAIN

3. LOITER
PLAYER ACTION
CHARACTER ACTION
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4. META-TECHNIQUES
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LARP META-INFORMATION
THOUGHT BUBBLE FLASHBACK

5. THOUGHT BUBBLES
IMPROVING SOCIAL AWARENESS THROUGH THOUGHT BUBBLES AND FLASHBACKS - IVA 2015 5/11
CONTENT
Player’s attitude
TIMING
Every other action

6. THOUGHT BUBBLES
12 9
Relations
between
concepts
Situational
judgement
test
X ?
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EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN MEASURES

7. THOUGHT BUBBLES
IMPROVING SOCIAL AWARENESS THROUGH THOUGHT BUBBLES AND FLASHBACKS - IVA 2015 7/11
CONCEPT RELATIONS
Slight increase in
coherence
SJT
No significant
difference
COMMENTS
Possibly useful tool
Interaction too short
Too easy

8. FLASHBACKS
IMPROVING SOCIAL AWARENESS THROUGH THOUGHT BUBBLES AND FLASHBACKS - IVA 2015 8/11
CONTENT
Player’s average attitude
TIMING
At start of 2nd + 3rd scenario
GAME IMPROVEMENTS
Play length + char. personality

9. 1315
FLASHBACKS
IMPROVING SOCIAL AWARENESS THROUGH THOUGHT BUBBLES AND FLASHBACKS - IVA 2015 9/11
EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN MEASURES
Situational
judgement
test
(improved)
X ?

10. FLASHBACKS
IMPROVING SOCIAL AWARENESS THROUGH THOUGHT BUBBLES AND FLASHBACKS - IVA 2015 10/11
SJT
No significant
learning gains
COMMENTS
Suitable for less
experienced students
Still too easy

11. WRAP UP
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GOAL
Improve learning
through feedback on
character’s cognitive
attitude
RESULTS
Hypotheses not
supported
Positive comments
FUTURE WORK
Choice of action
Evaluating with less
experienced students
JMLIN.EU/PHD j.m.linssen@utwente.nl

12. REFERENCES
Cordar, A., Borish, M., Foster, A., Lok, B.: Building virtual humans with back
stories: training interpersonal communication skills in medical students. In:
Bickmore, T., Marsella, S., Sidner, C. (eds.) IVA 2014. LNCS, vol. 8637, pp.
144–153. Springer, Heidelberg (2014)
Kim, J.M., Hill Jr., R.W., Durlach, P.J., Lane, H.C., Forbell, E., Core, M.,
Marsella, S., Pynadath, D., Hart, J.: BiLAT: a game-based environment for
practicing negotiation in a cultural context. Int. J. Artif. Intell. Educ.19, 289–
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Laffey, J., Schmidt, M., Galyen, K., Stichter, J.: Smart 3D collaborative
virtual learning environments: a preliminary framework. J. Ambient Intell.
4(1), 49–66 (2012)
Linssen, J.M., Theune, M.: Meta-techniques for a social awareness learning
game. In: Proceedings of ECGBL 2014, pp. 697–704 (2014)
Moore, D., McGrath, P., Powell, N.J.: Collaborative virtual environment
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Rouckhout, D., Schacht, R.: Ontwikkeling van een Nederlandstalig
interpersoonlijk circumplex. Diagnostiekwijzer3, 96–118 (2000)
Traum, D.R., Swartout, W.R., Marsella, S.C., Gratch, J.: Fight, flight, or
negotiate: believable strategies for conversing under crisis. In:
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(2005)
Wouters, P., van Oostendorp, H.: A meta-analytic review of the role of
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Dev.59(6), 741–763 (2011)
IMPROVING SOCIAL AWARENESS THROUGH THOUGHT BUBBLES AND FLASHBACKS - IVA 2015 12

13. RELATED WORK
Bruijnes, M., Linssen, J.M., op den Akker, H.J.A., Theune, M., Wapperom, S., Broekema, C., &
Heylen, D.K.J. (2015). Social Behaviour in Police Interviews: Relating Data to Theories. In
Conflict and Multimodal Communication. Computational Social Sciences. Springer Verlag,
London, pp. 317-347.
Linssen, J.M., & Theune, M. (2014). Meta-techniques for a Social Awareness Learning Game. In
Proceedings of the 8th European Conference on Games Based Learning (ECGBL 2014).
Linssen, J.M., de Groot, T.F., Theune, M., & Bruijnes, M. (2014). Beyond Simulations: Serious
Games for Training Interpersonal Skills in Law Enforcement. In Proceedings of the 10th annual
meeting of the European Social Simulation Association (ESSA 2014).
Linssen, J.M., Theune, M., & Heylen, D.K.J. (2014). Taking Things at Face Value: How Stance
Informs Politeness of Virtual Agents. In Proceedings of the Computers as Social Actors
Workshop (CASA 2013). pp. 71-82.
IMPROVING SOCIAL AWARENESS THROUGH THOUGHT BUBBLES AND FLASHBACKS - IVA 2015 13

14. USED MATERIAL
“Untitled” by Tuomas Puikkonen,
https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkismus/5027781726/, cropped, CC BY 2.0
[https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/]
IMPROVING SOCIAL AWARENESS THROUGH THOUGHT BUBBLES AND FLASHBACKS - IVA 2015 14