Taking video games to task
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As part of a panel on the "Psycho/biological considerations for human interactions within video games" at NCA 2014, Dr Nick Bowman presents a summary of his work on task demand and video games.
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Taking video games to task
- 1. PSYCHO/BIOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS FOR HUMAN INTERACTIONS WITHIN VIDEO GAMES Bowman · Cummings · Grizzard Huskey · Lynch · Matthews · Weber
- 2. PANEL DESCRIPTION The current panel explores the general utility of psycho/biological variables by reviewing relevant theories, hypothetical applications, and contemporary findings surrounding video game research. Often, media research relies heavily on social learning theories. Although useful, the explanatory power of nurture based models is limited. However, some psychological and/or biological perspectives provide a human-centric understanding of effects that accounts for individual differences and processing. Thus, the current panel illustrates how psycho/biological considerations may yield new understanding of existing relationships and illuminate fresh avenues for future work.
- 3. PROCESS > CONTENT Response Stimulus-Response models consider the Content as key to media effects… …but they fail to consider the role of Processing in the media effects equation. Stimulus Organism
- 4. PROCESS > CONTENT Communication is a “process by which we stimulate meaning in the minds of others.” (McCroskey & Richmond, 1996)
- 5. S O R VIDEO games • Narrative worlds Video GAMES • Ludic systems
- 6. Taking video game research to task Bowman Interaction Lab (#ixlab)
- 7. VIDEO GAMES ARE DEMANDING • Video games are inherently unfinished texts requiring players to exert agency • “…in a video game, if somebody is crying it’s likely because the player both caused it and can solve it.” (Oliver et al., in press) What happens next? That’s up to you.
- 8. VIDEO GAMES ARE DEMANDING • Interactivity is Demanding – Cognitively demanding – Behaviorally demanding – Affectively demanding – Socially demanding? LC4MP
- 9. COGNITIVE DEMAND • In video game, performance is based on our ability to control the interactivity (form + content) • One such control is our cognitive abilities (a few) cognitive skills found to correlate w/ game performance: 2D mental rotation 3D mental rotation Moving targeting Fixed targeting Eye-hand coordination Fine motor skill Word completion
- 10. COG + AFFECTIVE DEMAND
- 11. AFFECTIVE DEMAND “Lugo: You’re f*cking kidding, right? That’s white phosphorous! Walker: Yeah I know what it is… Lugo: You’ve seen what the sh*t does! You know we can’t … Adams: ...We might not have a choice Lugo… Lugo: There’s always a choice!”
- 12. AFFECTIVE DEMAND “When players recall meaningful gaming experiences, they reported on how those storylines helped them feel a sense of poignancy and insightfulness as they were able to relate to the story content”
- 14. BEHAVIORAL DEMAND Training n = 110 (63 ♀) n = 57 n = 53 Mission Roaming Walkers relied on their dominant habit, while non-walkers let the game guide them!
- 15. SOCIAL DEMAND • Gaming and sociability – Games as “third spaces of discourse” – Extraverts prefer gaming – Gaming fosters relatedness – Interdependence (from gaming) fosters transactive memory
- 16. SOCIAL DEMAND When playing in front of an audience, easy games became easier… …but hard games didn’t change at all!
- 17. VIDEO GAMES AND DEMANDING • Implications
- 18. FOR MORE INFORMATION http://comm.wvu.edu /fs/research/lab Nick Bowman, Ph.D. [CV] Twitter (@bowmanspartan) Skype (nicholasdbowman) nicholas.bowman@mail.wvu.edu Interaction Lab (#ixlab)
Editor's Notes
- I’d like to share a slide from my media effects courses – one that shows us how we might better understand the way in which media content – the Stimuli – might eventually trigger a human Response. Often times, we study media content because we are deeply concerned about how on-screen content might be expected to impact the frail minds of audiences (such as children, in this example). Such a focus is a noble and a reasonable one, but it doesn’t consider one incredibly important element for the research model: the organism.
- Looking to my communication studies roots, I’m reminded of the very simple definition of the communication process offered by the late James McCroskey – communication, to him and Virginia Richmond (his partner and research associate) was a process of stimulating meaning in the mind of another. That is, a “thing” was communicated whenever meaning was created in the mind of the receiver of a message. Sender characteristics, channel characteristics, and even message characteristics can of course impact this “stimulation” process, but it wasn’t until the receiver of a message “assembled all of the bits of the thing” that we could conclude that a communication had occurred. As media scholars, it is paramount that we understand the same goes for audiences – from passive movie audiences to co-creators of video game violence: the moral panic is not about the content, but about the “nexus of moderating and mediating factors” (to borrow from Joseph Klapper) that lead to media’s potentially profound impact on us all.
- Another incredibly important aspect of video games: They are inherently unfinished texts. That is, games are created in order to be completed by the gamer, not simply consumed by a (passive) audience member. In this process, gamers take control over the narrative and the on-screen action, writing each page of the game with each button press and action.
- Procedure Participants (N = 110, 63 females, M age = 20.5, SD = 1.62, n = 62 upper-level undergraduates) were recruited to participate in a study on playing video games from a large, mid-Atlantic university, and were given course credit for participation. After obtaining informed consent, participants were randomly assigned to play a custom-made version of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (GTA:SA; Rockstar Games, 2004) with either a closed-ended waypoint mission or an open-ended freeplay mission. Prior to gameplay, participants were asked to complete a short demographic profile along with measures of self-reported video game play and physical activity lifestyle habits. They were also given a tutorial with the video game in the form of a custom-created level that allowed them to practice walking, bicycling, and driving controls prior to the experimental game session (these being the three transportation choices available in-game). Following gameplay, participants were asked questions regarding body shame and presence. Experimental sessions lasted between 20 and 30 minutes in total, with 10 to 15 minutes of this devoted to gameplay.