Games

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The Prevalence of Problematic Video Gamers in the Netherlands

About video game addiction. From previous posts you will probably already know that Dr Shock is somewhat skeptical about video game addiction. He’s also somewhat biased because he enjoys video gaming. The definition used in a recent article published on the prevalence of problematic video gamers in the Netherlands does come close to my opinion.

Although there are people who experience considerable problems related to their gaming behavior, there is no agreement on whether problematic gaming can been seen as pathological. Therefore, criteria used to measure pathological gaming should be considered as criteria to measure problems associated with game behavior instead of symptoms of pathological behavior. Others also suggested that media addiction is overstated, and that in many cases the symptoms that these addicted individuals display should be considered as problems that are within the capability of the individual to correct

The subject interested me especially since it was a Dutch population studied about this subject. In this study subscribers to a national panel which represents the Dutch population were invited via email to participate in an online survey. In total, 3,200 subscribers were invited to participate in the study before the number of 900 respondents was reached (nonresponse was 72 percent). They measured problematic game behavior with a subjective measure.

Results
Almost half of the participants used video games, age range: 14-75 years, mean age 38,7 years. Two third were women. Gaming was the most prevalent among adolescents and young adults, prevalence decreased with age for both men and women. In short: gaming is a a wide-spread harmless leisure activity across the whole Dutch population. About 1,3% might be considered as problematic game players. Among young adults and adolescents problematic gaming might occur in 3.3% of cases. A remarkable finding is the overall higher prevalence of video game playing in women compared to men in this sample.

ResearchBlogging.org
Haagsma, M., Pieterse, M., & Peters, O. (2012). The Prevalence of Problematic Video Gamers in The Netherlands Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 15 (3), 162-168 DOI: 10.1089/cyber.2011.0248

 

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Who Benefits from Serious Gaming?

online gaming

Multimodality or using a combination of visual, auditory, haptic,and other sensory modalities in the presentation of knowledge in serious gaming improves learning outcome. Interactivity or the communication between player and the digital gaming system in serious gaming also improves learning outcome. But these are two design elements and not psychological attributes of users of serious gaming that may effect learning outcome.

One theory about psychological attributes is the theory of mindset, a theory how people’s belief about ability and intelligence influence response to failure, behavior and learning outcomes. In short two types of mindsets are distinguished:

People with fixed mindset (or entity theorists) believe that abilities are fixed, either innate or fully developed in one’s early life stages. A person cannot do much to change his or her abilities. By contrast, people with growth mindset (or incremental theorists) believe that abilities can be developed through learning and practice; therefore, if one puts extra effort into learning tasks, one’s abilities can grow incrementally through practice.

People with a fixed mindset often regard each challenge as an evaluation of their ability and they tend to avoid challenges where they might fail. People with growth mindset perceive challenges as learning opportunities.

In a study with 233 undergraduate students from two large US universities these mindsets were studied with the serious game: Do I Have a Right? A game for teaching constitutional amendments.

The findings show that growth mindset players performed better than fixed mindset players, their mistakes did not affect their attention to the game, and they read more learning feedback than fixed mindset players. In addition, growth mindset players were more likely to actively seek difficult challenges, which is often essential to self-directed learning

This doesn’t mean that those with fixed mindset don’t benefit from serious gaming. Moreover, growth mindset can be taught. Teaching growth mindset can improve learning experience from serious gaming for those with a fixed mindset.

This post was chosen as an Editor's Selection for ResearchBlogging.org

ResearchBlogging.org
Lee, Y., Heeter, C., Magerko, B., & Medler, B. (2011). Gaming Mindsets: Implicit Theories in Serious Game Learning Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking DOI: 10.1089/cyber.2011.0328
Ritterfeld, U., Shen, C., Wang, H., Nocera, L., & Wong, W. (2009). Multimodality and Interactivity: Connecting Properties of Serious Games with Educational Outcomes CyberPsychology & Behavior, 12 (6), 691-697 DOI: 10.1089/cpb.2009.0099

 

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Virtual Reality for Stress Management

Going to a relaxing zone in a natural park such as the river, waterfall, lake of garden where you can relax and trim the roses using a oscillating tool with virtual reality and doing relaxing exercises supported by a relaxing narrative effectively reduces stress and anxiety. Virtual reality showed better improvements than video or audio although the latter two also reduced stress and anxiety.

We found a significant difference between the three conditions and an interaction effect between time and condition for participant’s ability to reduce their heart rate (HR). Specifically, participants in the VR condition were better at reducing their HR and significantly improved their emotional state during experimental sessions as well as the follow-up sessions. About the anxiety subjective self-report scores, we found a significant difference between groups and in particular Video condition achieved better results, compared to VR and Audio groups.

This could be a new way for mental health care to provide easily accessible and cost effective services.

ResearchBlogging.org
Villani, D., & Riva, G. (2011). Does Interactive Media Enhance the Management of Stress? Suggestions from a Controlled Study Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking DOI: 10.1089/cyber.2011.0141

 

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Proun Game Inspired on Kandinsky’s Paintings

Love games and I do love paintings by Kandinsky. Was surprised to read a bout a Dutch game designer: Joost “Oogst” van Dongen. The previous link is to his blog were he writes a lot about designing the game and his admiration for early 20th century painters especially Kandinsky

Proun was made because there were ideas in my head that wanted to come out. They wanted to be a game. I wanted them to be a game. Design choices in Proun were not made to make it the best game for the player, or to make as much money as possible. Proun was made because I love the experimental art from the early 20th century, and I wanted to express this love in a game. Proun was made because I was fascinated by having a world where there is no up or down, and everything rotates.

You can download the game hereon a pay what you want bases.

 

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Who are more likely to experience flow?

I’ve written before about flow as part of creativity while improvising with Jazz. Flow can be defined as: the holistic sensation that people feel when they act with total concentration and intrinsic enjoyment. But who experiences flow more easily, what character traits are related to the likelihood of experiencing flow?

The researchers used the temperament en character scale developed by Cloninger. This cross sectional study was done with 378 online gamers. They used a web form for collecting data. This study posted invitations on more than 20 web sites which online gamers frequently visited for searching gaming information and group members.

Those experiencing high levels of flow during gaming also had higher scores on novelty seeking, persistence, and self transcendence. Self-directedness was negatively correlated with flow. Novelty seekers are those that favor new things, they concentrate on new things. Persistence is perseverance regardless of frustration and fatigue, those are the ones that keep going. Self-directedness is a character trait not a temperament such as the previous dimensions. Self-transcendence is the tendency to regard one’s self as an
integral part of the universe, i.e., ‘‘everything turned into one interdependent whole’’. Self-directedness represents the tendency to be autonomous, and to regulate and adopt one’s own behavior to achieve goals or to fit value. Those are the ones who can focus on their goals. When you score high on this feature you’re not easily experiencing flow.

flow is positively related to novelty seeking, persistence, selftranscendence, but negatively related to self-directedness.

ResearchBlogging.org
Teng, C. (2011). Who are likely to experience flow? Impact of temperament and character on flow Personality and Individual Differences, 50 (6), 863-868 DOI: 10.1016/j.paid.2011.01.012

 

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Violent Games increase Prosocial Behavior

Dr Shock is utterly biased when it comes to gaming. Especially when Call of Duty is used for research into the topic of possible negative or positive influences of exposure to violent games. This recent research with the action game “Call of Duty” did not support any negative influence of gaming on prosocial behavior or civic engagement. On the contrary this research found some support for increased prosocial behavior and civic engagement in those playing action games especially when their parents were more technically savvy and involved in game play. So all parents should play with their kids, even action games. Probably the team oriented multiplayer options in many of these games increase more social behavior.

Prosocial behavior is caring about the welfare and rights of others, feeling concern and empathy for them, and acting in ways that benefit others

Civic engagement or civic participation has been defined as “Individual and collective actions designed to identify and address issues of public concern.”

Some other interesting information from this article: Violent behaviors among youth has decreased since the 1990s rather than risen while the number of violent games sold has increased since than. As depicted in this fugure

The only drawback of this study is that it’s about correlation not causation and the sample size is somewhat small.

ResearchBlogging.org
Ferguson, C., & Garza, A. (2010). Call of (civic) duty: Action games and civic behavior in a large sample of youth Computers in Human Behavior DOI: 10.1016/j.chb.2010.10.026

 

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Geek Living

Constantly measure your activity, sleep, mood, exercise, food…. It can be done and calculated to the detail and monitored.

…..intriguing new pastime: using mobile apps and always-on gadgets to track and analyze your body, mood, diet, spending — just about everything in daily life you can measure — in gloriously geeky detail.

Want to have all those sensors.

 

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Brain Training Software

Founded in 2003 in San Francisco, Posit Science helps adults stay vibrant throughout their lives with brain fitness software that engages the brain’s natural plasticity (the brain’s ability to rewire.) Neuroscientists collaborate with a team of more than 50 scientists from leading institutions around the globe to develop and test programs that improve cognitive performance—and enhance quality of life.

Try the 60 second brain game or Word Wanderer. There’s even an iPhone app to train to remember names.

 

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The Lagoa Multiphysics 1.0 engine

Lagoa Multiphysics 1.0 – Teaser from Thiago Costa on Vimeo.

This is a new Multiphysics simulation by Lagoa Technologies Inc.

Amazing graphics and simulations, ideal for gaming engine.

Physics engines. We may not understand most of the maths and skill that goes into developing one, but many of us appreciate their use in the latest games across consoles and PC.
While game engines like Unreal, Source, and id Tech 5 may have very capable physics engines built-in, that doesn’t stop new enginesappearing, and in this case blowing us away with the quality of the physics on show.
The Lagoa Multiphysics 1.0 engine has been developed by Thiago Costa, who currently works as Lead Technical Director at Ubisoft Digital Arts in Montreal.

 

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PRIVATES, reproductive health ed game for teenagers

This link with video was very appreciated on twitter when I had it on my tumbler blog. Thought I share it with my other readers as well. It’s a reproductive health ed game for teenagers based on one of my old time favorite games: Worms. It has nice graphics and funny characters.

Privates is a platform twin-stick shooter in which you lead a teeny-tiny gang of condom-hatted marines as they delve into peoples’ vaginas, mouths and bottoms and blast away at all manner of oozy, shouty monsters. It’s rude, funny, bitingly satirical and technically pretty accurate if you don’t count the tiny people or the germs with teeth. Coming, soon.

Here is another trailer for an educational game for teenagers, The Curfew, a game that explores issues of surveillance, authoritarianism and liberation in a near-future Britain where a law-and-order party has taken over the country.

 
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