Cognitive-bias toward gaming-related words and disinhibition in World of Warcraft gamers

This study investigated cognitive biases toward gaming-related words and differences in cognitive performance among twelve World of Warcraft players (WWP) and thirty non-players (NP). We measured response to valenced common English and WoW jargon words using a computer-based go/no-go task. Sometimes positive valence words were the targets for the ‘go’ response, with negative-valence words as the distracters, sometimes the reverse. Target discrimination (d′) and response disinhibition (C) were calculated using a signal detection analysis. Based on questionnaire responses, there were no differences between groups in depression, anxiety, smoking or drinking, but WWP reported significantly more screen and gaming time (17.31 h/week versus 4.12 among NP). WWP had faster reaction time (RT) and better discrimination of targets from distracters (high d′) but also showed higher disinhibition (low C). WWP also showed cognitive-bias toward game-related words in the form of higher d′ for WoW jargon than common English and more disinhibition to positive-valence WoW jargon. Similar to past studies which have found alcoholics to have cognitive biases toward alcohol-related words, WWP who play frequently showed cognitive biases toward words related to the World of Warcraft game.     

Do World of Warcraft (MMORPG) players experience less loneliness and social anxiety in online world (virtual environment) than in real world (offline)?

The number of online game players continues to grow, as well as the number of hours spent in online world. World of Warcraft (WoW) is one of the most popular Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPG). It is set in an elaborate fictional world, in which players achieve goals through interaction and mutual communication. The present study verified differences in experiencing loneliness (UCLA Loneliness Scale) and social anxiety (Social Phobia Inventory) in WoW players in online and real world (offline) since these two worlds and the functioning of the players in them differ. In the sample consisting of 161 players, it was found that players experience a significantly lower degree of loneliness and social anxiety in online than in real world. The lower degree of loneliness experienced was also associated with playing with friends and known people, with guild membership, as well as frequent communication with teammates through VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) services. The results suggest that WoW is a highly social environment that encourages cooperation, communication and friendship.     

The role of trait emotional intelligence in gamers’ preferences for play and frequency of gaming

This paper examines the role of trait emotional intelligence (trait EI) in gamers’ preferences for play and frequency of gaming in a sample of 1051 young adult US/European gamers, who play frequently the online massively multiplayer game, World of Warcraft (WoW). Trait EI was shown to predict social and achievement preferences for play as well as frequency of gaming. In particular, trait EI was positively correlated to a preference for social practices per se and negatively correlated to a preference for achievement-oriented, instrumental practices. These findings advocate that gamers’ preferences for play are in accordance with their emotion-related personality characteristics. Trait EI was also negatively associated with frequency of gaming suggesting that lower scorers on trait EI are more likely associated with more frequent game use.     

A social scientific framework for social systems in online video games: Building a better looking for raid loot system in World of Warcraft

This paper examines social behavior in the online video game World of Warcraft. Specifically focusing on one element of social design: the behavior of players in the first release of Looking-for-Raid (LFR) loot system of World of Warcraft. It uses lens of economic game theory, combined with Williams (2010) mapping principle and a modern theoretical account of human decision-making, to explore how theory about individual interactions in well-defined contexts (games) can explain collective behavior. It provides some support for this theoretical approach with an examination of data collected as part of an ethnographic study, through focus groups, and a survey distributed to 333 World of Warcraft players. It concludes with a discussion of the results and some guidelines for predicting collective outcomes in certain types of online games using the introduced framework.     

Podcasting by synchronising PowerPoint and voice: What are the pedagogical benefits?

The purpose of this study was to investigate the efficacy of audio–visual synchrony in podcasting and its possible pedagogical benefits. ‘Synchrony’ in this study refers to the simultaneous playback of audio and video data streams, so that the transitions between presentation slides occur at “lecturer chosen” points in the audio commentary. Manufacturers of lecture recording software (e.g. ProfCast) would have us believe that the synchrony of image and audio should improve the learning experience. We have yet to see in the literature any empirical evidence to support this hypothesis. In our study, 90 participants in two groups undertook two electronic lectures (e-lectures) on two separate topics, the subject matter of neither was familiar to them beforehand. Each group experienced one “synchronous” presentation (e-lecture) of one of the topics, and one “separate” presentation (i.e. PowerPoint and audio files separately presented) of the other topic. Each group therefore experienced both “synchronous” and “separate” delivery and they were then given an MCQ test that assessed five levels of Bloom’s taxonomy. Results show no differences in innate ability between the two groups but the evidence supported our primary hypothesis in that statistically significantly higher test scores were seen when participants viewed a synchronous e-lecture; these scores were accounted for by subjects’ performance at three of the five levels of Bloom’s taxonomy. Qualitative ‘attitude’ survey results also displayed participant preference towards the synchronous over the asynchronous mode of delivery, and in spite of general acceptance of the proposed benefits of electronic proceedings, a majority preference towards traditional rather than electronic lectures. Despite this conservatism, this paper explores in more detail the potential benefits of podcasting via synchronous PowerPoint and voice.     

MMORPG Player actions: Network performance, session patterns and latency requirements analysis

Providing Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs) is a big challenge for future mobile, IP-based networks. Understanding how the players’ actions affect the network parameters, the game platform, and the overall perceived quality is highly relevant for the purposes of game design, as well as for the networking infrastructure and network support for games. We break player actions down into discrete categories, and show that each category is distinct in terms of several key metrics. We discuss which categories of actions could be supported on current mobile devices, and present evidence in form of a user survey demonstrating the demand for such services. The starting points into the discussion include the networking, session and latency requirements for particular player actions on one side, and the players’ interest on the other. The Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft (WoW) is used as a case study.     

Cross-modal compensation between name and visual aspect in socially active avatars

Avatars serve for humans immersed in virtual settings as the interface between real and virtual worlds. The avatar-creation process involves numerous choices, including choice of visual representation, and choices to imbue the character with personality. Here, we hypothesised that these choices are not independent, and that a cross-modal talk may occur between the different components of the avatar identity. Specifically, we investigated whether name properties may be affected by the visual aspect (human vs. non-human) of the avatar. We analyzed names structure of players characters from the popular massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) World of Warcraft, which display both human and non-human avatars. We selected 1261 names of characters actively engaged in the in-game and out-game social networks. Analysis of the names revealed that female names presented more variability than male names, and contained systematically more vowels than male names. However, the strategy used to enrich the vowel composition of female names differed between human-like and non-human characters, suggesting that a lesser proximity with human regular appearance was compensated by an increase of “feminization” of the name. Altogether, our results suggest that a cross-modal compensation occurs between name and visual aspect in the creation of socially active avatars.     

Chunky and equal-spaced polynomial multiplication

Finding the product of two polynomials is an essential and basic problem in computer algebra. While most previous results have focused on the worst-case complexity, we instead employ the technique of adaptive analysis to give an improvement in many “easy” cases. We present two adaptive measures and methods for polynomial multiplication, and also show how to effectively combine them to gain both advantages. One useful feature of these algorithms is that they essentially provide a gradient between existing “sparse” and “dense” methods. We prove that these approaches provide significant improvements in many cases but in the worst case are still comparable to the fastest existing algorithms.     

A scale-adjusted measure of “Urban sprawl” using nighttime satellite imagery

“Urban Sprawl” is a growing concern of citizens, environmental organizations, and governments. Negative impacts often attributed to urban sprawl are traffic congestion, loss of open space, and increased pollutant runoff into natural waterways. Definitions of “Urban Sprawl” range from local patterns of land use and development to aggregate measures of per capita land consumption for given contiguous urban areas (UA). This research creates a measure of per capita land use consumption as an aggregate index for the spatially contiguous urban areas of the conterminous United States with population of 50,000 or greater. Nighttime satellite imagery obtained by the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program's Operational Linescan System (DMSP OLS) is used as a proxy measure of urban extent. The corresponding population of these urban areas is derived from a grid of the block group level data from the 1990 U.S. Census. These numbers are used to develop a regression equation between Ln(Urban Area) and Ln(Urban Population). The ‘scale-adjustment’ mentioned in the title characterizes the “Urban Sprawl” of each of the urban areas by how far above or below they are on the “Sprawl Line” determined by this regression. This “Sprawl Line” allows for a more fair comparison of “Urban Sprawl” between larger and smaller metropolitan areas because a simple measure of per capita land consumption or population density does not account for the natural increase in aggregate population density that occurs as cities grow in population. Cities that have more “Urban Sprawl” by this measure tended to be inland and Midwestern cities such as Minneapolis-St. Paul, Atlanta, Dallas-Ft. Worth, St. Louis, and Kansas City. Surprisingly, west coast cities including Los Angeles had some of the lowest levels of “Urban Sprawl” by this measure. There were many low light levels seen in the nighttime imagery around these major urban areas that were not included in either of the two definitions of urban extent used in this study. These areas may represent a growing commuter-shed of urban workers who do not live in the urban core but nonetheless contribute to many of the impacts typically attributed to “Urban Sprawl”. “Urban Sprawl” is difficult to define precisely partly because public perception of sprawl is likely derived from local land use planning decisions, spatio-demographic change in growing urban areas, and changing values and social mores resulting from differential rates of international migration to the urban areas of the United States. Nonetheless, the aggregate measures derived here are somewhat different than similar previously used measures in that they are ‘scale-adjusted’; also, the spatial patterns of “Urban Sprawl” shown here shed some insight and raise interesting questions about how the dynamics of “Urban Sprawl” are changing.     

Reconciliation between factions focused on near-term and long-term artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) experts are currently divided into “presentist” and “futurist” factions that call for attention to near-term and long-term AI, respectively. This paper argues that the presentist–futurist dispute is not the best focus of attention. Instead, the paper proposes a reconciliation between the two factions based on a mutual interest in AI. The paper further proposes realignment to two new factions: an “intellectualist” faction that seeks to develop AI for intellectual reasons (as found in the traditional norms of computer science) and a “societalist faction” that seeks to develop AI for the benefit of society. The paper argues in favor of societalism and offers three means of concurrently addressing societal impacts from near-term and long-term AI: (1) advancing societalist social norms, thereby increasing the portion of AI researchers who seek to benefit society; (2) technical research on how to make any AI more beneficial to society; and (3) policy to improve the societal benefits of all AI. In practice, it will often be advantageous to emphasize near-term AI due to the greater interest in near-term AI among AI and policy communities alike. However, presentist and futurist societalists alike can benefit from each others’ advocacy for attention to the societal impacts of AI. The reconciliation between the presentist and futurist factions can improve both near-term and long-term societal impacts of AI.     

Problematizing excessive online gaming and its psychological predictors

This study problematizes the common methodology in studies on excessive internet use where psychological characteristics are sought as unique predictors of negative outcomes. It suggests that some predictors may be significant only by virtue of being examined in isolation. In an attempt to add to this methodology the present study explored motivations for a particular online activity, MMO gaming, and the association with excessive use. The study used survey data from players of World of Warcraft (WoW), a popular MMO game. The psychological characteristics investigated were based on previous studies of excessive internet use and included social anxiety, loneliness and stress. The motivations were achievement, escapism and social interaction. The results revealed that although loneliness and social anxiety were correlated with excessive use, they lost significance when stress was controlled for. Furthermore, all psychological predictors lost significance when escapism and achievement were controlled for. These results suggest that psychological characteristics only have an indirect effect on negative outcomes and that this relationship can be better explained by motivations acting as a mediating variable. Based on these results an alternative conceptualization was offered, termed compensatory internet use, emphasizing that excessive use may be more usefully framed and investigated as a coping strategy rather than compulsive behaviour.     

Time,engagement and video games: How game design elements shape the temporalities of play in massively multiplayer online role-playing games

Researchers and developers constantly seek novel ways to create engaging applications that are able to retain their users over the long term, make them desire to spend time using the application or go back to using it after a break. With this aim, video games can be an insightful source of inspiration, as they are specifically designed to maximise playing time, increase players' intentions of playing during the day or enhance their willingness to replay. In a gaming context, ‘time’ is an important factor for engagement because game designers can design the game time to retain players in the game environment. Drawing on social practice theory, which is increasingly used in Information Systems (IS) research, I conducted an ethnographic study in World of Warcraft (WoW) to understand how various temporalities are produced within a video game and the effects that they have on players' engagement. The findings show that game temporalities stem from the complex interaction between the design features of the game and the norms, routines and expectations that are part of the game practices. Moreover, these temporalities can engender temporal experiences that may stimulate engagement in various ways. The study contributes to IS literature by proposing a novel understanding of how time can be intentionally designed to sustain user engagement. Finally, it suggests that ‘time design’ in video games could inspire designs in broader IS contexts, such as in the gamification of online communities, crowdsourcing platforms and crowd working systems.     

The educational electronic book as a tool for supporting children’s emergent literacy in low versus middle SES groups

The effects of an educational electronic book (e-book) on 149 five- to six-year-old kindergarteners’ emergent literacy levels were researched in two SES groups: low (LSES) (79 children) vs. middle (MSES) (70 children). In each SES group, children were randomly assigned to four groups. Three groups were assigned to work individually in one of three e-book activity modes: “Read story only”, “Read with dictionary”, or “Read and play” during three similar activity sessions and the fourth group served as a control which received the regular program of the kindergarten. Pre- and post-intervention emergent literacy measures included word meaning, word recognition, and phonological awareness. Results show that word meaning of children from both middle and low SES improved following the educational e-book activity, regardless of mode. Second, LSES children’s emergent literacy levels showed relatively greater improvement rates than did those of the MSES children. Third, children in the “Read with dictionary” and “Read and play” activity modes showed more improvement in their emergent literacy levels than did those in the “Read story only” mode. Implications for future research and for education are discussed.     

Investigation of effects of virtual reality environments on learning performance of technical skills

Practical training is what brings imagination and creativity to fruition, which relies significantly on the relevant technical skills needed. Thus, the current study has placed its emphasis on strengthening the learning of technical skills with emerging innovations in technology, while studying the effects of employing such technologies at the same time. As for the students who participated in the study, technical skills had been cultivated in the five dimensions of knowledge, comprehension, simulation, application, and creativity, in accordance to the set teaching objectives and the taxonomy for students learning outcome, while the virtual reality learning environment (VRLE) has also been developed to meet different goals as the various technical skills were being examined. In terms of the nature of technology, operation of machines, selection of process parameters, and process planning in technical skills, VRLE has also designed the six modules of “learning resource”, “digital content”, “collaborative learning”, “formative evaluation”, “simulation of manufacturing process”, and “practical exercise” in particular for providing students with assistance in the development on their technical skills on a specific, gradual basis. After assessing the technical skills that have been developed for the time period of one semester, the students have reported finding VRLE to be a significantly effective method when considering the three dimensions of “operation of machines”, “selection of process parameter”, and “process planning”, though not so much so when it came to the dimension of “nature of technology”. Among the six modules, “simulation of manufacturing process” and “practical exercise” were the two that were most preferred by students for the three dimensions considered.     

Robotic vocabulary building using extension inference and implicit contrast

TWIG (“Transportable Word Intension Generator”) is a system that allows a robot to learn compositional meanings for new words that are grounded in its sensory capabilities. The system is novel in its use of logical semantics to infer which entities in the environment are the referents (extensions) of unfamiliar words; its ability to learn the meanings of deictic (“I,” “this”) pronouns in a real sensory environment; its use of decision trees to implicitly contrast new word definitions with existing ones, thereby creating more complex definitions than if each word were treated as a separate learning problem; and its ability to use words learned in an unsupervised manner in complete grammatical sentences for production, comprehension, or referent inference. In an experiment with a physically embodied robot, TWIG learns grounded meanings for the words “I” and “you,” learns that “this” and “that” refer to objects of varying proximity, that “he” is someone talked about in the third person, and that “above” and “below” refer to height differences between objects. Follow-up experiments demonstrate the system's ability to learn different conjugations of “to be”; show that removing either the extension inference or implicit contrast components of the system results in worse definitions; and demonstrate how decision trees can be used to model shifts in meaning based on context in the case of color words.     

Applying the technology acceptance model in a study of the factors affecting usage of the Taiwan digital archives system

The rapid development of information and communication technology and the popularization of the Internet have given a boost to digitization technologies. Since 2001, The National Science Council (NSC) of Taiwan has invested a large amount of funding in the National Digital Archives Program (NDAP) to develop digital content. Some studies have indicated that most respondents had no confidence in particular digital archive websites. Thus, with the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) as a theoretical basis, the focus of the present study was to identify the factors influencing usage. Extension of the roles of perceived playfulness and interface design was also explored to identify the reasons that digital archives might not be accepted by some users. The present study used a random sampling method to distribute questionnaires to digital archive users via e-mail. The Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) method was used to verify the appropriateness of the study model and whether the hypotheses were confirmed. Study results indicated that the “interface design” is an important factor that influences people to use the digital archives, and that it is separate from the “human factor” and the “human–computer interface” (HCI). Moreover, the results showed that HCI had a significant impact on the “perceived ease of use” and on “usage intentions.” However, the human factor interface showed a significant impact only on “perceived ease of use.” With respect to the hypotheses regarding “usage intentions,” the “perceived usefulness,” “perceived ease of use,” “attitude,” and “perceived playfulness” were not related to “usage intentions.” Therefore, it is necessary to consider the quality of interface design in the development of digital archives in order to promote usage.     

Manifold topological multi-resolution analysis method

In this paper, two significant weaknesses of locally linear embedding (LLE) applied to computer vision are addressed: “intrinsic dimension” and “eigenvector meanings”. “Topological embedding” and “multi-resolution nonlinearity capture” are introduced based on mathematical analysis of topological manifolds and LLE. The manifold topological analysis (MTA) method is described and is based on “topological embedding”. MTA is a more robust method to determine the “intrinsic dimension” of a manifold with typical topology, which is important for tracking and perception understanding. The manifold multi-resolution analysis (MMA) method is based on “multi-resolution nonlinearity capture”. MMA defines LLE eigenvectors as features for pattern recognition and dimension reduction. Both MTA and MMA are proved mathematically, and several examples are provided. Applications in 3D object recognition and 3D object viewpoint space partitioning are also described.     

Effects of different sensors and leaf-on and leaf-off canopy conditions on echo distributions and individual tree properties derived from airborne laser scanning

The objectives of this study were to quantify and analyze differences in laser height and laser intensity distributions of individual trees obtained from airborne laser scanner (ALS) data for different canopy conditions (leaf-on vs. leaf-off) and sensors. It was also assessed how estimated tree height, stem diameter, and tree species were influenced by these differences. The study was based on 412 trees from a boreal forest reserve in Norway. Three different ALS acquisitions were carried out. Leaf-on and leaf-off data were acquired with the Optech ALTM 3100 sensor, and an additional leaf-on dataset was acquired using the Optech ALTM 1233 sensor. Laser echoes located within the vertical projection of the tree crowns were attributed to different echo categories (“first echoes of many”, “single echoes”, “last echoes of many”) and analyzed. The most pronounced changes in laser height distribution from leaf-on to leaf-off were found for the echo categories denoted as “single” and “last echoes of many” where the distributions were shifted towards the ground under leaf-off conditions. The most pronounced change in the intensity distribution was found for “first echoes of many” where the distribution was extremely skewed towards the lower values under leaf-off conditions compared to leaf-on. Furthermore, the echo height and intensity distributions obtained for the two different sensors also differed significantly. Individual tree properties were estimated fairly accurately in all acquisitions with RMSE ranging from 0.76 to 0.84 m for tree height and from 3.10 to 3.17 cm for stem diameter. It was revealed that tree species was an important model term in both and tree height and stem diameter models. A significantly higher overall accuracy of tree species classification was obtained using the leaf-off acquisition (90 vs. 98%) whereas classification accuracy did not differ much between sensors (90 vs. 93%).     

A procedure for large-scale DEA computations

Data envelopment analysis (DEA), a performance evaluation method, measures the relative efficiency of a particular decision making unit (DMU) against a peer group. Most popular DEA models can be solved using standard linear programming (LP) techniques and therefore, in theory, are considered as computationally easy. However, in practice, the computational load cannot be neglected for large-scale—in terms of number of DMUs—problems. This study proposes an accelerating procedure that properly identifies a few “similar” critical DMUs to compute DMU efficiency scores in a given set. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed procedure is suitable for solving large-scale BCC problems when the percentage of efficient DMUs is high. The computational benefits of this procedure are significant especially when the number of inputs and outputs is small, which are most widely reported in the literature and practices.     

The formation of virtual organizations by means of electronic institutions in a 3D e-Tourism environment

In this article we showcase an agent-mediated B2C and B2B e-Marketplace. This e-Marketplace is part of the social and immersive 3D e-Tourism environment “Itchy Feet”. We give an overview of the framework that forms the basis of the e-Marketplace and show how it is used to create B2C-, B2B- and Virtual Organizations that are visualized in a 3D Virtual World. This interface provides users with an intuitive and easy way to interact with humans and software agents by means of a 3D Virtual World. The business logic is realized by autonomous software agents offering services to customers. The e-Marketplace is regulated by Electronic Institutions to ensure that all participants adhere to the rules of the market. The article is concluded with a detailed discussion on bridging the gaps between Multi-Agent Systems and 3D Virtual Worlds and the preliminary results of a conducted usability study of “Itchy Feet”.