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"Computer action games"
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Never say nether
\"Will can hardly wait to explore the Nether with his best friend, Mina. But when his perfect older brother insists on coming along, Will's excitement fades--he is sure he doesn't need Seth's protection!\" -- provided by publisher.
Book
Enhancing Cognition with Video Games: A Multiple Game Training Study
Previous evidence points to a causal link between playing action video games and enhanced cognition and perception. However, benefits of playing other video games are under-investigated. We examined whether playing non-action games also improves cognition. Hence, we compared transfer effects of an action and other non-action types that required different cognitive demands.
We instructed 5 groups of non-gamer participants to play one game each on a mobile device (iPhone/iPod Touch) for one hour a day/five days a week over four weeks (20 hours). Games included action, spatial memory, match-3, hidden- object, and an agent-based life simulation. Participants performed four behavioral tasks before and after video game training to assess for transfer effects. Tasks included an attentional blink task, a spatial memory and visual search dual task, a visual filter memory task to assess for multiple object tracking and cognitive control, as well as a complex verbal span task. Action game playing eliminated attentional blink and improved cognitive control and multiple-object tracking. Match-3, spatial memory and hidden object games improved visual search performance while the latter two also improved spatial working memory. Complex verbal span improved after match-3 and action game training.
Cognitive improvements were not limited to action game training alone and different games enhanced different aspects of cognition. We conclude that training specific cognitive abilities frequently in a video game improves performance in tasks that share common underlying demands. Overall, these results suggest that many video game-related cognitive improvements may not be due to training of general broad cognitive systems such as executive attentional control, but instead due to frequent utilization of specific cognitive processes during game play. Thus, many video game training related improvements to cognition may be attributed to near-transfer effects.
Journal Article
Quest for the golden apple : an unofficial graphic novel for Minecrafters
\"Phoenix dreams of seeing the world outside the high walls of her village. One day, she takes a risk-a quick hop over the walls-just to see the dark forest she's heard tales of. It is a magical forest, but Phoenix's forbidden trip unleashes a monster that attacks her brother, Xander. Her brother survives-but he's turned into a dreadful, moaning zombie!\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
The Effect of Online Violent Video Games on Levels of Aggression
In recent years the video game industry has surpassed both the music and video industries in sales. Currently violent video games are among the most popular video games played by consumers, most specifically First-Person Shooters (FPS). Technological advancements in game play experience including the ability to play online has accounted for this increase in popularity. Previous research, utilising the General Aggression Model (GAM), has identified that violent video games increase levels of aggression. Little is known, however, as to the effect of playing a violent video game online.
Participants (N = 101) were randomly assigned to one of four experimental conditions; neutral video game--offline, neutral video game--online, violent video game--offline and violent video game--online. Following this they completed questionnaires to assess their attitudes towards the game and engaged in a chilli sauce paradigm to measure behavioural aggression. The results identified that participants who played a violent video game exhibited more aggression than those who played a neutral video game. Furthermore, this main effect was not particularly pronounced when the game was played online.
These findings suggest that both playing violent video games online and offline compared to playing neutral video games increases aggression.
Journal Article
Redstone Junior High. Book 1, Zombies ate my homework
\"When quiet farm girl Pixel receives an acceptance letter from the prestigious academy for gifted students, Redstone Junior High, she is thrilled. And she works up the courage to leave her family and her beloved farm animals to become a Redstone student. The school prides itself on its safety record as much as its academics--'mob-free for more than 100 years!' boasts a sign on campus. Little does Pixel know that the school's long history of safety is about to take an unsettling turn\"--Back cover.
Book
Action Video Gaming and Cognitive Control: Playing First Person Shooter Games Is Associated with Improved Action Cascading but Not Inhibition
There is a constantly growing interest in developing efficient methods to enhance cognitive functioning and/or to ameliorate cognitive deficits. One particular line of research focuses on the possibly cognitive enhancing effects that action video game (AVG) playing may have on game players. Interestingly, AVGs, especially first person shooter games, require gamers to develop different action control strategies to rapidly react to fast moving visual and auditory stimuli, and to flexibly adapt their behaviour to the ever-changing context. This study investigated whether and to what extent experience with such videogames is associated with enhanced performance on cognitive control tasks that require similar abilities. Experienced action videogame-players (AVGPs) and individuals with little to no videogame experience (NVGPs) performed a stop-change paradigm that provides a relatively well-established diagnostic measure of action cascading and response inhibition. Replicating previous findings, AVGPs showed higher efficiency in response execution, but not improved response inhibition (i.e. inhibitory control), as compared to NVGPs. More importantly, compared to NVGPs, AVGPs showed enhanced action cascading processes when an interruption (stop) and a change towards an alternative response were required simultaneously, as well as when such a change had to occur after the completion of the stop process. Our findings suggest that playing AVGs is associated with enhanced action cascading and multi-component behaviour without affecting inhibitory control.
Journal Article
Gender Differences in Emotional Responses to Cooperative and Competitive Game Play
Previous research indicates that males prefer competition over cooperation, and it is sometimes suggested that females show the opposite behavioral preference. In the present article, we investigate the emotions behind the preferences: Do males exhibit more positive emotions during competitive than cooperative activities, and do females show the opposite pattern? We conducted two experiments where we assessed the emotional responses of same-gender dyads (in total 130 participants, 50 female) during intrinsically motivating competitive and cooperative digital game play using facial electromyography (EMG), skin conductance, heart rate measures, and self-reported emotional experiences. We found higher positive emotional responses (as indexed by both physiological measures and self-reports) during competitive than cooperative play for males, but no differences for females. In addition, we found no differences in negative emotions, and heart rate, skin conductance, and self-reports yielded contradictory evidence for arousal. These results support the hypothesis that males not only prefer competitive over cooperative play, but they also exhibit more positive emotional responses during them. In contrast, the results suggest that the emotional experiences of females do not differ between cooperation and competition, which implies that less competitiveness does not mean more cooperativeness. Our results pertain to intrinsically motivated game play, but might be relevant also for other kinds of activities.
Journal Article
Ecological validity of manual grasping movements in an everyday-like grocery shopping task
In our earlier research, kinematic and kinetic parameters of grasping differed significantly when participants grasped the same object once in a traditional laboratory paradigm, and once as part of a captivating computer game. We attributed this finding to the fact that grasping movements in the laboratory were repetitive and meaningless, while those in the computer game were embedded in complex behavior and served a meaningful purpose. In that work, we argued that grasping in the computer game is more characteristic of everyday life behavior; however, this conclusion has been criticized on the grounds that a computer game is not a typical everyday activity. The present study therefore compares grasping in a traditional laboratory paradigm to that in an indisputably everyday context: grocery shopping. Thirty-three young adults executed externally triggered arm movements to grasp nondescript objects (laboratory task, L) and place them on a tablet, or they walked through a fictitious grocery store towards a shelf to grasp grocery products and placed them into a shopping basket (everyday-like task, E). Size, shape, weight and location of to-be-grasped objects were identical in both tasks. We found that of the analyzed 16 kinematic parameters, 13 differed significantly between tasks. Specifically, grip apertures were larger, movements were slower and grip–transport coupling was more variable in E compared to L. We conclude that kinematic differences between both persist even if task is more realistic than in our earlier research. Our findings are compatible with the notion that movement planning is less stringent in E than in L.
Journal Article
Examining the Relationship Between Action Video Game Experience and Performance in a Distracted Driving Task
We conducted two experiments to assess the hypothesis that experienced action video game players will exhibit superior performance in a distracted driving task. In the first experiment, experienced gamers and controls drove in a driving simulator, with and without distraction. Experienced AVG players exhibited fewer lane deviations during driving as compared to non-gamers; however, video game experience was not associated with fewer lane deviations while distracted. These results showed evidence for the video game experience effect however, no evidence of improved cognitive ability was found. In the second experiment, we informed participants of the hypothesis to replicate the methods of studies that do not mask the purpose of the research. We found video game experience again was associated with fewer driving errors, but was still not associated with better driving performance while distracted; however, gamers recalled more details of the distracting conversation and reported lower workload while driving than non-gamers. We use these results to argue for caution in interpreting research with experienced gamers and increased replication with attention paid to recruitment methodology within this research domain. Finally, our results indicate that understanding the nature of AVG experience on task performance requires careful attention to motivational factors.
Journal Article
Audible Efforts: Gender and Battle Cries in Classic Arcade Fighting Games
Video games are demanding work indeed. So demanding that our screen heroes and heroines are constantly making sounds of strife, struggle, or victory while conducting surrogate labor for us running, fighting, saving worlds. These sounds also represent the very real demanding labor of voice actors, whose burnout and vocal strain have recently come to the fore in terms of the games industries’ labor standards (Cazden, 2017). But do heroes and she-roes sound the same? What are the demands—virtual, physical, and emotional—of maintaining sexist sonic tropes in popular media; demands that are required of the industry, the game program, and the player alike? Based on participatory observations of gameplay (i.e., the research team engaging with the material by playing the games we study), close reading of gendered sonic presence, and a historical content analysis of three iconic arcade fighting games, this article reports on a notable trend: As games self-purportedly and in the eyes of the wider community improve the visual representation of female playable leads important aspects of the vocal representation of women has not only lagged behind but become more exaggeratedly gendered with higher-fidelity bigger-budget game productions. In essence, femininity continues to be a disempowering design pattern in ways far more nuanced than sexualization alone. This media ecology implicates not only the history of best practices for the games industry itself, but also the culture of professional voice acting, and the role of games as trendsetters for industry conventions of media representation. Listening to battle cries is discussed here as a politics of embodiment and a form of emotionally demanding game labor that simultaneously affects the flow and immersion of playing, and carries over toxic attitudes about femininity outside the game context.
Journal Article