( http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/misc/22786_To_My_Someday_Daughter.html )

Another article that was referenced in it was Anne Forsythe’s, The Other Women of Magic: Dating a Pro player. Many of her points can be useful even outside the context of MtG players, and to many geeks in general, regardless of gender. While her points are grounded in MtG, personality types often make up a culture, and I think her conclusions do well to touch on many of those.

(http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/misc/1295_The_Other_Women_Of_Magic_Dating_A_Pro_Player.html)

Preface
Michael Cole stated that the introduction of the Western European ideal into African schooling, implicitly pressing the child to become his own thinker and his own authority, in effect undermined the traditional structure of the indigenous society. In the mid-1960s, social forces effected the American education system: the striving for equality, for a fresh redefinition of the nature of society. [Education evaluation is often about the stats that come out of it, but less study of what goes in. ]

A curriculum is more for teachers than for students.

1 – Introduction

It is a common, growing issue that emphasis is being placed on advanced study and research, thus creating a separation of first-rank scholars and scientists from the task of presenting their own subjects in primary and secondary schools. They are not involved in the curriculum at the base level, some even not at the base level of university courses. This leads to inclusion of inadequately or incorrectly presented contemporary knowledge.

The American educational ideal has always been twofold: skills of a specific kind, and general understanding, to enable one to better deal with the affairs of life. Education is about helping each student reach their optimum intellectual development. [Then how can we test for this if it's personal?]

Some modifications that might be to come are modifications or abolition of the system of grade levels in some subjects, notably mathematics, along with a program of course enrichment in other subjects. [Why isn't this happening? In my education this happened occasionally, but only at the effort of individual teachers to pull students out that were ahead, and let them move on to higher grade levels. Since this didn't continue all the way through, eventually students would be back at the basics again.]

Four themes were developed:
1) role of structure in learning and how it may be made central in teaching
2) readiness for learning
3) nature of intuition
4) the desire to learn and how it can be stimulated

Virtually all the participants agreed that not teaching devices but teachers were the principle agents of instruction.

2- Importance of Structure

Any learning should act to serve us in the future. Two ways:
1) Specific transfer of training – specific applicability to tasks that are highly similar to those we originally learned to perform
2) nonspecific transfer/transfer of principles and attitudes – those that render later performance more efficient

3 – Notes on a Theory of Instruction

Theory of instruction is:
prescriptive – sets forth rules concerning the most effective way of achieving knowledge or skill
normative – criteria and states the conditions for meeting them

Theories of learning and development are descriptive rather than prescriptive. Theory of instruction is concerned with how what one wishes to teach can be best learned, with improving rather than describing learning.

Theory of instruction has 4 major features:
1) specify the experiences which most effectively implant in the individual a predisposition towards learning
2) ways in which a body of knowledge should be structured so that it can be most readily graphed by the learner (simplifying information, generating new proposition, and increasing the manipulability of a body of knowledge)
3) specify the most effective sequences in which to present the materials to be learned
4) specify the nature and pacing of rewards and punishments in the process of learning and teaching

PREDISPOSITIONS
Focus on cultural, motivational, and personal factors. Predisposition to explore alternatives can be broken down into activation (something to get it started), maintenance (something to keep it going), and direction (something to keep it from being random). Direction can be aided with a sense of goal of task, and knowledge of relevance of tested alternatives to the achievement of the goal.

STRUCTURE AND FORM OF KNOWLEDGE
Characterized in three ways:
mode of representation, economy and power.

Domain knowledge can be shown in three ways:
set of actions appropriate for achieving a certain stimuli, set of summer images or graphics that stand for a concept without defining it fully, and a set of symbolic or logical propositions drawn from a symbolic system that is governed by rules or laws for forming and transforming propositions.

Economy is the amount of information that must be held in mind and processed to achieve comprehension. Economy can be reduced through means of presentations, such as diagrams, reorganizing, or symbolizing information. Power is often associated with economy. Power of a representation can be described as its capacity, in the hands of the learner, to connect matters that on the surface, seem quite separate.

SEQUENCE
Instruction consists of leading the learner through a sequence of statements and restatements of a problem or body of knowledge that increase the learner’s ability to grasp, transform, and transfer what is being learned. There are a variety of factors, such as prior knowledge, stage of development, nature of the material and individual differences that go into optimizing.

FORM AND PACING OF REINFORCEMENT
Knowledge of results at the time and at the place where knowledge is used for correction. Learning and problem solving have phases: formulation of a testing procedure or trial, operation of this testing procedure, and comparison of the results of the test with some criterion. Learners should eventually come to know when to self-signal for incomprehension. There is some evidence to suggest that high drive and anxiety lead one to be more prone to functional fixedness. If information is to be used effectively, it must be translated into the learner’s way of attempting to solve a problem. Corrective information that exceeds the information processing capacities of a learner is obviously wasteful. Instruction should aid the user in becoming self-sufficient, not dependent on the instructor.

p55 – there may be correlations between linguistic learning and mathematical learning, such that students find it easier to replace a blank in the middle of a sentence, similar to mathematical equations.

When creating curriculum, one must take into consideration the issues of predisposition, structure, sequence, and reinforcement. Management of instructional variables requires constant and close collaboration of teacher, subject-matter specialist, and psychologist. Curriculum reflects not only the nature of knowledge but also the nature of the knower and of the knowledge-getting process.

4 – A Course of Study
LANGUAGE
The subject must not be presented as a normative one – as an exercise in how things should be written or said. It should remain close to the nature of language in use, its likely origin, and the functions it serves. Progress comes faster when children have something with which to compare human language. The next objective is to present the powerful ideas of arbitrariness, of productivity, and of duality of patterning.

TOOL MAKING
The characteristic of any kind of tool is not the tools themselves, but rather the program that guides their use. Tools can be conceived to fall into 3 general classes – amplifiers of sensory capacities, of motor capacities, and of ratiocinative capacities. Within each type there are subspecies.

SOCIAL ORGANIZATION
Structure is not fixed, and ranges in its influential features. The organization is a ebb and flow of giving and getting. By presenting the information in meaningful manner, students can relate in gripping, close to life, and intellectually honest manner. Social organization can also be taught through family.

CHILD REARING
Three themes: long human childhood leads to dominance of sentiment in human life, tendency towards mastery of skill for its own sake, and shaping of man by the patterning of childhood.

WORLD VIEW
Drive to explain and represent the world around them.

PEDAGOGY
Four techniques were useful in achieving social studies learning:
1) contrast
2) stimulation and use of informed guessing, hypothesis making, conjectural procedures
3) participation
4) stimulating self-consciousness

p95 – Games go a long way toward getting children involved in understanding language, social organization, and the rest; they also introduce the idea of a theory of these phenomena. They provide a superb way of getting children to participate actively in the process of learning – as players rather than spectators.

Children should be able to develop a decent competence and proper confidence in their ability to operate independently. Children need to pause and review in order to recognize the connections within what they have learned.

FORM OF THE COURSE
Unit, or the elements of which the course is made. Teachers are able to pick and choose which elements they want to incorporate into their classrooms.

Six constituent elements:
1) Talks to the teachers – lively accounts of the nature of the unit; the nature of the mystery, what about it impels curiosity and wonder
2) Queries and contrasts
3) Devices – materials for the students; readings, games, animations, graphics, and maps
4) Model exercises
5) Documentaries – accounts, even tape recordings, of ordinary children at work with the materials in the unit (for teacher reference)
6) Supplementary materials – paperbacks, additional films and game materials.

The Process of Education
Bruner

2 – the Importance of Structure

The first and most obvious problem on how to construct curricula that reflect the basic or underlying principles of various fields of inquiry. The problem is twofold:
1) How to have the basic subjects rewritten and their teaching materials revamped in such a way that the pervading and powerful ideas and attitudes relating to them are given a central role.
2) How to match the levels of these materials to the capacities of students of different abilities at different grades in school.

Mastery of the fundamental ideas of a field involves not only the grasping of general principles, but also the development of an attitude toward learning and inquiry, toward guessing and hunches, toward the possibility of solving problems on one’s own.

How do we tailor fundamental knowledge to the interests and capacities of children? A combination of deep understanding and patient honesty to present physical or any other phenomena in a way that is simultaneously exciting, correct, and rewardingly comprehensible.

Understanding fundamentals makes a subject more comprehensible. Unless detail is placed into a structured pattern, it is rapidly forgotten. Detailed material is stored in memory by the use of simplified ways of represented it. What learning general or fundamental principles does is to ensure that memory loss will not mean total loss, that what remains will permit us to reconstruct the details when needed. Transfer is also necessary to make learning organized. Constantly reexamining material taught in elementary and secondary schools for its fundamental character, so that material learned earlier is updated, as it is often out of date or misleading by virtue of lagging too far behind developments in the field. Learning must be taught as being connected, not as parts. It is important to keep in mind there is a difference between doing and understanding. Just because a student can do a math problem, does not mean they understand the meaning behind their actions. Examinations are important to consider, as they may encourage learning in a disconnected fashion.

3 – Readiness for Learning

INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT
At each stage of development, a child has a characteristic way of viewing the world and explaining it to themselves.

http://cdn2.themis-media.com/media/global/movies/player/flowplayer.commercial-3.2.5.swf

Increased emphasis on experimentation in the 16th and 17th century marked the emergence of modern science from its roots in natural philosophy. For the first time, observation was used to correct errors in theory. When errors that were based in theoretical or religious basis were corrected, the need for a systematic method of observation became a central feature of science. Before the 17th century, appeals were based on passive observation of ongoing systems rather than on observation of what happens after a system is deliberately changed. Also, early experimenters realized the desirability of controlling extraneous influences that might limit or bias observation. Controls in nature were hard to come by, so random assignment and control groups were founded.

Cause is a reciprocal relationship between two variables that cause each other. Locke – that which produces any simple of complex idea, we denote by the general name cause, and that which is produced, effect.

ins condition – an insufficient by non-redundant part of an unnecessary but sufficient condition. Lighting a match may be a way to start a fire, but other conditions are also necessary.

Counterfactual is something contrary to fact. An effect is the difference between what did happens and what would have happened.

A casual relationship exists if 1) the cause preceded the effect 2) the cause was related to the effect, and 3) we can find no plausible alternative explanation for the effect other than the cause.

Correlation does not prove causation. We may not know what variable came first nor whether alternative explanations for the presumed effect exist. Simple correlation does not indicate which variable came first. There can sometimes be a third variable, called confound, that effects the data.

Experiments explore effects of things that can be manipulated. Non-manipulable events or attributes cannot be causes in experiments because we cannot deliberately vary them to see what then happens.

Analouge experiments are those that manipulate an agent that is similar to the cause of interest. Past events, which are normally nonmanipulable, sometimes constitute a natural experiment.

While some experiments start with a manipulation of a treatment, others start with the observed result and exploration into the causes.

Casual description – describing the consequences attributable to deliberately varying a treatment. Clarification of the mechanisms through which and the conditions under which that casual relationship holds is the causal explanation. Explanatory knowledge then offers clues about how to fix the problem. The benefit of causal explanation helps elucidate its priority and prestige in all sciences and helps explain why, once a novel and important causal relationship is discovered, the bulk of basic scientific effort turns towards explaining why and how it happens. Molar and molecular causation looks at the various parts of a cause.

Many causal explanations consist of chains of descriptive causal links in which one event causes the next. Experiments help to test the links. Experiments also help distinguish between the validity of competing explanatory theories. Some experiments test whether a descriptive causal relationship varies in strength or direction under Condition A versus Condition B (then the condition is a moderator variable that explains the conditions under which the effect holds). Experiments also add quantitative or qualitative observations of the links in the explanatory chain (mediator variables) to generate and study explanations for the descriptive causal effect.

The common attribute in all experiments is the control of the treatment.

Randomized experiment promises control over extraneous sources of variation without requiring the physical isolation of the lab. Various treatments being observed are assigned units by change. Any outcome differences that are observed between those groups at the end of the study are likely to be due to treatment and not to differences between the groups that already existed at the start of the study.

A true experiment is any study in which an independent variable is deliberately manipulated and a dependent variable is assessed.

Quasi-experiment – to test descriptive causal hypotheses about manipulable causes, such as frequent presence of control groups and pretest measures. They lack random assignment. Assignment to conditions is by means of self-selection, by which units choose treatment for themselves, by mean of administrator selection or otherwise. The researcher must enumerate alternative explanations one by one, decide which are plausible, and then use logic, design and measurement to assess whether each one is operating in a way that might explain the observed effect.

It is neither feasible nor desirable to rule out all possible alternative interpretations of causal relations. Instead only plausible alternatives constitute major focus. Focus on plausibility is a double edge sword: reduces the range of alternatives to be considered in quasi-experimental work and also leaves the resulting causal inference vulnerable to the discovery that an implausible-seeming alternative may later emerge as a likely causal agent.

Natural experiment – naturally-occurring contrast between a treatment and a comparison condition.

Correlational design, passive observational design, and non-experimental design refer to situations in which a presumed cause and effect are identified and measured but in which other structural features of experiments are missing. Design elements such as pretests and control groups from which researchers might construct a useful counterfactual inference.

The strength of experimentation is its ability to illuminate casual inference. The weakness is doubt about the extent to which that relationship generalizes. Most experiments are highly localized and particularistic.

Construct validity generalizations – inferences about the constructs that research operations represent

External validity generalizations – inferences about whether the causal relationship holds over variation in persons, settings, treatment, and measurement variables.

Two informal, purposive sampling methods are sometimes useful:
purposive sampling of heterogeneous instances – aim is to include instances chosen deliberately to reflect diversity on presumptively important dimensions, even though the sample is not formally random.
purposive sampling of typical instances – aim is to explicate the kinds of units, treatments, observations, and settings to which one most wants to generalize and then to select at least one instance of each class that is impressionistically similar to the class mode.

Scientists make causal generalizations in their work by using 5 closely related principles:
1) Surface Similarity – assess the apparent similarities between study operations and the prototypical characteristics of the target of generalizations.
2) Ruling Out Irrelevancies – identify things that are irrelevant because they do not change a generalization
3) Making Discriminations – clarify key discrimination that limit generalizations
4) Interpolation and Extrapolation – interpolations to unsampled values within the range of the sampled instances, and explore extrapolations beyond the sampled range.
5) Causal Explanation – develop and test explanatory theories about the pattern of effects, causes, and meditational processes that are essential to the transfer of casual relationships.

Experiments yield hypothetical and fallible knowledge that is often dependent no context and imbued with many unstated theoretical assumptions. Some limitations of science stem from scientists tend to notice evidence that confirms their preferred hypotheses and overlook contradictory evidence. They make routine cognitive errors of judgement and have limited capacity to process large amounts of data. They react to peer pressures and social role pressures.

Design Factors for educationally effective animations and simulations
Jan Plass, Bruce Homer, Elizabeth Hayward

When designing a simulation, the following factors must be considered: educational objectives, content, learner characteristics, educational settings, plans and for curricular integration in order to determine if the information should be represented as static visualization, dynamic visualization, or interactive dynamic visualization. Then there are design choices such as information design, interaction design, what controls and navigation tools, and what kind of scaffolds used. Hoeffler and Leutner revealed a medium sized overall advantage of dynamic over static visualizations. Dynamic are more effective when they are of representational rather than decorative nature. There was a larger benefit of dynamic over static visualization when the target knowledge was procedural motor control knowledge than procedural or declarative knowledge.

Cognitive processing of the visual stimulus – sensory of the eye > thalamus > primary visual cortex of the occipital lobe > amygdala

Pre-cognitive emotional and behavioral response – signals > thalamus > amygdala

Objects compete at a neuronal level for representation and processing. Attention and perception are regulated by both automatic bottom-up processes (perceptual properties of objects, such as contrast and visual uniqueness) and voluntary, top-down processes (intentional and based on perceiver’s knowledge, goals and expectations).

Initial neural processing takes place in the primary visual cortex, specializing in processing information about static and moving objects and pattern recognition, analyzing objects’ spatial frequency, direction, speed, orientation, and motion. Secondary visual cortex specializes in motion, color, and form. The ventral system consists of areas of the cortex located in the inferior temporal lobe, related to object properties, such as form and color of the signal. The dorsal system, consisting of the parietal lobe, processes information related to spatial properties.

Visual mental representations of the world that are constructed based on prior knowledge, cultural conventions, and stimuli perceived through our other senses.

Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning – learners first select relevant visual and verbal information from the stimulus, organize that information into coherent verbal and visual mental representations, and then integrate these mental representations with one another and prior knowledge.

Integrated Model of Text and Picture Comprehension – process theory that results in the construction of mental models and of propositional internal representations.

Multimedia Principle – comprehension and transfer are enhanced when text is accompanied by pictures compared to when text is presented alone.

Modality Principle – when presenting text and visualizations together, there is higher cognitive load and less comprehension of the material when the text information is presented verbally, as on-screen text, as compared with the text aurally.

Conjoint retention hypothesis – visualizations are more effective when they are presented before rather than after accompanying text.

Types of dynamic representations : time-persistent, expressing the relation between at least one variable and time; time-implicit, showing a range of values with no specific time frame; time-singular, displaying one or more variables at a single point in time.

Cueing – addition of design elements that direct the learner’s attention to important aspects of the learning material. Visual cueing can aid in the reduction of resource intensive searching a learner might perform. Designers should: make the educationally most important aspects of the animation the visually most salient, or use cueing to direct learners’ attention to critical information.

Color coding -used to highlight important features and attributes of visual displays results in enhanced learning. It can be used to emphasize key design features and draw connections. Color-coding techniques for integrating multimedia information may work to eliminate problems with the split-attention effect. They also likely supported learners search strategies.

Integrated Model of Text and Picture Comprehension – typology of signs developed in semiotics, distinguishes among depictive presentations, such as icons or images, and descriptive representations, such as written or spoken language.

Rieber found that graphical feedback led to higher performance than textual feedback on tests of implicit learning through computer-game-like tasks, though only in some cases of explicit learning through traditional text-based questions.

Another study indicated that pictorial (iconic) representations reduced the extraneous load compared to the written (symbolic) information, freeing cognitive resources and allowing students to solve complex tasks. Adding icons improved the overall understanding of the simulation under high but not low cognitive load conditions.

Learning is facilitated best when multiple representations in interactive visualizations are dynamically linked and integrated with one another. Dynamic representations facilitate learning when these representations provide complementary processes or information, when one representation, or when learners are engaged in comparing or contrasting multiple representations to construct understanding.

Integrated and dynamically linked condition scored significantly better than those in the separate, non-linked condition, though there is no significant difference between the separate dynamically-linked condition and other conditions.

Control of the pacing/sequencing. Three levels of interactivity: control of the information delivery, manipulation of the content, and control of the representation. From the learning perspective, functional interactivity, learners’ behavior and actions, and cognitive interactivity.

Segmenting principle – comprehension is better when they can control the advance of the presentation from one segment to the next rather than continuous. Allows the user to prevent redundant information.

Guided-discovery principle – used in discovery based learning in multimedia content. Guidance can be: domain specific explanations, direct advice on when to perform certain actions, explanations of domain information, monitoring tools that aid in storing information.

Manipulation principle -learning from visualizations is improved when learners are able to manipulate the content of a dynamic visualization compared to not. increases mental effort by heightened degree of activity and engagement in the learning process.

Worked examples should be accompanied by traditional problem-solving practice exams.

Shadish, W.R., Cook, T., & Campbell, D.T. (2002). Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Designs for Generalized Causal Inference. New York: Houghton Mifflin. chapter 1

Review
Plass, J.L., Homer, B.D., Milne, C., Jordan, T., Kalyuga, S., Kim, M., & Lee, H.J. (2009). Design Factors for Effective Science Simulations: Representation of Information. International Journal of Gaming and Computer-Mediated Simulations, 1(1), 16–35.

Plass, J.L., Homer, B., Milne, C., Jordan, T., et al. (2010). An Efficacy Study on the Integration of Optimized Simulations Into the High School Chemistry Curriculum. Paper presented at AERA 2010.

Optional Reading (Required for Doctoral Students)
Shadish, W.R., Cook, T., & Campbell, D.T. (2002). Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Designs for Generalized Causal Inference. New York: Houghton Mifflin. chapters 2–8.

Additional Resources (Suggested for Doctoral Students)
Shadish, W.R. (2002). Revisiting Field Experimentation: Field Notes for the Future. Psychological Methods, 7(1), 3-18.

Role of Guidance, Reflection, and Interactivity in an Agent-based Multimedia Game
Roxana Moreno, Richard Mayer

Guidance in the form of explanatory feedback produced a higher transfer scores, few incorrect answers, and greater reduction of misconceptions during problem solving. Reflection in the form of having student give explanations for their answers did not affect learning.

Guidance – role of explanatory feedback, in which a pedagogical agent provides principle-based explanations for correct answers during a problem-solving session

Reflection – role of a simplified version of elaborative interrogation, in which a pedagogical agent asks the learner to provide an explanation for an answer during a problem-solving session.

Interactivity – implemented as asking the learner to give a solution to a problem
reflection – implemented as asking the learner to explain why the answer is correct
feedback – the agent telling the learner whether the selected answer is correct
guidance – agent explain why the selected answer is or is not correct

Meaningful learning occurs when a learner activity constructs a coherent knowledge representation in working memory. The learner interacts meaningfully with the multimedia materials, including fostering cognitive processes of selecting relevant information, organizing that information into coherent representations, and integrating these representations with existing knowledge. The learner must engage with the cognitive process of selecting relevant aspects of the images and words included in the multimedia presentation. The learner must also activate relevant prior knowledge, integrate the incoming material with prior knowledge, and organize the incoming material in a coherent structure.

In a pure discovery environment, the role of the agent may be limited to providing students with minimum amount of information. It has been argued that discovery methods facilitate active learning by allowing students to explore, manipulate, and test hypotheses. Confusion can lead to misconceptions, particularly true with novices, who lack proper schemas to guide them in the selection of relevant new information. Research has shown that improved learning occurs by asking students to answer “why” questions about the information they have just read. Comprehension is enhanced by stimulating the inferences made about the textual content. There is a question whether students learn more deeply when they are asked to produce answers rather than simply receive the correct answer from the agent. Interactivity may activate some of the cognitive processes required for meaningful learning.

Groups presented with the agent’s explanatory feedback gave significantly more correct answers on the transfer tests than those presented solely with information on the correctness of their answers. The guidance effect in agent-based multimedia is when students receive better transfer scores, give more correct explanations for their choices, and change their wrong answers to right answers significantly more when the agent provides guidance in the form of explanatory feedback rather than when the agent provides correction alone. Groups that were asked to explain why they had chosen the respective plant parts did not differ in their recall of general information about the plant library from those that were not. There was no main effect for reflection on program ratings; no evidence was found for reflection effect.

On the second experiment, to test explanatory feedback on low-experience learners, no interaction was found between interactivity and reflection for program ratings or close-transfer tests. There was a significant interaction between interactivity and reflection for retention and far-transfer measures, which was important to the prediction. For noninteractive learning conditions, students who learned with reflective techniques remembered significantly more of the plant library. For interactive conditions, there was no significant differences on retention and far-transfer scores. Interactivity helped students’ retention when learning from nonreflective versions of the program, and reflection helped students’ retention and far transfer when learning from noninteractive versions of the program. A seemingly contradictory finding was that students who learned with no interactivity and reflection outperformed those who learned with interactivity and reflection on tests of far problem-solving transfer. Possible explanation could be taking into consideration what kind of information students were asked to elaborate on.

Experiment 3, when students were asked to reflect on correct problem-solving answers, they outperformed the rest of the groups on retention and far-transfer measures. Tests indicated that students who were asked to elaborate on the program solutions had higher proportion of correct explanations than those who were asked to elaborate on their own solutions to the problems. Students must be asked to reflect on correct models of the new information. Novice students who are asked to give explanations about their own models during problem solving may be hurt by consolidating an incorrect model for the scientific system to be learned.

Adding reflection to an interactive environment does not significantly improve their learning, presumably because interactivity already primes the cognitive processes of organizing and integrating. Noninteractive multimedia significantly increases their retention and far transfer with reflection techniques. A seemingly contradictory finding was that the far-transfer scores of the group of students who learned with reflection and no interactivity were significantly superior to the group of students who learned with reflection and interactivity. Reflection alone does not foster deeper learning unless it is based on correct information.

Possible roles of agents:
- designers of agent-based games should incorporate structured guidance rather than rely solely on pure discovery
- additional cognitive role that pedagogical agents may play in learning environments that lack interactivity is to promote students’ reflection via elaborate interrogation techniques for correct answers.

Can a self-efficacy-based intervention decrease burnout, increase engagement, and enhance performance? A quasi-experimental study
Edgar Breso, Wilmar B. Schaufeli, Marisa Salanova

Based on the Social Cognitive Theory, the study explored cognitive-behavioral intervention on stress, engagement, self-efficacy, and burnout. Past experience was shown to have a strong effect on self-efficacy.

Self-efficacy – a person’s judgement of their capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to attain predetermined types of performances. Concerned with the estimation of what one can attain with the skills one currently possesses. Efficacy beliefs can be altered and promoted in several ways: by mastery experiences, vicarious learning, social persuasion, and specific psychological states. Negative affective reactions can themselves further lower perceptions of capability and activate a stress-generating mechanism that reinforces the probability of the inadequate performance they fear. Lack of efficacy seems to play an antecedent role in the burnout process rather than comprising an integral element of the burnout syndrome.

Engagement – a positive, fulfilling, and motivational state of mind related to students’ tasks that is characterized by vigor, dedication, and absorption. It has been posited that burnout results from successive self-efficacy crises.

Intervention was provided to one of three groups of students through a workshop and one-on-one sessions.

Comparing to the two control groups, intervened group presented as expected higher levels of self-efficacy, higher levels of engagement, and higher levels of performance. One aspect not controlled for was the coping mechanisms the stressed-control group used to deal with their stress. The intervention did have the expected effect on self-efficacy, but also for engagement, but not burnout. Self reports are considered to be influenced by subjective factors, well-being, and individual differences.

Flay, B.R. (1986). Efficacy and effectiveness trials (and other phases of research) in the development of health promotion programs. Preventive Medicine, 14, 451-474.

Moreno, R.,& Mayer R.E. (2005). Role of Guidance, Reflection, and Interactivity in an Agent-based Multimedia Game. Journal of Educational Psychology, 97, 117-128.

Plass, J.L., Goldman, R., Flanagan, M., & Perlin, K. (2009). RAPUNSEL: Improving Self-efficacy and Self-esteem with an Educational Computer Game. In Kong, S.C., Ogata, H., Arnseth, H.C., Chan, C.K.K., Hirashima, T., Klett, F., Lee, J.H.M., Liu, C.C., Looi, C.K., Milrad, M., Mitrovic, A., Nakabayashi, K., Wong, S.L., Yang, S.J.H. (eds.) (2009). Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Computers in Education [CDROM]. Hong Kong: Asia-Pacific Society for Computers in Education.

Optional Reading (Required for Doctoral Students)
Kerr, D., Chung, G., & Iseli, M. (2011). The Feasibility of Using Cluster Analysis to Examine Log Data From Educational Video Games. CRESST Report 790, April 2011.

Review on psychophysiological methods in game research
J. Matias Kivikangas, Inger Ekman, Guillaume Chanel, Simo Jarvela, Ben Cowley, Mikko Salminen, Pentti Henttonen, Niklas Ravaja

Best results for psychophysiological results are with controlled experiments, large participant samples and specialized equipment. The research is defined as using physiological signals to study psychological phenomena. Statisticians advise a sample size of at least 28 is needed to reliably detect a large effect size.

Physical reactions are part of the processes that underlie the (player’s) game experience. Physiological measures can provide more objective and precise information of the player’s emotional and cognitive processes than is available by subjective methods. Main measurement benefits can be recorded automatically and continuously (in real-time) without disturbing the participant’s natural behavior. It can also detect responses smaller than what the human eye can detect.

A significant part of the game experience comes from emotional reactions. There are a few basic dimensions: valence (hedonic tone) and arousal (bodily activation). EMG can be used for assessing positive and negative emotional valence. Benefits of EMG include automation, objectively, temporal precision, and detection of even minuscule responses. Negative facts include sensitive to noise, both of technical origins, and from confounding sources of muscle activity. EDA (GSR) disadvantages are that it is slow to pick up, but less sensitive to noise and less ambiguous than facial muscle and heart activity. Cardiac activity is negative due to the fact is it created by many different bodily processes. The index both valence and arousal, but also attention, cognitive effort, stress, and orientation relax during media viewing.

Attention causes both reflex or parasympathetic activation. EEG provides data on the brain’s electrical activity, and the signal is examined for event-related potentials (ERP).

Other methods of psychophysiological measurements include cortisol levels from participants to test stress, respiration for studying emotions or attention, eye gaze tracking and pupil size measurements for investigating arousal, cognitive effort, or attention level and its direction, MEG/fMRI for brain activity that might be associated with attention, interest, and emotions.

Social game experience has unique results. Arousal and positive valence are higher when playing against a friend. Human-vs-computer play lacks the social aspect or because the human-vs-computer game might simply involve easier challenges and/or be otherwise functionally different to a human-vs-human game. The different between cooperative and competitive games has been investigated. Background music also plays a role into higher arousal and performance. Similar effects were found with game sounds and background color.

Death of a player’s own character seemed to cause a positive affect, whereas killing an opposing character in an FPS seemed to elicit a negative reaction. Death of a player’s character elicits a positive reaction regardless of the opponent, whereas the response to a kill is positive only when the opponent is human.

Psychophysiological responses to different levels of cognitive and physical workload in haptic interaction
Doman Novak, Matjaz Mihelj, Marko Munih

Four responses recorded in this study are physical responses: heart rate, skin conductance, respiratory rate and skin temperature. Changes in a persons physical response are general modulated by the sympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system and lead to the body experiencing what is commonly termed stress. Causative conditions change and the body can recover, the parasympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system reduces the body’s stress level in an attempt to revert the body back to its normal state. The question is how possible is it to use psychophysiological responses to differentiate between different levels of cognitive workload at different levels of physical workload.

For both low and high physical load, mean respiratory rate showed a significant difference between under-challenging and the other two conditions. Final skin temperature and respiratory rate variability showed a significant difference between the challenging and over-challenging conditions. Mean respiratory rate has been shown to be an indicator of cognitive workload and arousal. A possible explanation is that it decreases as cognitive workload increases, but increases again as the challenge becomes too much to handle. Final skin temperature only significantly decreases from baseline in the overchallenging condition, not in the other conditions. Thus, it might be a good indicator of overworked. Heart rate has been used as a psychophysiological indicator in many studies, but the results suggest that in haptic interaction, it is primarily influenced by physical load. It appears that the increase in heart rate due to physical workload can completely overshadow any psychological effects.

For both levels of physical load, mean respiratory rate showed a significant difference between the under-challenging condition and the other two conditions, while respiratory rate variability and final skin temperature showed a difference between challenging and overchallenging conditions. Skin conductance was useful for low physical loads, but vulnerable to the effects of high physical load.

Kivikangas, J.M. et al. (2010). Review on psychophysiological methods in game research. Paper presented at Nordic DiGRA 2010.

Optional Reading (paper by Guest Speaker Mathieu Roy)
Roy, M., Mailhot, J.-P., Gosselin, N., Paquette, S., & Peretz, I. (2009). Modulation of the startle reflex by pleasant and unpleasant music. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 71, 37–42.

Design Factors for educationally effective animations and simulations
Jan Plass, Bruce Homer, Elizabeth Hayward

When designing a simulation, the following factors must be considered: educational objectives, content, learner characteristics, educational settings, plans and for curricular integration in order to determine if the information should be represented as static visualization, dynamic visualization, or interactive dynamic visualization. Then there are design choices such as information design, interaction design, what controls and navigation tools, and what kind of scaffolds used. Hoeffler and Leutner revealed a medium sized overall advantage of dynamic over static visualizations. Dynamic are more effective when they are of representational rather than decorative nature. There was a larger benefit of dynamic over static visualization when the target knowledge was procedural motor control knowledge than procedural or declarative knowledge.

Cognitive processing of the visual stimulus – sensory of the eye > thalamus > primary visual cortex of the occipital lobe > amygdala

Pre-cognitive emotional and behavioral response – signals > thalamus > amygdala

Objects compete at a neuronal level for representation and processing. Attention and perception are regulated by both automatic bottom-up processes (perceptual properties of objects, such as contrast and visual uniqueness) and voluntary, top-down processes (intentional and based on perceiver’s knowledge, goals and expectations).

Initial neural processing takes place in the primary visual cortex, specializing in processing information about static and moving objects and pattern recognition, analyzing objects’ spatial frequency, direction, speed, orientation, and motion. Secondary visual cortex specializes in motion, color, and form. The ventral system consists of areas of the cortex located in the inferior temporal lobe, related to object properties, such as form and color of the signal. The dorsal system, consisting of the parietal lobe, processes information related to spatial properties.

Visual mental representations of the world that are constructed based on prior knowledge, cultural conventions, and stimuli perceived through our other senses.

Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning – learners first select relevant visual and verbal information from the stimulus, organize that information into coherent verbal and visual mental representations, and then integrate these mental representations with one another and prior knowledge.

Integrated Model of Text and Picture Comprehension – process theory that results in the construction of mental models and of propositional internal representations.

Multimedia Principle – comprehension and transfer are enhanced when text is accompanied by pictures compared to when text is presented alone.

Modality Principle – when presenting text and visualizations together, there is higher cognitive load and less comprehension of the material when the text information is presented verbally, as on-screen text, as compared with the text aurally.

Conjoint retention hypothesis – visualizations are more effective when they are presented before rather than after accompanying text.

Types of dynamic representations : time-persistent, expressing the relation between at least one variable and time; time-implicit, showing a range of values with no specific time frame; time-singular, displaying one or more variables at a single point in time.

Cueing – addition of design elements that direct the learner’s attention to important aspects of the learning material. Visual cueing can aid in the reduction of resource intensive searching a learner might perform. Designers should: make the educationally most important aspects of the animation the visually most salient, or use cueing to direct learners’ attention to critical information.

Color coding -used to highlight important features and attributes of visual displays results in enhanced learning. It can be used to emphasize key design features and draw connections. Color-coding techniques for integrating multimedia information may work to eliminate problems with the split-attention effect. They also likely supported learners search strategies.

Integrated Model of Text and Picture Comprehension – typology of signs developed in semiotics, distinguishes among depictive presentations, such as icons or images, and descriptive representations, such as written or spoken language.

Rieber found that graphical feedback led to higher performance than textual feedback on tests of implicit learning through computer-game-like tasks, though only in some cases of explicit learning through traditional text-based questions.

Another study indicated that pictorial (iconic) representations reduced the extraneous load compared to the written (symbolic) information, freeing cognitive resources and allowing students to solve complex tasks. Adding icons improved the overall understanding of the simulation under high but not low cognitive load conditions.

Learning is facilitated best when multiple representations in interactive visualizations are dynamically linked and integrated with one another. Dynamic representations facilitate learning when these representations provide complementary processes or information, when one representation, or when learners are engaged in comparing or contrasting multiple representations to construct understanding.

Integrated and dynamically linked condition scored significantly better than those in the separate, non-linked condition, though there is no significant difference between the separate dynamically-linked condition and other conditions.

Control of the pacing/sequencing. Three levels of interactivity: control of the information delivery, manipulation of the content, and control of the representation. From the learning perspective, functional interactivity, learners’ behavior and actions, and cognitive interactivity.

Segmenting principle – comprehension is better when they can control the advance of the presentation from one segment to the next rather than continuous. Allows the user to prevent redundant information.

Guided-discovery principle – used in discovery based learning in multimedia content. Guidance can be: domain specific explanations, direct advice on when to perform certain actions, explanations of domain information, monitoring tools that aid in storing information.

Manipulation principle -learning from visualizations is improved when learners are able to manipulate the content of a dynamic visualization compared to not. increases mental effort by heightened degree of activity and engagement in the learning process.

Worked examples should be accompanied by traditional problem-solving practice exams.

Mayer – Chapter 32 – Virtual Reality

virtual reality – a set of images and sounds produced by a computer, which seem to present a place or a situation that a person can experience or take part in. The simulation may be real or imaginary environments. Explored in real time. The user may interact with the objects and events in the simulation.

Immersion in a virtual environment is measured by the experience of presence described by the user. The user can be partially or totally immersed in the environment.

There are two types of environments: single user (SVE) and collaborative.

Three types of learning activity is supported by virtual environments:
1) constructivist learning through the exploration of prebuilt virtual worlds
2) constructionist learning through students creating or modifying virtual worlds
3) situated learning through interactive role play in shared or collaborative virtual environments.

Three particular areas of application include: spatial cognition, life skills rehearsal, and social skills training.

Some virtual worlds help users to express themselves, where in other cases they would not have been in the situation to do so.

Limitations
- exploring was not enough, students needed guidance, feedback to actions, and collaboration
- students needed to understand how the virtual environment relates to the real world and apply their learning
- promotion of self-directed learning, however necessary for the subject to actively explore or sufficient to direct another individual or purely watch
- design should be directed by pedagogy, not technology

Participatory learning environments (PLEs) allow learners to build an understanding through collaborative construction of an artifact or shareable product.

Optimizing Cognitive Load for Learning from Computer-Based Science Simulations
Hyunjeong Lee, Jan Plass, Bruce Homer

Computer simulations are interactive software programs in which individuals explore new situations and complex relationships of dynamic variables that model real life. Learners can formulate hypotheses about the simulation environment and test the hypotheses by changing parameters in the simulations and observing the way in which the simulation responds to these changes. They are especially promising for learning complex scenarios, problem-solving tasks, and the study of phenomena that are not visible to the human eye.

Learning describes the steps involved in the processing of the visual representations as first selecting the relevant information from the visual display, then organizing the selected information into coherent mental representations in working memory, and finally integrating these mental representations with existing knowledge. Visual complexity – the number of subcomponents an image contains: the more subcomponents, the more complex.

The method of separating the visually represented content of the high complexity into two or more displays that present this content in several low complexity portions is a calibration on semantic level that may provide a scaffold to help learners sequence the processing of the materials but may require additional cognitive load to connect the information from the separated displays into one mental model.

Pictorial representations reduced extraneous cognitive load compared with the written information, freeing cognitive resources and allowing students to solve complex tasks.

There was both higher levels of comprehension and better performance on the transfer test when the content was separated into two successive screens rather than displayed on one screen. Learners with lower prior knowledge did not benefit from this method of load reduction as much as learners with higher prior knowledge. Display of variable controls near the related variable rather than clustered together aided in comprehension.

Overall there was better performance for high vs low prior-knowledge learners and significant differences between low and high prior-knowledge learners for specific measures that reduce either intrinsic or extraneous load. Reversal effect was only for low intrinsic load materials. When the complexity of the displays is low, extraneous load-reducing measures benefit learners with lower prior knowledge only and hinder learners with high prior knowledge.

Gameplaying for Maths Learning

Fengfeng Ke and Barbara Grabowski

An experiment demonstrated the effects of team play in the realm of mathematics. Johnson and Johnson stated that cooperative learning in small groups of students working together maximises everyone’s overall learning. The study focused on the Teams-Games-Tournament technique, which focuses on anchored, cooperative learning. This technique uses three elements: teams of students, games of skill played during the weekly tournaments, and tournaments where students represent their teams and compete individually against students from other teams.

Students were provided a pre-post-test examining math performance and attitude towards math. A variety of problems were tested within the games. The Games Skills Arithmetic Test (GSAT) is a 30-question multiple choice exam to measure math skills. Tapia’s Attitudes Towards Maths Inventory (ATMI) was used for measurement of self-confidence, value, enjoyment, and motivation. The students were divided into 3 groups: TGT groups, interpersonal competitive play, and no-games.

Results showed that students who played the games performed significantly higher than the no-games posttest. Cooperative gameplay promoted significantly more positive math attitudes. Economically disadvantaged students in cooperative play showed more positive math attitudes than either of the other two conditions.
Learning methods should promote both group rewards and individual accountability. This was made possible in this study by showing points of each group, but having the individual’s scores represented by a non-related number known only to the student. The results recommend that gaming within meaningful learning environments or tasks promote learning.

Design Factors for Effective Science Simulations: Representation of Information

Addition of iconic representations to simulations can help novice learners interpret the visual simulation interface and improve cognitive learning outcomes as well as learners’ self-efficacy. Adding icons improved learners’ general self-efficacy.

One limitation is working memory. Working memory resources of intrinsic cognitive load and extraneous cognitive load are two competitive resources. Verbal information consists of discreet symbolic representations that are processed sequentially. Visual information is inherently relation and its elements can be encoded simultaneously.

Low prior knowledge learners benefit from static images, where high prior knowledge learners benefit from more dynamic visualizations. Simulations have the potential to allow learners to understand scientific phenomena and transfer knowledge to novel situations better than other visual representations. Cognitive load changes in the form of representation, position of visual entities, and inclusion of visual components, which add to the visual complexity.

In science education, important information is often presented visually. Icons (depictive representations) are most basic and rely on physical resemblance to convey meaning. Symbols (descriptive) are abstract, arbitrary, and rely on social conventions for meaning. A learner’s developmental state affects how a sign is actually interpreted. Icons should be incorporated into the design of visual materials for novice learners who possess low prior knowledge in the domain. Adding icons provides learners with representations that they can better relate to their prior knowledge. Where written and pictorial instructions were equally effective for building simple molecules, pictorial was stronger for building complex molecules. Feedback in simulations is more effective when it is provided in graphical rather than textual form. Cognitive load increases when novice learners have to interpret the meaning of symbolic representations that implicitly assume prior domain-specific knowledge.

Self-efficacy, or the learners’ predictive judgement of their efficacy of performing a task, relates to self-regulation, and is a predictor of learning success.

The addition of iconic representations of key information in the simulation did not lead to an increase in either the comprehension of the principles of kinetic theory or the transfer of this knowledge to new situations. There were increases in self-efficacy, though the differences were not statistically significant. Methods to reduce extraneous load were only necessary when the overall load of the learning task was high. Prior research has shown that processing of multiple representations that were dynamically linked placed high demands on learners’ cognitive processing.

Comprehension test results showed that adding icons increased learning for all learners, independent of their prior knowledge or spatial ability. Low prior knowledge especially benefited from the simulations with added icons. Learners with high spatial ability overall comprehended the simulation better than low spatial ability.

Adding iconic representations resulted in an overall improvement of comprehension of the content of simulation. Especially learners with low prior knowledge benefited from the added icons. Adding icons also improved their perception of their own ability to learn. Learners’ prior knowledge needs to be considered in selecting the representation type of key information in the simulation. Comprehension was improved when iconic representations of key information were added to the simulation display, even though this meant that the visual complexity of this display increased.

Contrasts in student engagement, meaning-making, dislikes, and challenges in a discovery-based program of game design learning
Rebecca Reynolds, Idit Harel Caperton

Globaloria was explored for its efficiency and student’s opinions. It was collected via open-ended questions in an online survey, and induction coding was used for analysis. Research questions to be addressed were discovery based learning, self-determination theory, and productive failure phenomenon.

Outcomes of collaborative creative design/game-making activities have shown progress in meaning-making, appropriation of, commitment to, and sustained engagement in a given creative project, and computational and systems-oriented thinking, deeper understanding of subject, and affective and motivational changes related to self-regulation and self-efficacy.

Goals for the program were self-lead learning, peer-to-peer learning, expert-guided learning, and co-learning. Theory applied constructionist, situated learning and social learning systems principles. It was constructed from closely guided instruction and inquiry-based learning, and discovery-based learning strategies in its co-learning model.

Six contemporary learning abilities were focused on for creation

• Invention, progression, and completion of an original digital project idea
• Project-based learning and project management in wiki-based, networked environment
• Posting, publishing and distributing digital media
• Social-based learning, reflection, participation, and exchange
• Information-based inquiry, purposeful web research, and online exploration
• Surfing websites and web applications to experiment and tinker with tools and games

The self-determination theory states three primary constructs that underlie intrinsically motivated human behavior are the innate needs for: competence, autonomy, and social relatedness.

Students reported positive reports about the content they were learning in the class. Most of the self-directed learning responses are positive. Criticism of minimally guided instruction was maintained fro the experience of the teachers and the students involved with the study.

Mayer, R.E. (Ed.) (2005). Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning. New York: Cambridge. [Chapters 32, 33]
Plass, J.L., Homer, B., & Hayward, E. (2009). Design Factors for Educationally Effective Animations and Simulations. Journal of Computing in Higher Education, 21(1), 31-61.
Plass, J.L., Homer, B.D., Milne, C., Jordan, T., Kalyuga, S., Kim, M., & Lee, H.J. (2009). Design Factors for Effective Science Simulations: Representation of Information. International Journal of Gaming and Computer-Mediated Simulations, 1(1), 16-35.
Lee, H., Plass, J.L., & Homer, B.D. (2006). Optimizing cognitive load for learning from computer-based science simulations. Journal of Educational Psychology, 89, 902-913.
Hoeffler, T., & Leutner, D. (2007). Instructional animation versus static pictures: A meta-analysis. Learning and Instruction, 17, 722 -738.

Somatic marker hypothesis provides a systems-level neuro-anatomical and cognitive framework for decision making and the influence on it by emotion. The orbitofrontal cortex represents one of the critical structures in a neural system subserving decision making. The hypothesis proposes that a defect in the emotion and feeling plays an important role in impaired decision making.

Assumptions include: human reasoning and decision making depend on many levels of neural operation, some of which are conscious and overtly cognitive, cognitive operations, regardless of their content, depend on support processes such as attention, working memory and emotion, and that reasoning and decision making depend on the availability of knowledge about situations, actors, and options for actions and outcomes.

Somatic markers normally help constrain the decision-making that space manageable for logic-base, cost benefit analysis.

Experiment was created that included four piles of cards, two of which had higher payoff but also higher punishment, and two that had low payoff and low punishment. In the end, the low payoff would come out profitable in the end.

Patients with prior damage had difficulty learning from past actions. While they understood what was going on, they did not act upon this knowledge. Skin conductance showed low anticipatory response to the event compared to normal and control participants. Adults who identified as high-risk tended to take more cards from the high payoff piles than other adults. It was demonstrated that risk-taking behavior and impaired decision are not synonymous.

It is established that memory of facts is improved when the facts are connected with an emotion. Though under extreme conditions, emotions can impair memory. thE dorsolateral sector has been linked to working memory. Working memory is not dependent on the intactness of decision making. Decision making does seem to be influenced by the intactness of impairment of working memory. Working memory and decision making were asymmetrically dependent. The amygdala is important in the creation of biases and in decision making. The amygdala has been found to be necessary for emotions to improve memory, as well as in the creation of biases and in decision making. Pictures with emotional content showed to have a higher memory curve than neutral images. VM patients were able to use emotional content in order to enhance their memory, suggesting that the mechanism through with emotion modulates decision making is different from that through with emotion modulates memory. Conclusion was that the decision-making impairment of VM patients cannot be explained by a deficit in the recall of emotional curves.

Emotional conditioning included three phases: 1) habituation, 2) conditioning, 3) extinction.

VM frontal patients fail to trigger anticipatory biases is the inability to re-experience the emotional state associated with punishment when recalling previous instances of punishment. Correct emotion recall is weakened in these patients.

The notion of impulsiveness is often linked to the function of the prefrontal cortex. Motor impulsiveness is usually studied under the umbrella of response inhibition. Cognitive impulsiveness can be seen as an inability to delay gratification.

Positive Affect Facilitates Creative Problem Solving
Alice Isen, Kimberly Daubman, Gary Nowicki

Recent research has shown that positive effect can influence the way cognitive martial is organized, and have been tested using three types of tasks (rating, sorting, and word association). There is the tendency to relate and integrate divergent material. The process of bringing together apparently disparate material in a useful or reasonable but unaccustomed way is central to most current conceptualizations of the creative process. On the sorting task, positive-affect subjects tended to group more stimuli together than control, and more items seemed to be related.

Complex context arises from the fact that positive feelings cue and facilitate access to positive material in memory.
Tests regarding positive emotion to materials viewed was provided candy to induce positive emotions prior to viewing.
Subjects in whom positive affect had been induced through viewing a comedy film were more likely to find a creative solution than were subjects who viewed a negative film or subjects in any one of the three neutral-affect conditions. Arousal was not the key factor in this, because exercise prior did not change the result. Thus it may be from humor rather than positive affect that gives rise to the creative problem solving. An atmosphere of interpersonal respect conducive to good self-esteem might be the kind of condition that would promote creativity. Allowing workers to achieve a sense of competence, self-worth, and respect can be helpful. Negative affect neither facilitates nor impairs creativity.

Positive and negative affect may be seen as distinct states, influencing behavior in accord with the thoughts that each brings to mind and the processes that each fosters. Therefore, persons in positive states notice more features of stimuli because of the increased number of interpretations of them. Persons who feel happy may also be likely to structure material in schematic or functional ways.

The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions
Barbara Frederickson

Positive emotions signal optimal functioning, and also produce optimal functioning. Emotions are, by definition, associated with specific action tendencies. Emotions were also evolutionary adaptive: these were among the actions that worked best in getting our ancestors out of life-or-death situations.

Typically, emotions begin with an individual’s assessment of the personal meaning of some antecedent event. Either conscious or unconscious, this appraisal process triggers a cascade of response tendencies manifest across loosely coupled component systems, such as subjective experience, facial expressions and physiological changes. Positive emotions are often confused with positive moods. Emotions differ from moods in that emotion are about some personally meaningful circumstance and are typically short-lived and occupy the foreground of consciousness. Moods are typically free-floating or objectless, more long-lasting, and occupy the background of consciousness.

All positive behavior has been identified as facilitating approach behavior. This gives individuals the tendency to experience mild positive affect frequently, even in neutral contexts. Individuals exhibit the adaptive bias to approach and explore novel objects, people, or situations.

Positive emotions have complementary effect: relative to neutral states and routine action, positive emotions broaden peoples’ momentary thought-action repertoires, widening the array of the thoughts and actions that come to mind. Joy, contentment, interest, love. Childhood play builds educing intellectual resources, by increasing creativity, creating theory of mind, and fueling brain development. Personal resources accrued during states of positive emotions are durable. Through experiences of positive emotions, people transform themselves, becoming more creative, knowledgeable, resilient, socially integrated, and healthy individuals.

The broaden-and-build theory can be drawn from multiple disciplines within psychology. This evidence suggests that positive emotions broaden the scopes of attention, cognition and action, and that they build physical, intellectual, and social resources. It has been documented that people experiencing positive affect show patterns of thought that are notably unusual, flexible, creative, integrative, open to information, and efficient. They have increased preference for variety and accept a broader array of behavioral options. A high activation state of joy and low activation of contentment, each produces a broader attentional scope and thought-action repertoire than does a neutral state. Likewise, fear and anger each produces a narrower attentional scope and thought-action repertoire than does a neutral state.

The theory suggests that positive emotions:
1) broaden people’s attention and thinking
2) undo lingering negative emotional arousal
3) fuel psychological resilience
4) build consequential personal resources
5) trigger upward spirals towards greater well-being in the future
6) seed human flourishing.

Why we play games: Four keys to more emotion without story
Nicole Lazzaro, XEODesign

People play games to create moment-to-moment experiences.
Gameplay was tested through 30 adults, collecting three types of data: video recordings, player questionnaires, and verbal/non-verbal emotional cues.

Criteria for the 4 keys:

What players like most about playing
Creates unique emotion without story
Already present in ultra popular games
Supported by psychology theory and other larger studios

Four keys:
1. Hard fun
Emotions from Meaningful Challenges, Strategies and Puzzles
- experience towards the pursuit of a goal
- rewards progress to creation emotions as frustration or fire
- rewards based on feedback

2. Easy Fun
Grab attention with ambiguity, incompleteness, and detail
- sheer enjoyment of experiencing game activities
- entices to consider options and find out more
- sensations of wonder, awe, and mystery

3. Altered States
Generate emotion with perception, thought, behavior, and other people
- games as therapy
- changes in internal state
- perception, behavior, and thought combine in a social context to produce emotions and other internal sensations
- change from one mental state to another, think/feel something different
- excitement and relief

4. The People Factor
Create opportunities for player competition, cooperation, performance, and spectacle
- play to spend time with friends
- wisecracks and rivalries as players compete
- teamwork and camaraderie as pursue shared goals
- amusement, schadenfreude, naches
- interaction through online chat, spectacle of play (Mario Kart)

Some people stop playing games due to jobs or family responsibilities. Many never played games as adults and find them meaningless. Some don’t like moral themes and violence. Avoid because they are “too addictive”.

Players in groups emote more frequently. Group play adds new behaviors, rituals, and emotions that make games more exciting.

7 Ways to Create More Emotion for People Playing Together
1. Support player to player interaction
2. Put on a spectacle
3. Tools to communicate emotion (colors, emotions)
4. Emotional non-player characters
5. Emotionally expressive tools and objects (offer a range of objects that can represent the player, not just upgrades)
6. Emotion cycles, feedback, chains
7. Save money (test early, test often)

Emotional research, the emphasis on large-N tests of statistical significance is a two-edged sword – it may be useful in obtaining effects when contrasting populations. It obscures individual differences in response patterns which are known to exist in states of arousal and emotion. It is impossible to discern the coordination of multiple-system in emotion when the analytic methods are univariate.

With pattern classification, patterned input variables are transformed so that they are suitable for quantification.

The brow site is known for its role in supporting “positive” emotions from states of disturbance in general. The forehead site was chosen to discriminate fear from both anger and sadness. The periocular and perioral sites both have possible discriminators of anger from both sadness and fear. Electrodes were placed on the left side of the face because of previously reported left-side advantages in EMG-signal intensities.

With the experiment, forehead-site activity was lower in happy trials than in sadness and fear trials. Brow-site activity was lower in happy trials than in sadness, anger, and fear trials. Both periocular and perioral-site activity was higher during happy trials than during sadness, anger, and fear trials. Brow site showed highest activity in the “negative emotion” trials. Various limitations of EMG results are listed on p.633.