Review for the first SIEM Semifinal

1
Review for the first SIEM Semi-final
2
Parameters of the 1st Semi-final

• Will be held during the first half of class on
  April 17 (Thursday).
• Will be about 3 pages of short-answer questions.
• Will be a closed-book exam.
• Will cover chapters in the syllabus from Feb 21
  (Bryant and Zillmann 15) through March 20
  (Reassens and Goldstein 23).
• Will be followed by several class presentations
  and a small amount of lecture material.

3
Zillmann 15Fisch His Basic Argument

• If TV can have negative effects (e.g. increase
  aggression), then it also should have positive
  effects.

4
Educational Programs and Content

• Sesame Street Improves school readiness (e.g.
  alphabet, numbers, conceptual categories, social
  skills).
• Electric Company Improves reading, particularly
  for the low-end
• Square One Attitude towards and uses of math and
  problem-solving
• 3-2-1 Contact Attitude towards and knowledge of
  scientific principles

5
BUT, Learning is specific

• Fisch mentions lots of other programs Mr.
  Wizard, Bill Nye the Science Guy, etc.
• But learning effects tend not to be at the
  Media category level and other factors also
  are operating

6
What are the effects of age, viewing frequency,
and initial performance?
7
Sesame Street Results Summary

• Children gain in sophistication about program
  form with age and experience.
• Children become able to predict when the boring
  bits are going to occur they will avoid boring
  education if they can manage.
• All children gain educationally from watching
  Sesame Street.
• Those who watch more gain more.
• Those who have high ability want to watch more.
• Poor children also gain, particularly if their
  mothers know how to reinforce program content.

8
Raessens 6Pensky The Opening Claims

• Young peoples brains are wired very differently
  due to their having consumed different media.
• There is brain plasticity. I mentioned some of
  that during the discussion of Sesame Street.
• But young peoples brains dont have the capacity
  to greatly outstrip evolution.

9
Digital Natives and Immigrants

• Digital natives grow up on electronic media.
• Digital immigrants learn them later.
• But, are people who learn to browse the Web more
  Web literate than the people who invented the
  Internet, bit-mapped graphices, etc.?

10
Two Modes of Information Processing
11
More Pensky 10 Ways Digital Narratives Differ

• Twitch Speed versus Conventional Speed
• Parallel versus Linear Processing
• Random versus Linear Thinking
• Graphics versus Text First
• Connected versus Stand-Alone
• Payoff versus Patience
• Fantasy versus Reality
• Play versus Work
• Technology as Friend versus Foe
• Attitude

12
What to learn in games

• How procedural
• What declarative
• Why goal
• Where location contingency
• When and whether time contingency

13
Components of Coaching
Imaging Naming
Doing
Motivating
Evaluating
Closing
14
Raessens 9Gunter The Range of Claims

• Game playing displaces contact with other people
  and produces more useful activities and produces
  negative health effects.
• Game playing leads to computer literacy, more
  healthy lifestyles, and learning of academic
  content.
• The truth is likely to be more mixed and more
  complex.

15
Addiction and Time Displacement 4

• In-depth research has indicated, however, that
  although a small proportion of people may show
  signs of game dependency, it is a fairly harmless
  reaction (Shorton, 1989).
• People with addictions to games may have other
  addictions and have common psychological
  profiles. Eliminating one addiction may lead to
  a persons being addicted to something else.

16
Games and Cognitive Effects 1

• Learning Effects
• Computer games can yield positive effects
• But, is that due to the central educational
  content or incidentally due to uses of computer
  software and hardware?
• When educational content is incidental
  (exogenous) to games, people learn little of it.
  The Sesame Street approach is more effective.
• Sometimes both experts and beginners benefit,
  sometimes not (shoulder effects). Sometimes only
  experts gain from instructions (Evolution game).

17
Games and Health 1

• Physical and Psychobiology
• Tendons, muscles and nerves can wear other
  repetitive actions can produce similar effects
• Epileptic seizures probably interaction with
  other variables
• Social Health Issues
• Lack of social contact or not?
• Arcades, homes, multiplayer, etc.
• Social motivations?

18
Zillmann 10Sparks Bandura's Experiments

• Setting lab in Palo Alto
• Sample middle-class kids
• Materials Bobo doll or Rocky and Johnny movies
• Aggressive behavior toy choice, kind of play,
  aggression against an "adult human
• We have covered this sort of thing.

19
Zillmann

• Experiments on Pornography and Sports
• R-rated sex produces high levels of arousal and
  aggression (note the restrictions on emotional
  release)
• Extended pornography viewing produces lower
  inhibition boredom
• Sports viewing produces arousal

20
Lefkowitz Factors Affecting Aggression
21
What to Conclude

• Media violence increases viewer violence
• There are many possible mechanisms
• Learning techniques, desensitization, arousal,
  etc.
• There are lots of other factors family and peer
  relationships.
• There are some mildly studied causes (computer
  games) and unstudied causes (TV news).

22
Zillmann 11Cantor Her Literature Review

• Everybody is frightened at some time.
• A few viewers have nightmares and other signs of
  distress extraneous variables?.
• Some viewers react more extremely when
  fear-inducing media occur at the same time as
  other stress.
• Fear can be conceived of as a response involving
  cognitions, motor behavior, and excitatory
  reactions that, except under extreme conditions,
  prepare the individual to flee from danger.
  college?

23
Stimulus Generalization

• Stimulus Generalization transfer of fear from a
  specific danger to similar situations, etc.
• Fear-inducing factors
• Dangers and injuries
• Distortions of natural forms dogs do this
• Experience of endangerment and fear by others
  empathy, mirror system

24
Developmental Trends

• Young children fear the visual, and fantastic
• Young children respond well to visual
  desensitization, but may not respond well to
  verbal coping e.g. rational-emotive
• Older children and adults fear the
  conceptual/abstract what could happen and
  realistic
• Older children and adults respond well to visual
  desensitization and verbal coping

25
Cantor and Nathanson 2

• News fear most often reacted to stories about
  stranger violence (35), news from abroad (32),
  natural disasters (25), or child victims.
• Younger children were more likely to be
  frightened by natural disaster stories (p lt
  0.001), while older children were reacted more to
  stranger violence (p lt 0.01).
• Younger children were more likely to express
  their fear that similar events would happen to
  them (p lt 0.05).

26
Raessens 10Griffiths Overview

• Games can have positive therapeutic value in many
  areas.
• Most of the studies are of specifically designed
  games, so the effects may not generalize to other
  games.
• Duh! Learning tends to be very specific. The
  problem with the article is that it doesnt do
  enough to explain why there are effects. If you
  dont do that, you cant predict when effects
  should generalize.

27
Sample Applications 1

• Physiotherapy
• Use computer add-on specific to disability
• Shaping of response specific to physical need
• Distract from pain and boredom
• Available without staff person
• Cognitive Rehab
• Perceptual disorders, conceptual, attention,
  memory, language, spatial visualization
• Why and how does this work?

28
Sample Applications 2

• Social skills, Impulsivity
• Calming through diversion
• Biofeedback and other feedback training
• Senior citizens mixed bag of effects
• Psychotherapy
• Expression through fantasy
• Diagnosis problem-solving, eye-hand
  coordination, coping, memory, etc.
• Other similar effects

29
Raessens 8Holmes Overview

• Hypotheses
• Playing violent video games should produce
  negative reactions during play.
• Boys should be more negative than girls.
• Findings
• Play produced positive reactions during play.
• Girls were more negative than boys.
• Should we be surprised? Work through the logic.

30
Findings

• Kids show neutral or positive responses most of
  the time.
• Wouldnt you expect that if they enjoy playing?
• Does this preclude their being aggressive later?
• Boys show more positive affect
• The researchers say that this could be due to the
  boys being more experience and successful with
  game play.
• Shouldnt they have expected that?

31
Raessens 12Wolf Video and Game Genres

• Genre Film
• Establishment signals to tell you the kind of
  film it is (e.g. cowboy hat).
• Animation the actions and attitudes of
  characters
• Intensification of conflict by conventional and
  dramatic confrontations
• Resolution through support of conventional mores

32
Game Genres Characteristics?

• Abstract
• Adaptation
• Adventure
• Artificial Life
• Board
• Capturing
• Card
• Catching
• Chase
• Collecting
• Combat
• Demo
• Diagnostic
• Dodging

• Driving
• Educational
• Escape
• Fighting
• Flying
• Grambling
• Interactive Movie
• Mngmt Simulation
• Maze
• Obstacle Course
• Pencil--Paper
• Pinball
• Platform
• Programming
• Puzzle

• Quiz
• Racing
• Rhythm Dance
• Role-Playing
• Shooting
• Simulation
• Sports
• Strategy
• Table-top
• Target
• Text Adventure
• Training Simulation
• Utility