Carrie Heeter

Reflections on real presence by a virtual person

I have lived in San Francisco while working as a full-time virtual faculty member for Michigan State University for nearly six years. Unlike most humans, I spend a larger proportion of every day as a virtual person than as a physical person. This article is adapted from a keynote speech I delivered at the Fourth International Workshop on Presence in Philadelphia in May of 2001. I use a personal narrative style to explore issues and to question some of the research communitys prevailing assumptions about presence. Lombard and Dittons (1997) frequently cited conceptualization defines presence as a perceptual illusion of nonmediation that occurs when a person fails to perceive or acknowledge the existence of a medium in his/her communication environment and responds as he/she would if the medium were not there. The underlying assumption is that, in the absence of technology, everyone experiences continuous presence at a constant intensity throughout their lives. Instead, this article suggests that presence is not a constant of everyday nonmediated experience. Careful consideration of unmediated (real) presence might help the conceptualization and study of mediated presence.

Mind Your Errors Evidence for a Neural Mechanism Linking Growth Mind-Set to Adaptive Posterror Adjustments

How well people bounce back from mistakes depends on their beliefs about learning and intelligence. For individuals with a growth mind-set, who believe intelligence develops through effort, mistakes are seen as opportunities to learn and improve. For individuals with a fixed mind-set, who believe intelligence is a stable characteristic, mistakes indicate lack of ability. We examined performance-monitoring event-related potentials (ERPs) to probe the neural mechanisms underlying these different reactions to mistakes. Findings revealed that a growth mind-set was associated with enhancement of the error positivity component (Pe), which reflects awareness of and allocation of attention to mistakes. More growth-minded individuals also showed superior accuracy after mistakes compared with individuals endorsing a more fixed mind-set. It is critical to note that Pe amplitude mediated the relationship between mind-set and posterror accuracy. These results suggest that neural mechanisms indexing on-line awareness of and attention to mistakes are intimately involved in growth-minded individuals’ ability to rebound from mistakes.

Intelligent adaptation of digital game-based learning

Games for learning cannot take the same design approach as games when targeting audiences. While players of entertainment games have the luxury of choosing games that suit them, students using digital games for learning typically have a single game for them to learn from, regardless of whether or not it fits their playing style or learning needs. We contend that this problem can be addressed by creating games that identify the kind of player-learner using the game and adapts itself to best fit that individual. These adaptive games can specialize themselves according to a students learning needs, gameplay preferences, and learning style. We present a prototype mini-game, called S.C.R.U.B., which employs this method for teaching microbiology concepts.

Impacts of Forced Serious Game Play on Vulnerable Subgroups

Three vulnerable subgroups of players non-gamers, resistant players, and females were studied to understand how each approaches and plays serious games. The authors explore forced required play using four different online casual games. Their research strongly suggests that the most important threat to a serious games impact is when players dislike the game. Serious games are less effective for players who dislike a game and most effective for those who like the game. Non-gamers were at a distinct disadvantage as far as gameplay performance. They experienced a more negative effect in two of the four games. Finally, males tended to seek more difficult challenges in games than females. The optimal amount of challenge may be the most important gender difference to consider when designing serious games.

Beyond player types: gaming achievement goal

Education and psychology studies have used motivational constructs called achievement goals to predict learning success and response to failure. In this article we adapted classroom achievement goal scales to instead measure gaming achievement goals. We collected survey data from 432 university students to empirically examine the applicability and utility of achievement goal constructs from education research to gaming. We introduced a new approach to player types based on mastery and performance gaming achievement goals. Four types are studied: super-achievers, mastery-only, performance-only, and non-achievers. We also examined the relationship between our four achievement goal player types to the traditional achiever, explorer player types. We found that Interest in exploration in games can exist in any of the four types, but those with strong mastery goals have the lowest interest in exploration. Gender and gaming frequency were significantly related to gaming achievement goals. The implications and suggestions for designing games for learning and entertainment are discussed.

New Wave Gatekeeping: Electronic Indexing Effects on Newspaper Reading

This study explored agenda-setting implications of indexing news content by topic. It was expected that indexing would diminish the power of mass media to set an audience agenda. An experimental version of a newspaper was created in which salience cues were removed and replaced with a topical index. The experimental and control versions of the newspaper were administered to more than 400 university student subjects. Results showed statistically significant differences in news topic exposure, but equivalently concentrated patterns of readership in the two versions. Rather than directing readers to stories based on editorially determined salience cues, the agenda set by the experimental version was based on ordering within the index and newspaper. Most readers of the indexed newspaper also evaluated it negatively, but a core of such readers liked the indexing, suggesting that different readership styles condition responses to information ordering in a newspaper.

Game Design and the Challenge-Avoiding, Self-Validator Player Type

Achiever and Explorer player types are well known in MMOs and educational games. Players who enjoy being a winner, but dislike hard challenges (“Self-Validators”) are a heretofore ignored but commonly occurring player type. Self-Validators worry about and are distressed by failing. They can simply avoid playing overly difficult games for entertainment. But in a required learning game, Self-Validators’ excessive worry about failing can interfere with learning. The authors consider whether and how eight very different modern games accommodate Explorers, Achievers, and Self-Validators and discuss implications for entertainment and learning game design and research. Seven of eight diverse games analyzed primarily served either the Explorer or Achiever player type. Self-Validators were partially accommodated in some Achiever-oriented games, through user-selectable difficulty. Design with all three types in mind would encourage inclusion of features that enable players to optimize their preferred style of play. [Article copies are available for purchase from InfoSci-on-Demand.com]

Designing interactive multimedia (panel)

This paper presents contrasting metaphors and paradigms for designing interactive media interfaces. Multimedia interface designers and researchers with diverse backgrounds discuss their own design approaches and important design ‘issues. Discussion of these issues is continued beyond this paper through a web site:

Mass Media Orientations among Hispanic Youth

This five-city survey of southwestern Mexican American youth focuses on media behaviors, functions and preferences, comparing media orientations of Hispanic boys and girls in the 5th and 10th grades. Both Spanish and English-language media orientations are assessed. Access to media, media use, and media content preferences for television, radio, records and tapes, newspapers, magazines, comic books and movies are detailed, as well as television and newspaper functions. The pattern of findings among these youngsters seems to parallel major external findings regarding boy-girl and age group mass media experience comparisons. The amount of media experience cumulates to about nine hours each school day Spanish-language media are little liked and seldom used.

Aspects of Presence in Telerelating

Communication technologies afford new dimensions of presence for telerelating not available face-to-face including history, temporal and spatial ubiquity, self-monitoring, progressive embodiment, anonymity, and involuntary feedback. These and other concepts are explored using examples from affordable present day technologies.