Pablo Delatorre

Training to capture software requirements by role playing

Capture client requirements is considered one of the most important steps in the field of information technology projects. In University courses related to Computer Sciences, this subject is sometimes trained through interviews with real companies. However, voluntaries of companies participating in the interviews do not act like real interlocutors, as their interest is not the project itself, but just the interview. In this regard, we miss custom dynamics such as conflicts or demanding requests, which are inherent parts of interviews. To include these conditions for a more realistic experience, we propose the students themselves to also take the role of clients, randomly playing different characters that are based on a set of features that define their personalities and technical skills. In this way, teams of analysts interview teams of customers, generating scenarios not only derived from the project requirements, but also the personal and strategic interests of each part. Results show that the main problems of analysts to handle meetings are precisely related to the emotional behaviors, which influenced quality, fluency, empathy and appropriateness in the analysts conduct. Moreover, results show that after this experience the students achieved a strong improvement of abilities to dynamically manage an interview process, self-control skills, adequately express their ideas and anticipate client needs, compared to those who performed classical pre-designed interviews with real costumers. Students reported a gain of auto-assessment and a better empathy with clients, which increased the chances to successfully capture and prioritize requirements.

A computational model of the cognitive impact of decorative elements on the perception of suspense

ABSTRACT Suspense is a key narrative issue in terms of emotional gratification, influencing the way in which the audience experiences a story. Virtually all narrative media uses suspense as a strategy for reader engagement regardless of the technology or genre. Being such an important narrative component, computational creativity has tackled suspense in a number of automatic storytelling. These systems are mainly based on narrative theories, and in general lack a cognitive approach involving the study of empathy or emotional effect of the environment impact. With this idea in mind, this paper reports on a computational model of the influence of decorative elements on suspense. It has been developed as part of a more general proposal for plot generation based on cognitive aspects. In order to test and parameterise the model, an evaluation based on textual stories and an evaluation based on a 3D virtual environment was run. In both cases, results suggest a direct influence of emotional perception of decorative objects in the suspense of a scene.

Information management in interactive and non-interactive suspenseful storytelling

Suspense is one key feature in modern storytelling. One of the mechanisms to deliver a suspenseful experience to an audience is by means of controlling the information provided. The media, however, has a very strong impact on what kind of information can be delivered and how. Moreover, modern storytelling is usually conveyed interactively, in such a way that the audience is also part of the story. In this paper, we experiment and analyse the different impact of information management in interactive and non-interactive storytelling. We report on an experiment measuring the reported perceived amusement in interactive and non-interactive versions of a potentially suspenseful story, and we provide evidence that a passive, non-interactive audience usually prefers less information than an active interactive audience. The study provides informed insight on how these results could be used in real scenarios to deliver appropriate levels of information to enhance the perception of suspense.

Using Ontologies for the Online Recognition of Activities of Daily Living

The recognition of activities of daily living is an important research area of interest in recent years. The process of activity recognition aims to recognize the actions of one or more people in a smart environment, in which a set of sensors has been deployed. Usually, all the events produced during each activity are taken into account to develop the classification models. However, the instant in which an activity started is unknown in a real environment. Therefore, only the most recent events are usually used. In this paper, we use statistics to determine the most appropriate length of that interval for each type of activity. In addition, we use ontologies to automatically generate features that serve as the input for the supervised learning algorithms that produce the classification model. The features are formed by combining the entities in the ontology, such as concepts and properties. The results obtained show a significant increase in the accuracy of the classification models generated with respect to the classical approach, in which only the state of the sensors is taken into account. Moreover, the results obtained in a simulation of a real environment under an event-based segmentation also show an improvement in most activities.

The Long Path of Frustration : A Case Study with Dead by Daylight

Playability is a key factor in video-games. From a narrative standpoint, the play process is usually designed as sequences of episodes triggered by the player’s motivations, which unfold along a sense of suspense-relief. Suspense, as a factor on engagement, has a strong impact on the narrative of video-games: when it decreases, so does the engagement. This is a common pattern when players are aware that losing is unavoidable. As we point out, many players disconnect from the game in this situation. In this paper we evaluate how suspense affects playability, to analyse how the lack of uncertainty due to the knowledge of the rules may degrade Dead by Daylight game players experience when they are bound to fail. We have observed that players acknowledging that there are no chances to win tend to leave the game. Results also reveal that suspense is modulated by the player’s knowledge of the game.