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1. Auditory cognition and perception of action video game players

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-71235-z  

   Stewart, Hannah J. ; Martinez, Jasmin L. ; Perdew, Audrey ; Green, C. Shawn ; Moore, David R. ( September 2020 , Scientific Reports)

   A training method to improve speech hearing in noise has proven elusive, with most methods failing to transfer to untrained tasks. One common approach to identify potentially viable training paradigms is to make use of cross-sectional designs. For instance, the consistent finding that people who chose to avidly engage with action video games as part of their normal life also show enhanced performance on non-game visual tasks has been used as a foundation to test the causal impact of such game play via true experiments (e.g., in more translational designs). However, little work has examined the association between action video game play and untrained auditory tasks, which would speak to the possible utility of using such games to improve speech hearing in noise. To examine this possibility, 80 participants with mixed action video game experience were tested on a visual reaction time task that has reliably shown superior performance in action video game players (AVGPs) compared to non-players (≤ 5 h/week across game categories) and multi-genre video game players (> 5 h/week across game categories). Auditory cognition and perception were tested using auditory reaction time and two speech-in-noise tasks. Performance of AVGPs on the visual task replicated previous positive findings. However, no significant benefit of action video game play was found on the auditory tasks. We suggest that, while AVGPs interact meaningfully with a rich visual environment during play, they may not interact with the games’ auditory environment. These results suggest that far transfer learning during action video game play is modality-specific and that an acoustically relevant auditory environment may be needed to improve auditory probabilistic thinking.

    

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2. Deep Multi-Task Learning with Adversarial-and-Cooperative Nets

   https://doi.org/10.24963/ijcai.2019/566  

   Yang, Pei ; Tan, Qi ; Ye, Jieping ; Tong, Hanghang ; He, Jingrui ( August 2019 , IJCAI)

   In this paper, we propose a deep multi-Task learning model based on Adversarial-and-COoperative nets (TACO). The goal is to use an adversarial-and-cooperative strategy to decouple the task-common and task-specific knowledge, facilitating the fine-grained knowledge sharing among tasks. TACO accommodates multiple game players, i.e., feature extractors, domain discriminator, and tri-classifiers. They play the MinMax games adversarially and cooperatively to distill the task-common and task-specific features, while respecting their discriminative structures. Moreover, it adopts a divide-and-combine strategy to leverage the decoupled multi-view information to further improve the generalization performance of the model. The experimental results show that our proposed method significantly outperforms the state-of-the-art algorithms on the benchmark datasets in both multi-task learning and semi-supervised domain adaptation scenarios. 

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3. Evaluating the Consistency of Cooperative Video Games in Inducing Teamwork Behaviors

   https://doi.org/10.1177/21695067231196239  

   Farah, Yvonne A. ; Banuelos-Moriel, Antonio ; Dorneich, Michael C. ( September 2023 , Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting)

   Teamwork assessment requires research environments that replicate the task complexity and induce challenges and uncertainty. Gamified environments are gaining attention as suitable environments for teamwork assessment, where teaming behaviors can be quantified. However, further research is needed to establish the relationship between gaming mechanics and teaming competencies. This work aims to assess the consistency of video games in inducing teaming behaviors. Five video games were analyzed through coding behaviors and cooperative features from gameplay streams. Results show that the selected games induce similar behavioral profiles of percentages of teaming competencies. These games have similar design characteristics, including performance environments and game loops. Design suggestions reflect potential associations between the analyzed game mechanics and the resulting behavioral profiles. The resulting teamwork profiles can be targeted through the simulation cooperative genre, therefore providing a design tool for teamwork testbed designers to induce teamwork distributions of interest. 

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4. Cognitive Engagement for STEM+C Education: Investigating Serious Game Impact on Graph Structure Learning with fNIRS

   https://doi.org/10.1109/AIxVR59861.2024.00032  

   Sharmin, Shayla ; Koiler, Reza ; Sadik, Rifat ; Bhattacharjee, Arpan ; Patre, Priyanka Raju ; Kullu, Pinar ; Hohensee, Charles ; Getchell, Nancy ; Barmaki, Roghayeh Leila ( January 2024 , IEEE International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Reality)

   For serious games on education, understanding the effectiveness of different learning methods in influencing cognitive processes remains a significant challenge. In particular, limited research addresses the comparative effectiveness of serious games and videos in analyzing brain behavior for graph structure learning, which is an important part of the Science, Technology, Engineering, Math, and Computing (STEM+C) disciplinary education. This study investigates the impact of serious games on graph structure learning. For this, we compared our in-house game-based learning (GBL) and video-based learning (VBL) methodologies by evaluating their effectiveness on cognitive processes by oxygenated hemoglobin levels using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). We conducted a 2×1 between-subjects preliminary study with twelve participants, involving two conditions: game and video. Both groups received equivalent content related to the basic structure of a graph, with comparable session lengths. The game group interacted with a quiz-based game, while the video group watched a pre-recorded video. The fNIRS was employed to capture cerebral signals from the prefrontal cortex, and participants completed pre- and post-questionnaires capturing user experience and knowledge gain. In our study, we noted that the mean levels of oxygenated hemoglobin (delta HbO) were higher in the GBL group, suggesting the potential enhanced cognitive involvement. Our results show that the lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC) has greater hemodynamic activity during the learning period. Moreover, knowledge gain analysis showed an increase in mean score in the GBL group compared to the VBL group. Although we did not observe statistically significant changes due to participant variability and sample size, this preliminary work contributes to understanding how GBL and VBL impact cognitive processes, providing insights for enhanced instructional design and educational game development. Additionally, it emphasizes the necessity for further investigation into the impact of GBL on cognitive engagement and learning outcomes. 

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5. Looking for a Deal?: Visual Social Attention during Negotiations via Mixed Media Videoconferencing

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3434169  

   Vrzakova, Hana ; Amon, Mary Jean ; Rees, McKenzie ; Faber, Myrthe ; D'Mello, Sidney ( January 2021 , Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction)

   null (Ed.)

   Whereas social visual attention has been examined in computer-mediated (e.g., shared screen) or video-mediated (e.g., FaceTime) interaction, it has yet to be studied in mixed-media interfaces that combine video of the conversant along with other UI elements. We analyzed eye gaze of 37 dyads (74 participants) who were tasked with negotiating the price of a new car (as a buyer and seller) using mixed-media video conferencing under competitive or cooperative negotiation instructions (experimental manipulation). We used multidimensional recurrence quantification analysis to extract spatio-temporal patterns corresponding to mutual gaze (individuals look at each other), joint attention (individuals focus on the same elements of the interface), and gaze aversion (an individual looks at their partner, who is looking elsewhere). Our results indicated that joint attention predicted the sum of points attained by the buyer and seller (i.e., the joint score). In contrast, gaze aversion was associated with faster time to complete the negotiation, but with a lower joint score. Unexpectedly, mutual gaze was highly infrequent and unrelated to the negotiation outcomes and none of the gaze patterns predicted subjective perceptions of the negotiation. There were also no effects of gender composition or negotiation condition on the gaze patterns or negotiation outcomes. Our results suggest that social visual attention may operate differently in mixed-media collaborative interfaces than in face-to-face interaction. As mixed-media collaborative interfaces gain prominence, our work can be leveraged to inform the design of gaze-sensitive user interfaces that support remote negotiations among other tasks. 

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