Jeroen Linssen | PhD candidateHuman Media Interaction

University of Twente

Beyond Simulations:Serious Games for Training

Interpersonal Skills inLaw Enforcement

Merijn Bruijnes, Mariët TheuneThomas de Groot

Goal

• Discuss connections between (social) simulations and games

• Convince you that games can add something to simulations

Social interaction model Beyond the model: games LOITER Implementations

& implications

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Social awareness

• Gaining social insight

• Improving awareness of causalityin interactions

• Domain: law enforcement

• Peacefully resolving conflicts

Social interaction model Serious games LOITER Implementations

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Modelling social interactions

• Analysed behaviour (corpus)

• Semantic frame

• Which factors play an importantrole?

• From practice to theory

Social interaction model Serious games LOITER Implementations

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Factors in social interactions

• Stance: the interpersonal circumplex(Leary, 1957)

• Face (Goffman, 1955)

• Need for autonomy• Need for approval

• Rapport: feeling ‘in sync’ with someone (Tickle-Degnen & Rosenthal, 1992)

• From theory to practice: abstract model

 

DominanceAffection

LeadingAggressive

FollowingIntroverted

Social interaction model Serious games LOITER Implementations

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Beyond the model

• Simulating interactions

• Serious game:“A game that has a goal other than entertainment”

• Simulations vs. games?

Social interaction model Serious games LOITER Implementations

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Simulations and games

• Simulations• Abstractions• Models meant to replicate reality

• Games• Abstractions• Models meant to replicate… some world?• Playful/fun/entertaining?

(Duke & Geurts, 2004)

Social interaction model Serious games LOITER Implementations

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Example: ‘Samen Hangend’ (Sequacious)

• Board gameby T-Xchange

• Police vs.juveniles

• Police traineesact as juveniles

• Evokesdiscussion

Social interaction model Serious games LOITER Implementations

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Towards learning

• Feedback and reflection highly important!

• Simulations• Experiential learning• Discussion afterwards

• Serious games• Lemniscate Model

(Koops & Hoevenaar, 2012)Game Learning

Social interaction model Serious games LOITER Implementations

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LOITER: Interaction with virtual characters

• Interaction with virtual agents

• Let agents use theories on social interaction

Social interaction model Serious games LOITER Implementations

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Players and characters

• A player plays a character

• In-character vs. out-of-character

Character

Actor

I am a typical teenager

Whatever, just leave me alone!

Social interaction model Serious games LOITER Implementations

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Meta-techniques

• (Nordic) live action role play

• Meta-technique: communicatingout-of-character information

• Examples: inner monologue,flashback/forwards

Social interaction model Serious games LOITER Implementations

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Meta-technique:‘Act break’

• Complexity levels of interaction/learning goals• Between interactions, feedback through discussion

between character and player

• Lemniscate model: play and reflect

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Meta-technique:‘Inner monologue’

• Provide insight into characters’ minds

• Inspiration: thought bubblesfrom comics, games

• Less intrusive to story flow,still play/reflect cycle

Social interaction model Serious games LOITER Implementations

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Interfaces

2D Multi-modal

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Effects of representations

2D

• More abstract• More playful• More difficult to translate

in-game knowledge to real-world knowledge?

Multi-modal

• Closer to real life• Less playful?• Easier to translate

knowledge?

• Different expectations• Character behaviour• World properties

Social interaction model Serious games LOITER Implementations

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Future work

• ‘Golden demo’

• Other techniques• Online adaptation• Storytelling techniques

(flashbacks, focalization)

• Evaluation: which factors contribute to learning?

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Take Home Message

Games can be used to let people learn about social interactions in ways

different from what simulations offer.

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And they learned happily ever after...

mail j.m.linssen@utwente.nl

blog jmlin.eu/phd

Social Simulation and Serious Games ss4sg.eu

commit-nl.nl

Thanks for listening!

Let’s discuss...

Thanks for listening!

Let’s discuss...

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Publications

• Bruijnes, M., Linssen, J.M., op den Akker, H.J.A., Theune, M., Wapperom, S., Broekema, C., & Heylen, D.K.J. (2014). Social Behaviour in Police Interviews: Relating Data to Theories, in Poggi, I., Vincze, L., & Vinciarelli, A. (eds.) Conflict and Negotiation: Social Research and Machine Intelligence, Springer, Berlin.

• Linssen, J.M., Theune, M., & de Groot, T.F. (2013). What Is at Play? Meta-techniques in Serious Games and Their Effects on Social Believability and Learning. In Proceedings of the Social Believability in Games Workshop.

• van Oostendorp, H., van der Spek, E.D., & Linssen, J.M. (2014). Adapting the Complexity Level of a Serious Game to the Proficiency of Players. EAI Endorsed Transactions on Serious Games, 14(2).

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References

• Belarbi, S., Bergström, K., Ebbehøj, S. L., Hansen, E. E., Fatland, E., Giæver, O. P., … Westlund, A. (2010). Nordic larp. (J. Stenros & M. Montola, Eds.).

• Duke, R. D., & Geurts, J. (2004). Policy games for strategic management. Rozenberg Publishers.

• Graesser, A.C., Olde, B., and Klettke, B. (2002). How does the mind construct and represent stories? In M.C. Green, J.J. Strange & T.C. Brock (Eds.), Narrative Impact: Social and Cognitive Foundations (231-263). Mahwah NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

• Koops, M., & Hoevenaar, M. (2012). Conceptual Change During a Serious Game: Using a Lemniscate Model to Compare Strategies in a Physics Game. Simulation & Gaming, 44(4), 544–561.

• Swartjes, I. M. T. (2010). Whose story is it anyway? How improv informs agency and authorship of emergent narrative. Centre for Telematics and Information Technology University of Twente.

• XKCD.com, comic 1089 [http://www.xkcd.com/1089]

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Links

• Human Media Interaction: http://hmi.ewi.utwente.nl• T-Xchange: http://www.txchange.nl• RE-liON: http://www.re-lion.com

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