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This is Dr. Jayne Gackenbach and this week on Video Games: Brain Gain or Drain? we’ll be discussing avatars. What is an avatar? Classically they have been our characters in video games or in virtual worlds like Second Life, but our guest argues that avatars are now our online footprint. Beth Coleman (http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/people/bcoleman ), who received her PhD in comparative literature at New York University, is currently with Harvard and MIT (http://cms.mit.edu/people/bcoleman/). She is the author of “Hello Avatar” a fascinating examination of the Avatar we have by now all created online. In our conversation Beth explained the three main themes of her book, Hello Avatar (http://bit.ly/uLobIf ). You’ll learn how our experiences online are all about real time, co-presence and x-reality. In her book she talks about how American’s are reporting more loneliness in some survey’s yet also how rich and rewarding their online relationships can be. You’ll also learn in this show how our shopping experiences at the local mall are about to change with the increasing use of augmented reality. Here is my interview with Dr. Beth Coleman.

This time we will be talking with the editor of a new journal devoted to games for health, Bill Ferguson. Premiering in February of 2012, Games for Health: Research, Development, and Clinical Applications (http://www.liebertpub.com/products/product.aspx?pid=398), will offer original peer-reviewed research articles, as well as industry insights and developments. Additionally, interviews and commentary on the games for health initiative will be included in its pages. While there are by now several organizations, conferences and journals focused upon game development and game effects, this is the first journal with a specific mission to examine how games can be used for health related purposes. This is something that has come up before on this show in several interviews through the Games for Health Conference (http://www.gamesforhealth.org/), but a journal gives an area an authenticity and respectability that simply meeting and exchanging ideas does not allow. Don’t get me wrong meetings are important and in this case they were part of the development process, but once a major professional journal publisher decides to go forward with a journal this targets a new era in such research and application.

In this show we’ll be talking about various perceptual and cognitive advantages to gaming. Dr. Walter Boot (http://psy.fsu.edu/faculty/boot.dp.html)is the director of the Attention and Training laboratory in the Department of Psychology at Florida State University. In his lab they have tested expert video game players versus newbie’s on a variety of attentional, memory and information processing tasks (http://http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0001691808001200). This included training on a specific game which is important from a methodological point when trying to discover if gaming improves attention. You’ll learn about the advantages and disadvantages to such lifelong attentional training by playing video games. This includes military and safety applications. In addition you’ll learn how gaming may be able to slow the cognitive aging decline (http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1909852,00.html).

In this show the use of games in the military is explored. In a recent study in the journal, Military Psychology, it was found that 43% of their over 10,000 soldier respondents reported gaming on a weekly basis. These individuals were largely male, young, and of the lower ranks. Given that almost all young people have played or currently play some form of video game, this figure is likely to grow. My guest is Jeremy Hsu (http://sciencehsu.wordpress.com/about/), who is the senior writer at Innovation News Daily. I asked Jeremy to have this conversation with me about military gaming (http://www.livescience.com/10022-military-video-games.html)uses as he has interviewed various military researchers and personnel about virtual reality and gaming in the military. While neither of us are military personnel, in this interview we cover a range of topics from training using virtual reality type simulators to personal use of games by soldiers. You’ll find out how gaming helps soldiers deal with the stressors associated with deployment and about the original video game developed a decade ago by the U.S. Army to help in recruitment.

In this show I am talking with Dr. Barry Grant (http://bgrant@brocku.ca ), who is a professor in the Department of Communication, Popular Culture and Film at Brock University in Ontario, Canada. Our topic is horror in film and video games (http://journals.sfu.ca/loading/index.php/loading/article/view/85/82 ). As an expert and teacher in film genres, science fiction, and horror, as well as a game developer, Dr. Grant has an informed perspective on why horror is such a popular genre across various media. In this interview we discuss its history in mythology and culture as well as query its wide popularity today ranging from zombies and vampires to surprise outcomes. You’ll learn why sometimes we laugh at horror films and how their import into video games offers new horizons for developers. Finally, I ask Dr. Grant, ‘is the popularity of the horror genre today an indication of fears of a failing society?’

Dr. Patrick Markey director of the Interpersonal Lab (http://www.InterpersonalResearch.com)at Villanova University is interviewed. He has examined how personality can be a predictor of aggression resulting from gaming. He talks about three personality (http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/gpr-14-2-82.pdf)traits that are particularly likely to predict negative outcomes of violent video game play. You’ll learn what these are as well as how does situation affect aggressive modeling after gaming? In other words, what are the effects of family and peers? In addition to effects of personality on aggression, we also chat about some of his other work on media and interpersonal behaviour. You’ll learn about the unique personalities of cheaters and if that cluster applies to cheating in games. Finally, the tech bubble (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DP29_Jm2_RE), that many of us find ourselves in, is discussed in terms of gaming. Are gamers alone as they sit with others or are they truly “with others” but online?

There are two parts to this show. First the history of video game chapter is read from my forthcoming book, Playing Reality, by my coauthor who happens to be my son, Teace Snyder (http://www.teace.ca)! As you know from earlier shows the reason that I got interested in video game play was because my son is a gamer but he is also a writer and film maker. So when I thought about writing a book for my students, and other gamers, on what we know psychologically about gaming, it seemed a good idea to have the voice of the narrator (writer/coauthor) be a serious gamer. You’ll learn how the 20 something generation responded to Nintendo and the various changes in game play including the first introductions to violence. Following this reading, I talk with Dr. Sanford Rosenberg (mailto:sandyr@mediaresearch.com )who discusses gaming in society from the perspective of a media analyst. Dr. Rosenberg is the CEO and founder of Media Research Associates (http://www.mediaresearch.com,). He reflects back on his days with Pong and how he also followed his children’s leads into the new world of electronic media and play. In our conversation he speculates about the future directions of gaming.

Dr. Evelyn Ellerman, chair of the Department of Communication Studies (http://cmns.athabascau.ca/)at Athabasca University, is interviewed in this show. She talks about the implications of gaming for the field of Communication Studies. Dr. Ellerman will address the role of narrative in games as a form of storytelling. How media overlap with newer media transforming older media is a theme in this discussion. She particularly explains how the movie and gaming industries are cross pollinating and the implications of such overlap for the future of these media. Also touched upon are some of the educational implications of the use of new media, including gaming and simulated environments (https://elab.athabascau.ca/home). You’ll learn how video games, as well as other new media, are reshaping how we communicate and thus learn through stories.

This interview is with Dr. Jose Zagal (http://facsrv.cs.depaul.edu/~jzagal/index.html), who is with DePaul University. He is the author of Ludoliteracy (http://www.ludoliteracy.com/). In his article in Game Studies (http://gamestudies.org/0802/articles/zagal_bruckman), “Novices, Gamers, and Scholars: Exploring the Challenges of Teaching About Games”, Dr. Zagal explains his doctoral dissertation research. The field of game studies is rapidly growing and in this interview we talk about the challenges of teaching “experts”, that is hard core gamers, about the field of gaming. This of course has broader implications for anyone taking classes as an adult who brings to bear various expertises through a life lived. You’ll learn about the challenges faced by "gamers" and lifelong learners as well as how a naïve understanding of games can lead to problems both for the students, instructors and the public.

Dr. Amy Bruckman (http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~asb/)is interviewed this time. She is an Associate Professor in the College of Computing at Georgia Institute of Technology. She and her students in the Electronic Learning Communities (http://www.cc.gatech.edu/elc)research group, do research about online communities and education. Listeners will find this conversation quite helpful as it will introduce how gaming can be cooperative and constructive yet is not a panacea for all educational needs. As a mother herself of two young boys, Dr. Bruckman talks about her children’s experience with “Minecraft (http://minecraft.net)”. She notes that while amazingly creative things are possible in virtual worlds such as Second Life, ordinary people don’t normally have those skills. Yet there are many types of games and software where creative construction is possible. You’ll learn that these constructive online experiences, which are often cooperative, whether in a game or simply as a play space online, offer learning opportunities.

Dr. Jesper Juul (http://www.jesperjuul.net/ludologist), author of The Casual Game Revolution (http://www.jesperjuul.net/casualrevolution) and Half-Real (http://www.half-real.net) is interviewed in this show. He is a Danish game researcher who is currently a Visiting Assistant Arts Professor at the New York University Game Center. As a casual gamer myself, I was fascinated to find this book and required my students to read parts of it. The shift in the gaming industry spoken of in this book is evident at the Game Developers Conference. Not only is casual gaming front and center in the family room on the Wii but also on every mobile device from iphones to ipads and their like. Thus casual gamers typically don’t play for long stretches of time, but rather while on the subway or waiting in line at Safeway. In this show we’ll learn how casual games are actually reconnecting people to their gaming experiences in childhood as well as converting even the most unlikely populations, such as the elderly, into gamers.

Mia Consalvo (http://twitter.com/#!/miac)who is has just begun teaching at Concordia University in Montreal after a year as a visiting scholar at MIT. She is the co-editor of the forthcoming Handbook of Internet Studies published by Blackwell and is author of Cheating: Gaining Advantage in Videogames (http://onpoint.wbur.org/2010/08/03/social-games-and-cheating)from MIT Press. She has published articles and book chapters in the areas of game studies and internet studies. In this interview we talk about her research on casual gamers who play at Big Fish Games (http://www.bigfishgames.com), a major casual game producer. You’ll learn that 93% of those who play the game she studied are women ranging in age from 35 to 64. These women are serious about their gaming. For instance, they are sure that their domestic and employment responsibilities are taken care of before they log on to await the release of a new version of a favorite casual game. As with the more stereotyped hard core gamers, casual players favorite activity is achieving a goal, but they are more time constrained.

My guest this week is Angelica Ortiz de Gortari (http://angelica.ortizdegortari2010@my.ntu.ac.uk), who will talk about the Game Transfer Phenomena (http://www.gametransferphenomena.com). This young woman is working on her doctoral degree in the International Gaming Research Unit at Nottingham Trent University in the United Kingdom. Originally from Mexico, Angelica has been fascinated with gaming and it’s effects for some time. Just as with my work on the effects of gaming on dreams, Angelica has found that when awake the game remains alive after the play ceases. That is, both intentionally and unintentionally gamers continue to use game based experiences in the real world. Angelica points to a wide variety of instances in her article which is about to appear in the International Journal of Cyber Behavior, Psychology and Learning. (http://www.irma-international.org/journal/international-journal-cyber-behavior-psychology/1182/) She points out that the more engaged in the game the player is the more likely they are to experienced game transfer to waking reality. She notes in her article that “Approximately half of the participants reported having thoughts about using elements from video games to resolve real life issues such as: using a boomerang or a hook, using a gravity gun to get things they cannot reach, zoom with sniper rifle to see something faraway, etc.”

This show is a conversation with a female serious video game player. Eva Murzyn (http://wow.dreams.study@gmail.com), who is originally from Poland, completed her PhD at the University of Dundee in the United Kingdom. Her research on individual differences in black and white dreaming, and their relationship with black and white media. In part this research interest emerged from her own experiences with media and especially with video game play. Eva not only plays the online massively multiplayer game, World of Warcraft (http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/games/wow/)(WoW), but she is a long time player of face to face reality role playing games such as Dungeons and Dragons. It is this combination of role playing games online and off with her doctoral work on media effects on dream content that make her a informed participant-observer in the world of video games and their effects on our reality perceptions. You’ll find out that not only did she use her imaginal practice in self defense to actually save herself from a real world robbery but the other advantages of such play. I chatted with her at the recent meeting of the International Association for the Study of Dreams in the Netherlands (http://www.iasdreams.org).

Two elements of children and video games are covered in this show. First I summarize a recent study by the Kaiser Family Foundation (http://www.kff.org/entmedia/entmedia012010nr.cfm) on media use by children 8 to 18. By looking at all media use by children we can contextualize their use of video games. Following this, you’ll hear an interview made at the 2011 Games for Health conference with a game developer who produces games for children. Karen Littman is president and founder of Morphonix (http://www.morphonix.com/), a game development company in Sausalito, California. For 20 years her company has been mostly devoted to developing a series of neuroscience games that teach children and teens basic concepts about brain science but in an entertaining way.

Tad Stach (http://research.cs.queensu.ca/~tstach/index.html)is a computer science doctoral student at Queen's University in Ontario, Canada. Tad’s current research is in the field of human-computer interaction. I interviewed him during the Game Developers conference. Tad is exploring how exercise can be improved through computer-mediated physical activity. More specifically, he is interested in facilitating more effective group or exergames (http://www.ucalgary.ca/exergaming/). In this show you’ll discover an entirely new way to approach exercise. As mentioned in my last show it’s more enjoyable to exercise if you do it with your friends. However, it can be hard to find a suitable partner to do exercise games with because sedentary people already have low self efficacy. That is, they do not believe that they can exercise and enjoy it. This can be demoralizing as they cannot keep up with the people who are exercising around them. Thus Tad is looking at multiplayer exergames. Here the exercise is computer mediated and thus you can balance for any differences in physical abilities and you can exercise with friends online.

Gamification (http://gamify.com/) is the use of game play mechanics for non-game applications. It works by making technology more engaging and by encouraging desired behaviors, taking advantage of humans' psychological predisposition to engage in activities that are fun and rewarding. This shows guest is Judy Shasek, managing director of Healthy Community Development (http://www.footgamingcq.com) in the Eugene, OR area. She has applied the ideas of gamification to community involvement. Her interest in this application was sparked by Jane McGonigal, author of (http://www.amazon.com/Reality-Broken-Games-Better-Change/dp/1594202850)Reality is Broken (http://www.amazon.com/Reality-Broken-Games-Better-Change/dp/1594202850): Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World. In McGonigal’s book she spends a considerable amount of time explaining various alternate reality game projects. In other words, how can we apply the principles of video game play, which has proven to be wildly popular, to real world problems. This process of gamification, or alternative reality games, offers potential to open up so many healthful projects to wider participation. You’ll learn something about how to apply these principles for your projects in this show with Judy Shasek.

In this show the principles of gaming and practice in virtual realms are illustrated with the work of Dr. Glenn Albright, of Kognito Interactive (http://www.kognito.com). He talks about a role-playing game he has helped develop “to train family members of returning veterans to (1) recognize when their loved one is exhibiting signs of post-deployment stress including signs of PTSD (http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/post-traumatic-stress-disorder-ptsd/index.shtml), TBI, depression, and thoughts of suicide and (2) approach and talk to the Veteran about their concern and motivate them to seek help at the local VA medical center”. He explains that the user “assumes the role of various family members and engages in conversations with three emotionally responsive Veteran Avatars that exhibit signs of post-deployment stress. The avatars visually and verbally express emotions in reaction to users' decisions in the conversations, effectively replicating real life interactions and conversations with at-risk individuals.”

This show is coming to you from the annual Games for Health (http://www.gamesforhealth.org/)meeting. This is a group of researchers, developers and service workers who are examining video game play as a way to service health needs. This show starts with a brief summary of the keynote by Martin Seligmann, world renowned positive psychology (http://www.ppc.sas.upenn.edu/index.html)innovator. Then there is an interview with Debra Lieberman of the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is director of the Health Games Research (http://www.healthgamesresearch.org/) initiative. In our interview we talk about the field of health games and of the psychology of avatars. These are our online characters. They can be a game based character, or facebook information, or an alias in a chat room. Our identification with these characters is part of the reason why they can benefit or possibly harm our offline selves.

This time Jayne reviews her own research into the effects of gaming on nighttime dreams (http://www.eludamos.org/index.php/eludamos/article/view/vol2no2-3) as well as her thesis that gaming can be framed as a type of meditative (http://www.springerlink.com/content/p26n3h1uq1w00771/) experience. She then interviews Moses Silbiger (http://www.pressplaytogrow.com), a gamer and integral coach and consultant, whose master’s thesis topic explored spirituality and gaming from Ken Wilber’s Integral Psychology perspective.