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[pt] Esta dissertação, observando as interações entre os jogos eletrônicos e a infância, busca compreender como se dão as relações de aprendizagem. Partindo da relevância da linguagem e dos objetos para a consolidação da noção de infância foi proposta uma metodologia de investigação. Voltando o olhar para elementos da interface lúdica procuramos analisar como se opera a produção de sentido na participação do jogo eletrônico pela infância. Para tanto, a partir de uma metodologia que se apoia nos princípios de aprendizagem de Gee realizamos uma pesquisa junto a alunos, da quinta série do ensino fundamental, objetivando estabelecer novos caminhos e fornecer informações que sejam úteis para a relação ensino/aprendizagem. / [en] This thesis, observing the interactions between electronic games and childhood, seeks to understand how learning relationships occur. Based on the relevance of language and objects for consolidation of the notion of childhood, an investigation methodology has been proposed. By looking at interface playful elements, we tried to analyze how the production of meaning operates in the participation of electronic games during childhood. To do so, from a methodology that is based on Gee s learning principles, we conducted a survey with students of the fifth grade of the fundamental school, with the purpose of establishing new paths and provide information relevant to the teaching / learning relationship.

La restitution du patrimoine culturel bâti présentée sur Internet, sur cédéroms interactifs ou sur bornes muséales, … est une préoccupation constante de la médiation culturelle. Grâce aux qualités des hypermédias, à savoir l’hypertexte et le multimédia, il semble que ces produits existants ont des capacités à restituer des informations patrimoniales aux publics, mais finalement ils n’ont pas l’efficacité cognitive et pédagogique que nous pourrions en attendre. En exploitant les possibilités offertes par les outils numériques, l’objectif est de proposer aux non-experts désireux d’apprendre, un espace de navigation hypermédia basé sur des hypothèses systémiques, fonctionnelles et graphiques, afin de concevoir un outil complet de visualisation et d’immersion comme aide à la compréhension des connaissances archéologiques et architecturales. D’un point de vue expérimental, nous identifions parmi les caractéristiques des jeux vidéo et de la cartographie, celles qui seraient susceptibles de rendre compte des environnements sémiologiques et cognitifs utiles à la re-présentation et à l’apprentissage. L’espace de navigation proposé, met en correspondance des activités d’exploration et de création. Au fur et à mesure de sa déambulation en temps réel, l’apprenant est guidé et motivé en suivant des parcours topographique, cognitif et scénarisé. Parallèlement, il crée sa propre « carte mémorielle » qui va l’aider à s’orienter, à construire ses connaissances et à les mémoriser. Le travail conduit à un modèle conceptuel applicable à tous types de bâtis. Il débouche sur un prototype qui utilise la Pyramide de Khéops comme support d’expérimentation / Restitution of built cultural heritage presented on Internet, interactive CD-ROMs, museum terminals, … is a constant preoccupation of cultural mediation. Thanks to the attractions of hypermedia, namely hypertext and multimedia, it seems that existing products have capacities to transmit heritage information to the public, but ultimately they miss real cognitive or educational purposes. Through the use of existing numerical tools, the objective consists in proposing to non-expert learners, a hypermedia navigation space based on systemic, practical and graphic assumptions, in order to conceive a complete visualization and immersion tool as an aid to understand archaeological and architectural knowledge.From an experimental point of view, we identify among the characteristics of video games and cartography, those which may report that these semiological and cognitive environments can constitute systems of re-presentation and effective learning.The navigation space proposed, correlates activities of exploration and creation. During his real time movement, the learner is guided and motivated following topographical, cognitive and scripted paths. At the same time, he/she creates his/her own « memory map » that will help to move, build knowledge and memorize.The work leads to a conceptual model applicable to all types of buildings. It results in a prototype using the Cheops Pyramid as support of experimentation

Aujourd'hui, l'intelligence artificielle (IA) est une composante essentielle d'un jeu vidéo et de plus en plus d'efforts sont portés sur cet aspect afin de rendre les jeux plus ludiques et plus immersifs. Cette amélioration va cependant de pair avec une augmentation sans cesse croissante des ressources informatiques nécessaires au fonctionnement de l'IA. De fait, il arrive que ces besoins soient si importants qu'ils dégradent le taux de rafraîchissement (TR) du jeu et ainsi la qualité d'expérience (QoE) du joueur. Dans ce contexte, notre objectif est de de maintenir le TR au dessus d'un certain seuil en modulant la quantité de ressources requises par l'IA. Pour ce faire, nous proposons de donner la possibilité au programmeur de définir plusieurs niveaux de détails pour l'IA (Level Of Details LOD), à l'instar de ce qui se fait pour afficher une scène graphique.Les travaux utilisant ce type d'approches proposent généralement d'utiliser des critères de distance à la caméra et de visibilité. Cependant, élaborés dans le contexte du rendu graphique, ces critères sont finalement assez peu adaptés au contexte IA car ils ne permettent pas toujours de rendre compte de l'importance réelle d'un personnage pour le joueur. Dans cette thèse, nous proposons d'utiliser des concepts organisationnels tels que le groupe et le rôle pour définir l'importance d'un personnage pour l'IA. De cette façon, un jeu vidéo est considéré comme une société d'agents (les personnages du jeu) dont l'importance individuelle ou collective est déterminée en fonction de leurs positions dans l'organisation, ce qui permet de déterminer une distribution des ressources de calcul disponibles adaptée : les entités les plus importantes dans l'histoire du jeu sont privilégiées.Notre approche a été implémentée et intégrée au moteur de jeu AGDE (Moteur Agent de développement du jeu). L'évaluation expérimentale a été réalisée à l'aide d'un système de mesures répétées pour évaluer la différence entre les QoE d'un jeu avec et sans notre approche. / In recent years there have been many efforts to develop original video games by improving both their aesthetic and mechanics. The more the mechanics is rich and realistic, the more advanced models of programming are required. However, using advanced models of programming such as agent-oriented programming often comes with an overhead in terms of computational resources. Furthermore, this overhead on computational resources may degrade the frame rate and subsequently quality of experience (QoE) for the players.In this context, our aim is to propose the QoE support means for ensuring that, in any case, the frame rate does not fall below a given lower bound. We suggest adapting the amount of time allocated for agents depending upon the importance of their organization roles. In this regard, we use a level of detail (LoD) approach to compute the dynamics of the game.LoD in game AI is based on the idea to use the most of the computational effort on the game characters that are the most important to the player(s). One critical issue in LoD for game AI is to determine the criterion for defining the importance of game characters. Existing work propose to use the criteria of camera distance and visibility. However such criteria have been developed from the perspective of graphics. In this thesis, we have used the roles played by the game characters (in the context of a video game) as the criterion for determining their importance. In this way, a video game has been considered as an agent society, where the game characters get priority and relatively higher share in distribution of the computational resources based on their relative importance in the game story.Our approach has been implemented and integrated to the AGDE (Agent Game Development Engine) game engine. The experimental evaluation has been carried out using a repeated measure scheme to assess the difference in QoE metrics between a game implemented our approach and a control game. The null hypothesizes have been rejected using t-paired test: the players have found significant positive difference in the QoE.

The overall purpose of this mixed method study was to describe adolescents’ experiences of ease while enduring treatment for cancer. Specifically, the study used avatar image-guided story-sharing (AIGSS) to explore adolescent sense-of-self, experiences of feeling uneasy, descriptions of qualities of ease, and best places for finding ease during treatment. The innovative research approach used in this study incorporated avatar images representing ‘ease’ in typical environments. By testing a developmentally relevant approach, AIGSS, to explore ease for adolescents enduring cancer, this study addressed a pressing need for meaningful approaches to engage adolescents in health-related dialogue about what matters most. While 10 qualities captured adolescent ease (beauty, fun, safety, strength, connectedness, calmness, rest, comfort, independence, and familiarity), connectedness, strength, fun, rest, and safety were the most significant qualities of ease threaded throughout stories. Two themes of self-reflected identity emerged: (a) valued personal qualities (extrinsic/admired) and (b) infused unique demeanors. Three themes described adolescent uneasiness during cancer treatment: (a) persistent uncertainty, (b) fearful anticipation, and (c) disrupted self. While home was most conducive for ease, personal meaning was given to the hospital enabling finding ease. This new knowledge is foundational for nurses who support adolescents during cancer treatment. This research lays the groundwork to re-define ease as a relevant outcome of quality nursing care, focusing on positive outcomes rather than catastrophic ones such as infection and death. Advancing caring science with interactive participative research enhanced communication with adolescents, having implications for both clinical research and pediatric oncology nursing practice. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2016. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

A obesidade atinge proporções alarmantes no Brasil e no mundo e é considerada desafio de saúde pública. Essa condição crônica exige preparo adequado dos profissionais de saúde e demanda formas inovadoras para seu enfrentamento. Assim, novas intervenções educativas têm sido propostas, vislumbrando maior aproximação das atividades de educação em saúde ao seu público. Uma dessas abordagens traz o uso de jogos digitais como uma ferramenta adicional em tratamentos e programas de educação em saúde voltados à criança. A partir disso, este estudo teve como objetivo desenvolver e avaliar um serious game como uma estratégia educativa para crianças escolares portadoras de sobrepeso e obesidade. Tratou-se de uma pesquisa metodológica, aplicada e de corte transversal. A pesquisa foi realizada em duas etapas: desenvolvimento e avaliação da versão final do serious game; e inserção e avaliação do serious game em um programa de enfrentamento da obesidade infantil. O desenvolvimento da versão final do jogo foi por meio dos referenciais de Prochaska (2008), Schell (2008) e Novak (2010). A segunda etapa da pesquisa contou com toda a população de crianças pertencente ao -Programa de condicionamento físico com games interativos para crianças obesas e/ou sobrepeso? durante o período de janeiro a julho de 2017. Ao total, 13 crianças e seus respectivos responsáveis aceitaram participar do estudo. Realizou-se a identificação do perfil das crianças participantes do programa por meio de dados antropométricos, de questionários sobre as condições socioeconômicas, hábitos alimentares e de atividade física. A idade dos participantes variou de sete a 11 anos e os IMC variaram de 21,1 a 40,4, revelando escores Z acima do valor +2, referentes à obesidade e obesidade grave. O jogo foi apresentado às crianças ao final das atividades do Programa de condicionamento físico, de maneira individual. A versão final do jogo foi desenvolvida e disponibilizada online de forma gratuita ao público. O DigesTower foi bem recebido pelos participantes, que afirmaram ter imersão, motivação e estímulo para melhoria do seu conhecimento. No geral, as crianças afirmaram que aprenderam com o DigesTower a encarar os alimentos de outra forma e a diferenciar os mais saudáveis dos menos saudáveis, além da importância do exercício físico para a saúde. Espera-se que os resultados forneçam evidências que sustentem a importância do uso de ferramentas inovadoras que auxiliem intervenções educativas no âmbito da obesidade infantil. Ainda, almeja-se que este estudo auxilie futuras pesquisas em que seus objetos de estudo sejam o desenvolvimento de jogos digitais para crianças em geral / Obesity reaches alarming proportions in Brazil and worldwide and is considered a public health challenge. This chronic condition requires adequate preparation of health professionals and demands innovative ways to cope with it. Thus, new educational interventions have been proposed, seeking a closer approximation of health education activities to its public. One such approach involves the use of digital games as an additional tool in child-directed health education and treatment programs. This study aimed to develop and evaluate a serious game as an educational strategy for school children who are overweight and obese. It was a methodological, applied and cross-sectional research. The study was realized in two stages: development and evaluation of the final version of the serious game; and insertion and evaluation of the serious game in a program of coping with childhood obesity. The development of the final version of the game was through the references of Prochaska (2008), Schell (2008) and Novak (2010). The second stage of the research included the entire population of children belonging to the \"Physical fitness program with interactive games for obese and/or overweight children\" during the period from January to July of 2017. In total, 13 children and their respective parents accepted participate in the study. The profile of the children participating in the program was identified through anthropometric data, questionnaires on socioeconomic conditions, eating habits and physical activity. The participants\' ages ranged from seven to 11 years, and BMI ranged from 21.1 to 40.4, showing Z scores above the +2 value, referring to obesity and severe obesity. The game was presented to the children at the end of the activities of the Physical Fitness Program, individually. The final version of the game was developed and made available online for free to the public. DigesTower was well received by the participants, who said they had immersion, motivation and encouragement to improve their knowledge. Overall, the children said that they learned from DigesTower how to look at food differently and differentiate between healthier and less healthy, as well as the importance of physical exercise for health. The results are expected to provide evidence to support the importance of using innovative tools that support educational interventions in the context of childhood obesity. It is also hoped that this study will aid future research in which their objects of study are the development of digital games for children in general

This study aims to examine the historical accuracy and historical usage in Ubisofts video-game Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. The study also examines the game’s potential to be used in teaching history in the upper secondary schools. The tools of the analysis are based on four different categorization models to analyze historical games and their didactic abilities. I have made some modifications to the different models, mainly because of the time-limit of this study. Furthermore, I have presented a crucial and relevant selection of previous research in the field of historical computer games, along with a summarizing description of the game-series Assassin’s Creed. The results from this study shows that the game is heavily influenced by history, and the historical accuracy can be noticed throughout the game. However, the game mixes the historical accuracy with fictional and fantastic elements in order to make the story and narrative of the game more intriguing and playable. The potential of the game in the upper secondary school is found to be problematic, mainly because of the time-limit and economical aspects. Nevertheless, the historical content of the game can easily be connected to the national curriculum, which means that the potential of making use of the game in the classroom should not be entirely dismissed.

Questa ricerca ha indagato la relazione tra i videogiochi (VG) e le competenze emotive. Il primo studio, una revisione sistematica della letteratura, ha illustrato lo stato dell’arte sulla ricerca relativa all’utilizzo dei VG per la regolazione emotiva: emerge che i VG, sia commerciali che serious games, influenzano positivamente le competenze emotive dei giocatori. Con il secondo studio si è indagata la relazione tra ore di gioco, autoefficacia emotiva, passione per i VG e benessere. I risultati confermano che videogiocare migliora il benessere dei giocatori, grazie alla maggiore autoefficacia emotiva, a condizione che l’attività di VG sia integrata armoniosamente tra le altre attività della vita. Infine, si è realizzato il progetto EmotivaMente, un percorso per la promozione dell’Intelligenza Emotiva, sviluppato per le scuole secondarie di secondo grado, basato sull’utilizzo dei VG come strumenti di lavoro. Gli studenti, grazie alle esperienze con i VG, hanno sviluppato maggiori capacità di riconoscere e gestire il proprio mondo emotivo e hanno aumentato il ricorso alla rivalutazione cognitiva. I dati, anche se preliminari, confermano che i VG, grazie alle loro caratteristiche di immersività, interattività, presenza e ricchezza narrativa, possiedono potenzialità per accrescere le competenze emotive e aumentare il benessere delle persone ancora inesplorate. / This thesis aimed to investigate the relationship between videogames (VG) and emotional skills. The first study, a systematic literature reviews, investigated the “state of the art” of the research regarding the use of VG for emotional regulation: data confirm that VGs, both commercial and serious games, positively influence the emotional skills of the players. The second study investigated the relationship between hours of play, emotional self-efficacy, passion for VG and well-being. The results confirm that videogaming improves player's well-being, thanks to the effect on the emotional self-efficacy, provided that the videogaming is integrated harmoniously among other life activities. Finally, EmotivaMente, a training aimed to promote of Emotional Intelligence, based on the use of VGs as work tools, was realized in two high schools. Thanks to EmotivaMente, students developed greater capacities to recognize and manage their emotional world and increased the use of cognitive re-evaluation as emotion regulation strategy. The findings, even if preliminary, confirm that the VGs, thanks to their immersivity, interactivity, presence and wealth of narrative, have a unexplored potential to promote emotional skills and increase the well-being of people.

This study investigates the previously neglected literary phenomenon of game novels, a genre that is part of the increasing significance that games are having in culture. Intermedial studies is one of the principal fields that examines these types of phenomena, which provides perspectives for understanding the interactions between media. Furthermore, it forms the foundation for this study that analyses the relation between the four novels by Drew Karpyshyn (Mass Effect: Revelation, 2007; Mass Effect: Ascension, 2008; Mass Effect: Retribution, 2010) and William C. Dietz (Mass Effect: Deception, 2012), and the Mass Effect Trilogy. Differences and similarities between the media are delineated using semiotic theories, primarily the concepts of modalities of media and transfers of media characteristics. The thesis further investigates the narrative discourse, and narrative perspectives in the novels and how these instances relate to the transferred characteristics of Mass Effect. Ultimately, the commonly transferred characteristic in the novels is the storyworld, which reveals both differences and similarities between the media. Regardless of any differences, the similarities demonstrate a relationship where the novels expand the storyworld.

Existem evidências que jogar videogames de ação (AVG) aperfeiçoa habilidades perceptuais, atentivas e cognitivas, como por exemplo, recuperação mais rápida da atenção visual e aprimoramento das dinâmicas temporais da percepção visual. Estudos correlacionais sugerem que estes aprimoramentos temporais se aplicam também ao processamento visual de baixa ordem, contudo evidências mais contundentes são necessárias. Ademais, no campo da multimídia computacional estudos apontam que a resolução temporal na qual o videogame é apresentado na tela, correspondente a taxa de quadros por segundo (QPS), afeta o desempenho e o entretenimento de jogadores. Entretanto ainda não se sabe como aspectos técnicos dos AVG, como a taxa de QPS, influenciam nos aperfeiçoamentos cognitivos citados anteriormente. Para esclarecer tais lacunas, delineou-se um estudo para verificar se AVG jogados em diferentes QPS afetam a recuperação temporal da atenção, medidos pela tarefa de Supressão Atencional (SA), e se há alterações nos limiares da resolução temporal visual, medidas através da frequência crítica de fusão e oscilação da visão (CFF). Trinta e dois (16M, 16F) participantes não jogadores de videogame voluntariaram-se para um experimento longitudinal. Inicialmente os voluntários foram separados em quatro grupos (4M, 4F) e todos eles no primeiro dia foram submetidos a uma tarefa de mensuração de CFF na região visual central e uma tarefa de SA. No dia seguinte e depois nos sete dias conseguintes dois grupos, intitulados experimentais, realizaram um treinamento com videogames de ação, sendo que cada um dos grupos treinou em diferentes resoluções temporais, um a 15 QPS e outro a 120 QPS. Simultaneamente um terceiro grupo, treinou com um videogame controle sem elementos de ação. E o quarto grupo, controle, não teve treinamento. O total de tempo de treinamento foi de 10 horas, distribuído em 8 dias, exceto para o grupo sem treino. No dia posterior ao último dia de treinamento todos os participantes foram submetidos novamente a tarefas de SA e CFF. De modo geral o CFF aumentou para todos os participantes entre pré e pós-teste, particularmente para o grupo sem treino, não houve efeito de grupo. Desempenho no SA melhorou somente no para lag2 (212ms) para participantes que treinaram AVG na taxa de QPS mais baixa. Estes resultados sugerem que treinamento com AVG não aumenta o limiar do CFF na região visual central, se não o oposto, e que o aprimoramento temporal da atenção beneficia-se com um treinamento com AVG em baixa resolução temporal, mas não de alta taxa de QPS, ao menos nas 10 horas iniciais de treino / Action video game play enhances perceptual, attentional, and cognitive skills, such as leading to faster recovery of visual attention over time and improvement of temporal dynamics of visual perception. Correlational data suggest that these temporal enhancements extend to low-level vision processes, but stronger evidence is needed. Also, in the multimedia computing field it was pointed out that video game screen frame rate affects players performance and enjoyment, but it is unclear how such technical aspects of the games play a role in cognitive augmentations. To shed more light on these issues, we tested whether action video game play and the frame rate at which they are played affects flicker detection in the central visual field and performance in attentional blink task. Thirty two (16 M, 16F) non-video game players volunteered to a longitudinal experiment. They were randomly split into four groups (4M, 4F). All of the groups performed a critical flicker-fusion frequency task (by method of limits) and attentional blink task at the first day of the experiment. Two experimental groups underwent action video-game training with different screen frame-rate caps each (15 and 120 frames per second, respectively). And one control group trained with a control game and a second control group had no training. The total amount of time in video-game training was 10 hours (75 min per day for consecutive 8 days), except for the no-training group. On the 10th day, all participants performed the flicker-detection and attentional blink tasks (post-test). Generally, critical flicker-fusion thresholds increased at the post-test for all groups, particularly for the non-training group, there were no group effect. Only marginal increased were observed in lag 2 for participant trained in low-frame-rate action video games. Our data suggest that playing video games do not increase flicker sensitivity threshold, it may actually prevent increase. And lower frame rate training produce transfer effects to Attentional Blink task, but not the higher frame rate training, at least in the first 10 hours