- Title
- Quantifying in-game task difficulty using real-time cognitive load
- Creator
- Seyderhelm, Andrew J. A.; Blackmore, Karen L.
- Relation
- i3 Lab Working Paper Series Number 4, 2021
- Resource Type
- working paper
- Date
- 2021
- Description
- Serious games and simulation training is an ever growing field with adoption across a wide range of applications and industries. These games and simulations seek to create educational experiences that are engaging, challenging and enhance learning or training outcomes. Typically, these types of games have had a one-fits-all approach that may not be suitable for all players; the game may be too difficult for some or too easy for others. To tackle this problem, dynamic difficulty adjustment (DDA) is a method of adapting various game mechanics and learning content to better match the needs of the player that is common in entertainment games. However, the impact of these adjustments to the level of difficulty, from changes to the environment, mechanics or even the game aesthetic, is not straightforward, particularly in respect of cognitive load. Cognitive load refers to the mental capacity of the player and if they’re either over-, or under-, burdened outcomes may be boredom, frustration, disengagement and potential failure. There are few studies exploring the effect over time of different tasks, environments and challenges on both player performance and cognitive load in complex simulated environments. In order to understand the impact of different design choices, both during game development and as applied to any form of adaptive system, it is important to understand the impact these choices are likely to have on cognitive load and player performance. This paper describes the development process and rationale for a 3D serious driving game, called the Cognitive Effect Driving Game (CEDG). The CEDG is a first person 3D game that is designed specifically to explore how different game tasks, environments, game aesthetics and challenges affect cognitive load and performance in real-time. Additionally, the CEDG will be used to validate a virtual in-game version of the detection response task (DRT), termed the Virtual DRT (VirDRT). The VirDRT is being validated as an effective measure of cognitive load, in real-time, using only the default game controller. The results of experiments such as the CEDG will enable metrics on how a wide range of weather, lighting, tasks, difficulty levels and virtual environments affect cognitive load and performance, and provide a validated tool box of methods that can be confidently used to affect difficulty in 3D games in specific ways. This document outlines the design process, decisions, technology, rationale and aesthetics for this experiment/game design and forms the foundation for future research into cognitive-adaptive serious games and simulations.
- Subject
- cognitive load; cognitive effect driving game (CEDG); 3D game; game design; i3 Lab Working Paper Series
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1427274
- Identifier
- uon:38525
- Language
- eng
- Full Text
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