Communication Professor Byron Reeves explores how the human brain reacts to gaming

The brain activity of an adult playing a computer game may help researchers develop more effective job training and educational systems, according to the preliminary findings of Professor Byron Reeve’s latest research projects. The studies are part of the NSF-funded LIFE Center research portfolio of projects that is based at the Stanford Center for Innovations in Learning.

In his study of the psychology of computer game playing Reeves, a communication professor, is looking at how immersion in a virtual world, and representation by a computer-created character, is highly arousing and motivating to the human brain. The implications of these findings could lead to the creation of informal learning environments that are uniquely compelling; leading players to extend the period of time they spend in a learning environment.

“I’m interested in studying the psychological response people have while playing games,” said Reeves, who is also Director of both the Center for the Study of Language and Information and Media X, SCIL’s industry affiliates program .

“My major goal here is to find out why computer games are so attractive. I’m most interested in the ability they offer the player to be part of the screen. There is an immersion that happens. It is not compelling because of the pictures, but because of the sense that “I am there.” If I get killed or crash or meet people or other interesting things happen to me in a game where I am a character there is a real draw.”

The application “in the context of life,” as Reeves puts it, is to create informal learning environments that are so compelling that people will spend more time and as a result benefit more than in other learning settings.

To measure reactions to different game playing scenarios researchers use skin conductance, heart acceleration and deceleration and other neuroscience measures that show what is going on in the brain.

Patricia Kuhl and Andy Meltzoff of the Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences at the University of Washington are collaborators in the LIFE Project. LIFE: Learning in Formal and Informal Environments, was created last year as a collaboration with UW and SRI International.

In addition to the psychology of gaming studies, Reeves and his fellow researchers are exploring the creation of an expansive interactive online world that allows participants to create their character and then live in a simulated environment, carrying out everyday tasks that include learning. He describes the experimental world as a place like that in the popular game “The Sims.”

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