Christian Sebastian Loh turns on his 72-inch liquid plasma, high-definition rear projector TV in order to operate his Alienware 5500 desktop computer to play video games in 3-D.
Loh does not play these games himself; he studies the way people play the games. He received a $70,000 grant from the U.S. Army in 2009 to study how video games help people learn.
The grant is called the Defense University Research Instrumentation Program, and allowed Loh to purchase the material necessary to pay for virtual environment equipment that allows him to study people who play video games.
Loh, an assistant professor in the College of Education and Human Services, said when the university found out he was buying a computer they were a little skeptical.
“They asked me, ‘Why are you buying a toy?’” Loh said. “It was so I could create a more immersive lifelike experience to help with my studies.”
Loh said he always sets the game display to 3-D to make game images pop off the screen. The technology involved is similar to what is used in 3-D movies.
Test subjects sit in front of the monitor and put on 3-D glasses, Loh said. He said the game he tests the most is “Neverwinter Nights 2.” He implements a program to track the movements players make and study how they learn after they make mistakes.
“I’ll give them a simple goal like finding this waterfall in a game,” Loh said. “It’s a maze-like environment. During certain turns will be powerful monsters that will kill the player. I want to see how the player learns from these experiences to reach their ultimate goal.”
The software allows Loh to monitor the player from far away. A person can play a video game in Loh’s lab. The only requirement is for the software to be installed on both the player’s and Loh’s computers.
Jaehwan Byun, a doctoral student in education from Seoul, South Korea, studying under Loh, said the software does more than simply tracking how players move.
“The software can tell what the learner is doing,” Byun said. “If the learner talks with a character in game, it will say on the program. If the learner picks up an item, it will say on the program.”
Loh said he is also working on technology designed to read brain waves associated with emotions players might feel. The device is called the EPOC, which is a headset put on before a player plays a game and can store brain waves a player has while playing.
“I want to understand how someone might feel when they play a game,” Loh said. “By studying their brain waves, we can learn how video games make people feel.”
He said he intends on studying games such as “Resident Evil 5” to measure feelings of fear and various first-person shooters to gauge excitement.
This is not the first time the army has run tests with video games. In 2002, the Army released “America’s Army,” a title that offered realistic Army training courses in a video game environment. This was used to simulate combat experience, Loh said.
Byun is writing his dissertation using the equipment Loh received, but is doing a slightly different study.
“I want to learn how game sounds impact a player’s engagement in the game,” Byun said. “Sound is important to how people are feeling and I want to measure that.”
In his study, Byun said he has test subjects undergo four different tests. The first involves no sound at all, only text in the game. The second involves only sound effects. The third adds background music and the fourth turns on all sound, including voices.
Byun said the purpose of these studies is to prove video games can be used as a learning tool.
“There are several articles suggesting video games can be used for learning,” Byun said. “We want to help prove it.”
Derek Robbins can be reached at drobbins@dailyegyptian.com or 536-3311 ext. 274.
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