Collaborate and share: an experimental study of the effects of task and reward interdependencies in online games.

Today millions of players interact with one another in online games, especially massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs). These games promote interaction among players by offering interdependency features, but to date few studies have asked what interdependency design factors of MMORPGs make them fun for players, produce experiences of flow, or enhance player performance. In this study, we focused on two game design features: task and reward interdependency. We conducted a controlled experiment that compared the interaction effects of low and high task-interdependency conditions and low and high reward-interdependency conditions on three dependent variables: fun, flow, and performance. We found that in a low task-interdependency condition, players had more fun, experienced higher levels of flow, and perceived better performance when a low reward-interdependency condition also obtained. In contrast, in a high task-interdependency condition, all of these measures were higher when a high reward-interdependency condition also obtained.     

VR-based conversation training program for patients with schizophrenia: a preliminary clinical trial.

Schizophrenia is a devastating mental illness and is characterized by hallucinations and delusions as well as social skills deficits. Generally, social skills training designed to help patients develop social skills includes role-playing, but this form of training has typical shortcomings, which are largely due to a trainer's difficulties to project emotion. Virtual reality (VR)-based techniques have the potential to solve these difficulties, because they provide a computer-generated but realistic three-dimensional world and humanlike avatars that can provide emotional stimuli. In this paper, we report on a method of implementing virtual environments (VEs) in order to train people with schizophrenia to develop conversational skills in specific situations, which could overcome the shortcomings of or complement conventional role-playing techniques. The paper reports the efficacy of the proposed approach in a preliminary clinical trial with 10 patients with schizophrenia.     

Mortality and Re-enchantment: Conscious Dying as Individualized Spirituality

The emergence of conscious dying in modern society suggests that the redefinition of death as consciousness transference not only challenges the fear of death, but also empowers a personal approach to dying moments. It can be considered a form of individualized spirituality, because the meaning of consciousness transference is not exclusively rooted in institutionalized meanings of the sacred, but redefines the sacred in highly individualistic terms. This change in attitudes towards death reflects a process of re-enchantment concomitant with the individualism of the New Age.     

Marriage and the Public Good

In this article I seek to address some misunderstandings inarguments about same sex-marriage. I do this by evaluating severalviews on homosexuality and marriage. My central aim is to showthat a rejection of same-sex marriage does not depend upon theview that homosexual acts are immoral or disordered. Rather,one must examine sexual acts in light of public goods that areat stake. I also argue that the Christian understanding of marriageand sexuality offers more than a set of prohibitions againstcertain sexual acts. Rather, it offers reasonable principlesby which to evaluate the relationship between sexual acts andthe public good.     

Acute Stress Modulates Risk Taking in Financial Decision Making

ABSTRACT— People's decisions are often susceptible to various demands exerted by the environment, leading to stressful conditions. Although a goal for researchers is to elucidate stress-coping mechanisms to facilitate decision-making processes, it is important to first understand the interaction between the state created by a stressful environment and how decisions are performed in such environments. The objective of this experiment was to probe the impact of exposure to acute stress on financial decision making and examine the particular influence of stress on decisions with a positive or negative valence. Participants' choices exhibited a stronger reflection effect when participants were under stress than when they were in the no-stress control phase. This suggests that stress modulates risk taking, potentially exacerbating behavioral bias in subsequent decision making. Consistent with dual-process approaches, decision makers fall back on automatized reactions to risk under the influence of disruptive stress.     

Stability and Change in Personality Disorder

ABSTRACT— The standard view of personality disorder is that it is a maladaptive expression of personality traits, which are relatively stable and unchanging. Thus, personality disorder has been considered to have its roots in childhood and adolescence, to persist in adulthood, and to be difficult to change. However, recent research has challenged this view, revealing that personality continues to change, albeit more slowly, well into adulthood, and that the maladaptive manifestations of personality disorder are much less stable than previously believed. These research findings are described, and factors that influence stability and change in personality disorder are discussed. The emerging view of personality disorder has important implications for diagnosis, assessment, and treatment of personality pathology.     

Bootstrapping and knowledge of reliability

This is a critical discussion of a paper on the problem of bootstrapping by Jose Zalabardo.

Morgenbesser's Coin and Counterfactuals with True Components

Is A ∧ C sufficient for the truth of 'If A were the case, C would be the case'? Jonathan Bennett thinks not and produces a putative counterexample. But I argue that anyone who accepts the case of Morgenbesser's coin, as Bennett does, should reject Bennett's counterexample. Moreover, I show that the principle underlying Bennett's counterexample is unmotivated and indeed false. More generally, I argue that Morgenbesser's coin commits us to the sufficiency of A ∧ C for the truth of the corresponding counterfactual.