Högskolan i Skövde

In this chapter we discuss games from an embodiment perspective and illustrate the importance of a particular category of embodied experience where perception, action, and socio-cultural context are closely interrelated. The embodied experiences we have in mind relate to young children’s learning, in particular to understanding the abstract concept of risk awareness. We are interested in how young people can grasp this concept through embodied experiences mediated by a computer game. Online risk is inherently abstract for young children and as such is difficult to grasp due to their level of cognitive maturity. Since the abstract concept is not grounded in experience, it needs to be made concrete through their own hands-on experience. The overarching purpose is to enable young children to make sound decisions when faced with uncomfortable or even threatening situations during online interactions. The experiences we discuss include both game experiences and what we term pre-experiences which may be remembered at a later point in time when faced with real-world events.

While much of the games research field for the last two decades has focused on digital games, this article draws attention to the benefits of combining analogue and digital game components to cater for a serious but fun game experience. In this case, the game design provides a set of game rules for players, where the goal is to win by finding another player’s hidden treasure. But, the game also includes deceptive characters, initially unknown to the players, whose goal is to lure the players to reveal information, which will make a player lose the game. Hence, the players and the unknown characters are involved in opposite but intertwined activities. To describe the differing activities we use the activity system model foundin Activity Theory. The theoretical conceptualisation, the game design and the play situation create what we term a zone of experience where young players can experience the consequences of sharing too much information. The game design mimics real world online interactions, but under safe off-line conditions. The zone of experience also creates the foundation for an ensuing activity that fits well within the concept of the zone of proximal development: A follow-up conversation under adult guidance of game experiences aimed at raising children’s online risk awareness.

Developing children's games that concern sensitive subjects such as online sexual grooming obviously poses a number of challenges. Such challenges include, for instance, the sensitivity of the topic itself, the ethics surrounding the subject matter, and the need to bypass inappropriate language while also creating a game that children will want to play. This paper describes a computer game development project in which a game for 8-10-year-old children was created with the purpose to raise young peoples' risk awareness in online interactions such as multi-user gaming and social networking. The game's mechanics are based on our extensive studies of naturalistic online dialogues derived from closed-forum dialogues between children and later-convicted perpetrators. The perpetrators' tactics and strategies were transferred into game events but in a non-sexual and non-violent format. The game, Hidden in the Zoo, combines a classic board game, a computer game, and augmented reality technology. The traditional game board can be viewed on a tablet that transfers the basic picture on the board into an exciting 3D world. The game's setting is a zoo. To play, each player hides a treasure and is then given a set of clues to the location of the player's own hiding place. The players need to be mindful of the clues to the hiding place so that other players cannot find their treasure. Beyond this basic game premise, the game also contains messages, similar to online chats or text messages, through which players can choose whether or not to reveal a clue, bearing in mind that revealing a clue may or may not be a good idea in the long run. The game is now a fully playable prototype, and initial results show that the game serves as a tool for generating discussions about possible actions and consequences within the game but also in real life. Hence, the game provides a means to empower young children through raised risk awareness.

This paper describes the use of the WOz method in the development of a prototype for a multi-player mixed reality game for children. It is an adventure game with hidden treasures, clues to hiding places, and information that should not be revealed. The game design, however, includes deceptive elements aimed at luring players to give up information. The game’s underlying intent is to raise children’s online risk awareness. The WOz was used in the early developmental stage to evaluate and explore the game concept, and to find a way to synchronise and integrate different in-game processes. We describe four central game mechanics for which the wizarding proved to be highly useful. We also discuss some ethical aspects related to the method a such as well as to the game design. In sum, we found the WOz method as such to be very useful for game design and development.

This paper presents a game-based approach for raising young children's online risk awareness, to decrease the risk of becoming the subject of sexual grooming. Hidden in the Park is an adventure game, including a classic game board and a tablet with Augmented Reality-technology. The game mechanics are based on data from true grooming processes. The game's target group is children aged 8-10 years. This paper describes the game development, from a prototype to an approved release version that will be released as a non-profit product during 2019. We describe the creation of the game mechanics, the iterative development process, and game evaluation. 25 pupils in the target group participated, but the ages 7-12 (n=70) were included to evaluate whether the game would suit the intended target group. Results show that the game is fun and engaging but that it also raise questions concerning online activities.

This paper describes the development and evaluation of the innovative computer game Hidden in the Park, for 8–10 year old children. It is a mixed media game that includes classic game elements and Augmented Reality technology. It is a non-profit game designed for a playful game experience. But, it is also a serious game intended to raise young childrens’ risk awareness in online interactions, to decrease the risk of becoming the subject of online sexual grooming. The game is intended to evoke thoughts and reflections related to players’ decisions and their consequences. Furthermore, the game is based on research on true online grooming processes, which provides the basis for some central game mechanics. Game evaluations were carried out with 70 children in school settings. The results show that the participants perceived the game as fun and engaging, but that it also raised questions and reactions, as intended. Hidden in the Park will be released during 2019 and it will be available for free download. 

While online social networking sites and other digital media provide a means for positive online experiences, they are also being misused for offences like online sexual grooming. Attempts have been made to analyse and model online grooming in order to understand this kind of predator behaviour (e.g., O’Connell, 2004; Williams et al., 2013). This research, and the resulting models of the grooming process, is however, invariably based on material where adult decoys (e.g., researchers, law enforcement officers, adults trained to entrap offenders) pose as children in the interaction with potential offenders. We argue that such material, i.e., decoy-offender chat logs, does not reflect real grooming processes; Decoys have an underlying agenda to make prosecutable cases against offenders, which entails decoys resorting to manipulation tactics otherwise typical for offender behaviour. In all essence, this often leads to a dialogue with two adults using grooming tactics on each other, and the resulting models do not capture the patterns of child-offender dialogues.

Contrary to previous research, we have analysed real-world child-offender chat logs from closed forums. Our data set, selected dialogues (ca. 500 pages) from a corpus of ca. 12 000 A4-pages was thematically analysed and categorised using NVivo 10 software. The coding was done by both authors for inter-rater reliability. Where coding differed, the authors explored the categorisation until agreement was reached (cf., Whittle et al., 2013). The material was also compared to decoy-offender chat logs (ca. 100 pages, publically available on perverted-justice.com).

The analysis of the different data sets reveal quite different pictures of the grooming process. While previous models describe the grooming process as sequential (O’Connell, 2004) or thematic (Williams et al., 2013), our findings suggest a far more complex behavioural pattern – significantly diverse dialogue patterns with different tactics emerge, depending on whether the respondent is a decoy or a child, and their respective responses. The (preliminary) results show differences in both dialogue and process structure. Dialogues with decoys commonly show what can best be described as “artificial compliance”, presumably due to their underlying agenda of generating prosecutable cases. Furthermore, decoys tease out personal information from the offenders, and also share “personal” information about themselves, even when not asked for it.

Child-offender dialogues instead show patterns of reluctance or objections to offender requests for personal information, suggestions of sexual nature, etc. Another offender tactic is threats to obtain compliance, which was not found in any of the analysed decoy-offender dialogues. Other deviations include differences in dialogue length, number of dialogue turns, and complexity, with regard to changes in topics and offender tactics. Further research is necessary for a more thorough understanding of online grooming, and new models are needed that reflect real-world grooming processes. This includes offender behaviours, reasoning, decisions, and tactics used in grooming. Further, such knowledge is of outmost importance for risk awareness measures for young people so they can better cope with online challenges and risks, and make sensible judgements and decisions in online interactions.

This paper describes the development of a computer game for enhanced visitor experiences of an adventure tour, in which the game is integrated. The game project was run 2011-2013 and included the development of an arcade style two player cooperative computer game, game controls, graphics, sound and music. The adventure tour takes place in an old military fortress where visitors participate in searching for gold that has been stolen. The tour starts with a 3D movie that provides the plot and introduces hero and villain characters. The story is then carried forth by a game master who brings the visitors on a tour along the fortress’ vaults, during which they also play the computer game. The adventure tour is structured by a semi-fictional framing story that interweaves history, physical environment, and hero and villain characters. To withhold interdependency in the overall design of the adventure tour and the game, Caillois’s (1958/2001) taxonomy for games was chosen as a basis, combined with narrative key elements carried across the adventure tour. The game was also designed to accord with the embodied nature of human activity, allowing players to engage their whole bodies in the gameplay. Initial game evaluation results indicate the game contributes to an enhanced visitor experience of the adventure tour.

A fair trail is impossible without an interpreter when anyone taking part in the court proceedings does not know the national language, yet the use of an interpreter affects the judging of an immigrant and perhaps their right to a trial as fair as the one offred to a native speaker of the national language. At times courtroom conversation using an interpreter gets confusing, interrupted, and breaks down. These disfluencies can be the result of a lack of linguistic and cultural insight by any of the parties. This paper focuses on how interpreters and legal staff perceive the court interpreter's role, and the creation of the interpretation. Using qualitative semi-structured interviews, it became clear that the interpreter and the lay judge hold different views. The interviews also revealed a degree of mutual mistrust. Yet, in spite of this, a feeling that the bilingual communication in the courts works reasonable well most of the time also came through in the interviews and that with better education for all parties the courtroom could become a fairer legal context.

Spoken language as a means of communication contains huge amounts of information apart from the linguistic message that is conveyed. It is often the first channel of interaction between people and based on the speaker’s manner of talk, we create a mental image of the speaker as a person, of the speaker’s background, origin and personal qualities. Through five case studies, this dissertation investigates how immigrants to Sweden are judged based on their foreign accents (Cases 1—3) and how the use of an interpreter in court can affect the legal process and the judging of the immigrant (Cases 4—5). Case 1 investigated Swedish students’ attitudes towards immigration and immigrants through a survey-based study and revealed that Swedish students hold predominantly positive attitudes towards immigrations and immigrants. Case 2, using accent imitation, asked if Swedish speakers have a cognitive prototype for British English accented Swedish and found that this was the case. This demonstrated that Swedes have models of accented Swedish accents. Case 3 asked Swedish students to rate their impressions of speakers of nine foreign accented Swedish voices on 18 six-point semantic differential scales. They also rated their impressions of each voice for five social factors. The results suggest that the listeners evaluated the voices based on perceived social desirability, or perceived cultural distance between the listener and the voice’s country of origin. Juxtaposing these findings with those of Case 1 suggests that even among a group who are positive to immigrants and immigration some groups of immigrants are more welcome than others. Case 4 examined discourse disfluencies in a bilingual court hearing and a Swedish-Polish bilingual court hearing in detail. The case showed that most of the dialogue-related difficulties have other sources than the interpreter, even if the interpreter at first glance often appeared to be part of the problem rather than part of the solution. Case 5 examined the interpreter’s role in courtroom dialogue situations through interviews with a court interpreter and a lay judge. The study found that the picture of the interpreter’s role differs between the various actors in the court setting. This, in combination with a lack of knowledge about cultural differences in dialogue strategies, creates complications, can have an impact on the perception of the witness and, ultimately, affect the legal rights of the accused. Furthermore, as the interpreter most frequently speaks foreign accented Swedish, the perception and evaluation of their foreign accented Swedish can further place some immigrant groups at a double legal disadvantage when being judged.