cognitive intersections: meeting narrative, semiotics, and neuroscience in video game characters
TRANSCRIPT
Cognitive Intersections: Meeting Narrative, Semiotics, and Neuroscience in Video Game Characters
Cody MejeurDepartment of EnglishMichigan State [email protected]@cmejeur
A Question… Or Two.What is the relationship between the cognitive and
semiotics?
Addition: What is the relationship between the cognitive, semiotics, and narrative?
Focus: Video Game Characters
Semiotics and NarrativeSigns in games (including characters)
come togetherPlay between them is narrativeQuestion of scale?
Analysis of narrative (particularly close reading/analysis) requires focus on particular signs and groups of signs
Extract out to larger structuresAlways scripted and emergent qualities
Helpful Comparison: Pyramid of Popular Formula
Borrowing…
The Problem of StructureDoes structure actually match experience?What do structures miss or exclude?Always building yet another model?
What would narrative look like without structure?
Narrative as less of a structure, system, taxonomy, etc., more of a force or cognitive process? Less what it is, more what it does?
Can we design structures that are more fluid, dynamic, adaptable, experiential?
A Thought Experiment
Striving for Dynamism
Semiotics and CognitionCognitive Semiotics and Cognitive
LinguisticsFocus on neuroscience of individual
letters, sounds, wordsExpanding to compound words, clauses,
phrases, sentences.How does player use/interact with it?
Communication?Constructing a Narrative?
Do signs accumulate? Change over time according to
scripted and emergent relations
Character Sign
Signs and PlayersAll signs in games, especially characters,
have some relationship to the playerSigns are never fully stable
Always moving, changingLimits to change, sign must cohere
Force relations within and between signs
Speaking of Player Perception… Narrative and CognitionSigns coming together in narrativeDifficulty of studying narrative via neuroscience
Assumption that activity or interface=narrative?Challenging the Narrative/Play Distinction
Theory? Jenkins, Ryan, Walsh, PrinceDegrees of Narrativity,
Embedded/Emergent/Experiential NarrativeSocial Scientific Methods?
Interview playersForums researchProblem of sample sizes-is this inevitable?
Designing a fMRI experiment Test distinction/relationship
between narrative and play Problem: Controls, Isolating
“Narrative” Choice: Use First Person games
(shooters, exploration, etc.)Avoid character entanglements Mirror/Mimic Player
POV/ConsciousnessQuestion of interfaceAlexander Galloway–what
assumptions are built into the interface?
What are the narrative and cognitive implications of the interface?
Screening QuestionnaireControl for experience, predisposition toward or
against narrativefMRI Play
MRI compatible controllerEye-tracking, video recordingPlay segments of three games: Halo, Half-Life 2,
Bioshock. Similar play, different narrative configurations.
Post Scanner Questionnaire and Oral InterviewModified Game Experience Questionnaire,
Eindhoven University of Technology
Steps to Experiment
Final Suggestions/QuestionsBringing together Semiotics, Narrative, and
Cognition (inc. Cognitive Neuroscience) can help us understand video game characters and narrative meaning-making in games
The reverse is also true: games can change our concepts and theoriesChallenge us to rethink narrative and our
reliance on structureTo what extent is this possible?
What are the benefits and limitations of neuroscience?
What does the study of game narrative look like when it moves past model-making?