Abstract
Among elderly, the use of serious games steadily increases. Research shows that anthropomorphising digital agents (i.e., ascribing human characteristics to them) has positive short-term consequences on interactions with digital agents. However, whether these effects can also be observed over a long-term period and in a real-life setting is unknown. In two studies, we investigated the important long-term consequences of anthropomorphism among older adults (age > 50) to increase involvement in serious games. Participants read either a story that highly anthropomorphized the digital agent of a training game, or a low anthropomorphism story about that agent. To investigate long-term effect, they played the training game for three weeks, and gaming data was assessed (number of games played, time of playing, points gained). While on the short-term, the anthropomorphic story increased the humanness of the agent (Study 1), no long-term effects where found (Study 2). Furthermore, an anthropomorphic story had no influence on the gaming outcome. Our results inform app developers about which techniques are useful to humanise digital agents.
Highlights
The use of digital games increased steadily in the last decades, and among older adults and the elderly, digital games become more and more common [1,2]
We examined whether these possible changes have an influence on older adults’ motivation to play the game, measured by how often, how long, and how well they perform in a cognitive training game, the EinsteinTM Brain Trainer HD [50] which contains two digital agents, Einstein and Robo, a talking robot
To investigate whether story version had an influence on the evaluation of the non-human agent in a short-term assessment, a 2-way between-subjects MANOVA was conducted, with the mean anthropomorphism score, the mean identification score, and the IOS score as dependent variables
Summary
The use of digital games increased steadily in the last decades, and among older adults and the elderly, digital games become more and more common [1,2]. In the present research, we investigated methods that can be used to increase player motivation in a serious game. It seems that the more engaged players are with the game, the greater their improvement in learning [13,14]. Digital agents with a human-like appearance are implemented in games to help the player when necessary, and to engage the player As these helping agents can increase the perceived usability of the game [15], and increase the player’s motivation, it is important to find additional ways to improve the interaction with such
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