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In this paper, we outline opportunities within the video game environment for building skills applicable to real-world issues faced by some children. The game Minecraft is extremely popular and of particular interest to children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. Although the game has been used by support communities to facilitate the social interaction of children and peer support for their parents, little has been done to examine how social skills developed within the game environment generalize to the real world. Social Craft aims to establish a framework in which key social communication skills would be rehearsed in-game with a view to facilitating their replication in a similarly contained real-world environment. Central to this approach is an understanding of the basic principles of behavior and the engagement of a sound methodology for the collection of data inside and outside the respective environments.
Minecraft [
Players navigate this cubist world using a similarly constructed block-person avatar, and most usually view their world from a first-person camera orientation, which reinforces a sense of belonging and immersion. As players gain experience, the environment evolves through a kind of Mesolithic, Paleolithic, and Iron Age culture. Multiple modes of play are offered, including Creative Mode, a more traditional block-building environment where blocks of every type are available in an open inventory and the more competitive Survival Mode in which players need to eat and sleep and defend themselves against a plethora of hostile nonplayer characters in the form of creepers, zombies, and witches to name a few. Players who perish from natural or unnatural causes, respawn in a recent home location, but lose any inventory items they are carrying.
The open-ended narrative structure of Minecraft, especially when used in Creative Mode, facilitates constructive play of a type that resembles real-life block-building play along the lines of Lego or similar interlinking toy systems. These real-world block building toys are similarly popular among children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) [
Although many other computer games exhibit a seemingly similar constructivist architecture and open-world platform to Minecraft, from some of the earliest text-based MUDs, such as Zork [
This concept of avatar presence and interactive content creation is not without precedence and was explored in an earlier paper by Cadieux [
The popularity of Minecraft with children with ASD seems fairly universal and, as such, the video game has been used by educators and ASD support communities to facilitate downtime from overwhelming classroom situations and to facilitate the social interaction of children [
With Minecraft, you can really just be yourself. The social interactions, the relationships, the communication – everything just boils down to you and your keyboard.
Autcraft is an organization that hosts a Minecraft server, specifically geared toward users with ASD. The environment is managed through a system that employs administrators who patrol the environment from within the game using avatars with enhanced privileges. They monitor and police the Autcraft environment with a remit modeled on game-play etiquette and internet safety and provide a safe environment which entirely comprises children with autism, their parents, and family members. The Autcraft community limits its remit to policing its environment to reduce greifing or virtual antisocial behavior of its members and provides in-world support to the participants.
Within the safe Autcraft environment, individuals with autism can engage in behaviors normally associated with autism in the real world; there is no perceived need for anyone to do otherwise. Examples of behaviors associated with a diagnosis of autism include deficits in social-emotional reciprocity, deficits in nonverbal communicative behaviors in social interactions, and deficits in developing, maintaining, and understanding relationships [
This begs the question as to whether it is at all possible for any skills acquired during emersion in a virtual world to generalize to the real world. Therapeutic applications of virtual reality (VR) show some promise in a variety of clinical populations. Examples include the treatment of phobias [
To set the scene for a discussion of what could be done, consider how the technological goals within a game are already mirrored in the real world. This is precisely the remit of the natural science of behavior analysis when it develops behavioral technology to facilitate social exchanges, where
Within a virtual world, the tools used in social communication (eg, using text and graphic symbols) are not those normally used in real-world contexts. That said, from a behavioral perspective, skills that could be enhanced within the virtual world should be viewed as classes of behavior rather than discrete behaviors. In other words, it would be a mistake to consider
Behavioral instructors state goals in terms of student behavior. Objectives such as
This perspective on technology was pioneered by BF Skinner, who gave birth to the field of programmed instruction [
Some of the issues being addressed here might best be discussed in the context of the following hypothetical experiment. A number of young people diagnosed with ASD are given the opportunity to play Minecraft for a fixed period of time at school. Following this, they are given the opportunity to engage with each other in a free-play situation with a block-building toy, such as Lego. The research question would be whether the social behaviors that occurred in the game world also appear in the real world. In addition, it would be important to know their similarities and differences. Without data recording in the game world, there would be no way to address this question. If there were differences in behavior across both environments, then consider the possibility that some of the differences arose because behaviors associated with ASD came to the fore in the real world. If this was indeed the finding, then the conclusion would be that although the children like to play Minecraft, there are wasted opportunities within the game for addressing (ie, practicing) social skills. Addressing social skills deficits by developing game play that has different levels of competence needed for progression might increase the likelihood that these skills would generalize to the real world.
Social Craft would seek to establish a framework in which key real-world social communication skills could be rehearsed in-game, with a view to facilitating their replication in a similarly contained real-world environment. Central to this approach is an understanding of how basic principles of behavior are already employed in most gaming experiences and other educational software, along with a robust methodology for the collection of data [
If researchers or therapists were to inhabit the game world by controlling a Minecraft avatar with enhanced administrator capabilities, they could witness first-hand behaviors exhibited by players as they interact. They would be able to assess behavior as they would in a real-world clinical or educational situation. Game world behaviors could be ameliorated in-game, just as real-world behaviors could be ameliorated in a clinical or educational situation. Game world data could be collected in-game, just as real world data may be collected in any social learning environment. The information collected might then be used to design an automated monitoring system that could detect examples of the kinds of difficulties encountered by some children within the game world with the goal of developing automated protocols that mimic the intervention provided by the avatar of the researcher or educationalist, offering a gamification-based solution. Alternatively, a set of protocols could be developed into a framework for volunteers for community or admin avatars to encourage behaviors related to positive social-communicative interaction. Basic principles of behavior could then be harnessed to shape these skills [
This analysis is not peculiar to Minecraft. Most games operate a points-based system, where various criteria must be reached before new reinforcers are made available. Interestingly, the principles that operate within games have been shown to be important for addressing many real-world social problems [
For example, Skinner [
No one really cares whether Pac-Man gobbles up all those little spots on the screen…What is reinforcing is successful play, and in a well-designed instructional program students gobble up their assignments.
More recently, McGonigal [
If we take everything game developers have learned about optimizing human experience…I foresee games that fix our educational system. I foresee games that treat depression, obesity, anxiety, and attention deficit disorder…I foresee games that tackle global-scale problems such as climate change and poverty.
Intriguingly, the notion that there are design issues regarding controlling contingencies has a mixed reception depending on whether these contingencies are designed to operate in the game world or in the real world. The history of heated debate regarding real-world applications has usually centered on the politics of who should be in control (eg, Sidman [
Politis et al [
An alternative or additional way in which the Social Craft method could be modeled would involve the use of the Minecraft video game environment itself to host the interaction between the behavioral programmer and the player. In many ways, this could provide a more compatible environment in which to study the social interaction of an individual among their peer Minecraft players. Just as the players of the game act as operators of their keyboard or console in the physical world, and through these same interfaces control the actions and interaction activities of their avatars, therapists and researchers could operate through their keyboard or console in the real world and through their interfaces control avatars, with enhanced administrative capabilities in the same virtual environment.
In the real world, the therapist would base the intervention on an assessment of the candidate’s needs and social communication profile. From this information, a more detailed assessment would be conducted on the individual’s level of communication to help identify areas that have the potential for redress. Certain communication skills, such as facial expression, gestures, or tone of voice, do not have parallels in the video games environment of Minecraft, but others, such as eye contact, turn taking, and collaborative play, have parallel interactions in both the virtual and the physical environment. It is these which, when identified may be incorporated into a plan for intervention.
When applying the Social Craft methodology, the therapist identifies troublesome behaviors and uses positive reinforcement through a token system [
Virtual tokens could be modeled in the virtual world through modified component blocks that could emulate props from the game such as a precious metal ingot, helmet, or gemstone, which would only be available to players who had achieved points awarded for positive communicative outcomes. These would sit in a players’ inventory and could be used in-game by the players’ avatars, just as in-game props are carried or worn by Minecraft players. These in-game props would be empowered with real-world properties to allow the holders to extend game-play time, access new regions, or open higher-level inventories. Holders need to maintain positive game-play practice and maintain social-communicative interaction in order to retain the items.
A similar system could be employed in the real-world environment of the computer suite by using a parallel system of tokens and rewards. Real-world tokens could consist of life-sized Minecraft props or toys of similar design and color to those offered in the virtual environment. These could be used as badges and would empower the owner with similar real-world capabilities to those offered the players in the virtual environment by affording their holders extended game-play time or access premiums as long as the players maintained positive play practice and socially acceptable interaction within the real-world environment.
Virtual tokens already exist within the Minecraft environment as specific block types, such as life-sized prop toys of the same items. Off-the-shelf versions could be used or bespoke replicas manufactured. This system of virtual and real-world token and reward could provide a cross-platform method with which to shape and increase the likelihood of generalization of specific behaviors in both the virtual world and real-world environments.
Regarding data collection from any assessments that are made, in the gaming environment software automatically records aspects of performance to determine what consequences should or should not occur. In a sense, the algorithms at the heart of the software can be viewed as digitally analogous to an observer recording outcomes. This focus on measurable outcomes is central to strategies employed by behavior analysis when designing experiences in the real world. The following advice from a behavior analyst to a parent exemplifies the relevance of this point when it comes to explaining how to think about the measurement of a child’s social skills [
Focus on observable outcomes. The fact that social skills need to be addressed is related to something observable. In other words, How do we know she needs improvement in (specific social skill)? There must be something observable that supports this objective. For instance, We know she needs improvement in engaging in social conversation with peers because she rarely if ever has such conversations. Taking this information and turning it into an observable outcome is essential. That is, “We will know when (specific social skill) has improved when we see that she (observable behaviors).”
Within the game world, sequences of interaction from the therapist player’s point of view may be recorded in real time and stored as video reference files to be analyzed in the real world by therapists or researchers. Specific behaviors that have been recorded in a game environment may be presented to and discussed with the player as examples of behaviors for potential amelioration.
For "higher functioning" children, the video-monitoring technique described by Lloyd et al [
This in-game recording of player interaction would provide a gamified equivalent to the first step of videotaping a child in a communicative situation. Watching the in-game recording with the child would parallel the second step outlined in the video-monitoring technique described above by Wetherby-Prizant.
In summary, within the Social Craft, the researcher or therapist would initially inhabit a Minecraft environment with enhanced Social Craft modifications and would use the enhanced capabilities of the environment to rehearse and reinforce social communication activities. At the same time, they would observe peer interaction and play, which could inform a set of protocols that could be followed by community or admin avatars or indeed could be gamified into an automated monitoring system. This game-world/real-world approach builds on platform game-world approaches used by other server-side ASD communities such as Autcraft but is geared toward developing social communication skills in-game and then reinforcing them in a parallel real-world environment. Social Craft seeks to establish mechanisms for collecting data in both the virtual world and the real world related to the generalization of social communication skills between worlds.
applied behavior analysis
autism spectrum disorder
user-centered design
virtual reality
None declared.