Curious Omosa : Does player satisfaction increase the more they learn about their game environment?

Abstract: The science of curiosity is not fully understood, yet it seems to be a key component of nature which drives both humans and animals to seek out new information. Humans actively seek out to solve problems for the sake of solving them, with evidence suggesting that the seeking and obtaining of new knowledge is itself inherently rewarding. This study uses new methods to collect data to investigate how humans react when presented with novel environments and a problem to solve. Information gain was tracked using Shannon’s entropy, a measure of how effective a communication is at communicating its message across. The study investigates if participants feelings of satisfaction will increase the more information they receive, as measured by a change in Shannon’s entropy. A total of 44 participants with complete data were recruited accross two conditions A and B, with A containing a complete knowlege graph to determine what knowledge is gained through interactions with the environment and B containing more uncertainty so that the participant can be observed building their own knowledge-graph. Participants entered a virtual enviroment named Omosa where they were told about a mystery involving the deaths of herbivores on the island. Participants were given free reign to explore and investigate for a minimum 6 minutes. In increments of 90s, participants were asked questions about what they thought was killing the herd and how confident they were of their answer. After 6 minutes final questions were presented collecting player satisfaction and trait curiosity. Additional meta-data including trajectory and interactions were also collected. No significant results were gleaned due to high drop out and incomplete data. Methodology could be altered in future renditions to increase participation and reduce drop out.