=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-1324/paper_6
|storemode=property
|title=Preparing a Psychological Experiment on a Tactile Display
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1324/paper_6.pdf
|volume=Vol-1324
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/tabletop/BernothWZUL14
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==Preparing a Psychological Experiment on a Tactile Display==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1324/paper_6.pdf
Preparing a Psychological Experiment on a Tactile Display
Jan Bernoth*, Yves Wittstock*, Raphael Zender*, Tina Urbach+, Ulrike Lucke*
University of Potsdam
* Department of Computer Science, A.-Bebel-Str. 89, 14482 Potsdam, Germany
+
Department of Psychology, Karl-Liebknecht-Str. 24/25, 14476 Potsdam, Germany
Tel. +49 331 977 3041
firstname.lastname@uni-potsdam.de
ABSTRACT comparatively stable, that is their decisions are always affected by
Seamless IT interfaces can provide sophisticated environments for the same variables (e.g., quality of own cards, betting behavior of
experiments. We describe a setting from motivational psychology, other players). Other aspects of the environment, like the many
targeting to identify the attitudes and strategies of Poker players influences that are present in typical scenarios of daily life or
by observing their individual cards and activities in a non-invasive work, can be rather neglected. In such a gaming context, it is
way. A digitally supported game on a tactile table can help to possible to study further determinants of decision making, such as
simulate a typical casino atmosphere even in a lab environment, motivational processes or individuals’ attitudes. The current study
while necessary data can be directly gathered and stored for later will investigate the interplay of achieving gains versus losses and
processing. Starting from the requirements defined from individuals’ self-regulation processes, that is how individuals
psychologists, we describe selected design issues when deploying adapt their behavior and betting decisions to the course of their
the Poker game to the tactile display. The paper concludes with play. This makes Poker games a valuable object of study, given
findings collected in experiments and recommendations for that the conditions are close enough to a common casino setting.
further work. A table with a touch-sensitive display is a proper tool for such
experiments, since it combines the natural appearance and
Categories and Subject Descriptors handling of the game with the possibility to seamlessly measure
J.4 [Computer Applications]: social and behavioral sciences – all required parameters.
psychology. The article describes the design aspects of such experiments,
which were prepared in combined efforts from psychology and
General Terms computer science. This work is based on general design guidelines
Measurement, Design, Experimentation, Human Factors. for haptic interfaces [2] and games [5], as well as on the concept
Keywords of immersion [1]. Starting from the specific requirements defined
by the investigators from psychology, along with the framing
Decision making; Poker; Tactile interface.
conditions of available tools and technologies, we analyzed the
1. INTRODUCTION current state of the art and derived our own approach for
Research on judgment and decision making has a long-standing designing the experimental setting. This is described in section 2.
tradition in Psychology [3]. Basic cognitive processes of these The results of our work, with a focus on technical design issues,
phenomena have been widely studied in laboratory settings, using are presented in section 3. First results of psychological
simplified and straightforward experimental paradigms. However, experiments are stated in section 4. The article concludes with
to study decision making in naturalistic settings, such as some findings from this projects as well as ideas for further work
individuals’ everyday life or in work settings, other research in section 5.
designs are needed. In particular, we need tools that allow for
capturing the complexity of the decision making process as well
2. DESIGNING A TACTILE POKER GAME
The central approach is to support a minimum invasive data
as the surrounding context. At the same time, the natural progress
collection by the utilization of a table-sized computer with
of the internal decision making process under study should not be
interaction patterns that are mentally close to a traditional Poker
affected by the process of measurement. Employing IT interfaces
game. While the output of the Poker application is audio-visual,
can be a means to this end of non-invasive data collection.
the input of the players is tactile in order to achieve a naturalistic
The setting to be analyzed by the work presented in this article is handling.
a Poker game. Poker players constantly need to make decisions
under uncertainty. Apart from that, their decision context is 2.1 Identified Requirements
Besides the main requirement to implement a highly realistic
Poker game, the following sub requirements have been formulated
to ensure valuable experiments:
Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for
personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are • Support of 4-6 players
not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that
copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights • Designated cards and chips area for each player
for third-party components of this work must be honored. For all other
uses, contact the Owner/Author. • Natural and undisturbed game flow
Copyright is held by the owner/author(s).
• Poker mode: Texas Hold’em (including common rules like
rotating dealer, random cards, …)
TacTT '14, Nov 16 2014, Dresden, Germany
• Minimum efforts to setup and monitor the game
• No dealer required (reduces side effects by investigators)
• Logging of experimental data, relevant for decision making:
o Who has which cards at a specific moment?
o Which cards are on the table at a specific moment?
o When do players bet?
o How much do players bet?
o How long do players need to make a decision?
o What is the chance to win for specific players at a
specific moment? Figure 1: Samsung SUR40 with Microsoft PixelSense
These requirements served as minimum functional specification The chosen hardware is a Samsung SUR40, running the Microsoft
for the following tool review and design process. PixelSense platform [3]. The table computer has a 1080p LCD
HD display with a screen diagonal of 40”. Per 8 pixels one optical
2.2 Related Work sensor recognizes objects on the display surface. Pre-defined
The number of digital and even touch-based Poker games is high.
shapes are used to identify objects like fingers and optical
But, most of them do clearly falsify the flow of a traditional Poker
PixelSense tags. A powerful AMD Athlon II CPU as well as a
game. They create a considerable distance between players by
Radeon HD 6700M graphics board ensure smooth handling even
using separate devices or put a specific, non-natural technical
with this high resolution and touch recognition. The system is able
system into the foreground of the gaming environment. Thus, we
to simultaneously handle up to 52 fingers and other objects. The
focused on Poker games that can be carried out on a table-sized,
PixelSense uses a modified Windows 7 operating system. Figure 1
touch-based computer to simulate the traditional Poker setting.
depicts an empty gaming environment.
Thus, only the following two candidates have been identified to
be relevant for this project. The Surface 2.0 Multitouch Poker software for this hardware
already covers central game mechanics and comes with a pleasant
The Poker surface system [6] has been developed as a
graphical design. However, some fundamental changes had to be
combination of a touch-based table component and a mobile
implemented to fulfill the defined requirements:
phone component. The table serves as central gaming area, while
the mobile device shows players their private cards and supports • No use of mobiles, to reduce the technical distraction as well
several interaction gestures. The players may even play tricks as the setup time to a minimum (just to the table computer)
(manipulations) with their chips. In general, this software could
have been a very useful groundwork for our project. • Implementation of an alternative mechanism for private
Unfortunately, the code was not accessible for further work. areas/cards as we do not use mobiles
Moreover, the non-natural way to integrate mobile phones into the • Implementation of appropriate logging mechanisms to collect
game flow was another drawback of this system. data about decision making
Another solution for a touch-based table is the Surface 2.0
• Correction and optimization of tactile interaction
Multitouch Poker system that was developed in a student project
mechanisms regarding to initial Poker tests with the
and published as Open Source 1. The software is well-split into
unmodified software
two components: A table-site, open part and a mobile, private
part. Large parts of this solution could be re-used for our project. • Implementation of helpful gaming instructions for Poker
However, user tests have revealed several discrepancies between beginners
expected and occurring system behavior, i.e. Poker rules were not
adequately implemented, and some functions were buggy. The following section explains and illustrates the resulting Poker
Therefore, several modifications have been made. Furthermore, software in more detail.
the software lacks ofs appropriate logging mechanisms for the
collection of the required experimental data. These have been
3. THE TACTILE POKER ENVIRONMENT
added. One of the central requirements was the creation of a mostly
realistic Poker setting. IT tools like the PixelSense table are used
Both systems have been developed for the Microsoft PixelSense to log the player actions. Though, players should feel and act as in
platform (formerly: Surface), one of the most popular and a traditional casino atmosphere. The following design issues of
affordable multi-touch table computers. The same hardware will the resulting Poker@PixelSense have been considered due to this
be used in this project. philosophy, based on the previously defined requirements.
2.3 Approach for Development 3.1 Special Design Issues on a Tactile Display
As we decided to use the Micosoft PixelSense table computer, our The implementation of our Poker@PixelSense system was
tactile Poker game benefits from the Surface 2.0 Multitouch Poker designed for up to six players. This number of players is typical
software. for Poker games. Moreover, this is the maximum of players to be
conveniently placed around the table (size: 108 cm × 70 cm).
1
https://github.com/B3J4y/Poker
Figure 3: User interface on the PixelSense table computer
To ensure consistent experimental settings over multiple game Each player area includes multiple elements. One of the most
runs, the software performs all tasks of a dealer. This includes: important elements is the personal set of two virtual gaming cards.
In general, the use of physical Poker cards instead of digital cards
• Dealing and uncovering of cards would increase the immersion of the Poker setting. Unfortunately,
• Automated collection of blinds this is not feasible because of the low recognition resolution of the
hardware and other recognition restrictions (e.g. red color is not
• Monitoring of correct bet and call amounts recognized due to the light spectrum used by the optical sensors).
Thus, a pure digital game without physical artefacts has been
• Interpretation of cards developed.
• Proclamation of the winner(s) The players can look “under” their cards by using their fingers to
• Distribution of the pot slightly move the deck image to one side. As Figure 4 illustrates,
the players in our experiments mostly used their other hand to
Thus, the experiment investigator’s tasks are limited to the setup hide the exposed cards – as known from a traditional Poker game.
of a game:
All other elements in the gaming area are hidden for non-active
• Placing of players at the table players. This design issue became important after the first user
tests and because of two reasons: First, the active player is clearly
• Registration of players’ names in the software
identified by his active elements on the table. Second, non-active
• Initial sizing of players’ stacks users may put their arms on the table to feel comfortable without
evocation of a software reaction.
• Initial sizing of the blind
The chips on a player area are typically used to visualize the
• Start of the game player’s available amount, as well as to place bet and call
amounts. The players place their chips by simply moving them
After the start of a game round, the table presents the Poker
into the bet area with their fingers.
environment as depicted in Figure 3. The number of player areas
depends on the number of registered players. Four to six players In addition, two buttons are provided in the player area to easily
are a valuable number. The player area is labeled by the player’s raise the pot with an “all in” (if possible) and to fold.
name or – as for anonymous data collection – just by a number.
Furthermore, the current player amounts are given for a simple The second important area on the board is the public area with all
orientation. common board cards. As typical for a Texas Hold’Em, the dealer
uncovers the five cards round by round.
Figure 4: As in a usual casino setting, players use their hand
to hide their slightly exposed cards
Each round, another player becomes the formal dealer for this
round. As the software covers nearly all dealer responsibilities,
the dealer button on the board only serves as a marker to indicate
who starts a betting phase. Figure 5: The log file contains information on all activities and
For Poker beginners in particular, the values of their different intermediate results of a game, including player names,
hands (along with consequences for their further play) may be actions, hand and board cards, as well as win probabilities.
unclear. That’s why we introduced a help sheet to make the
introduction of Poker rules more effective. Figure 5 highlights the four bet rounds of a typical Texas Hold'Em
At the end of each game, the software announces the winner(s) game that can be tracked in the log file. During the preflop round
and uncovers the winning cards. The other players may each player only knows his two hand cards. At timestamp 575930,
voluntarily uncover their cards as well, or may decide to still hide the dealer discovers the first 3 board cards (flop). This round is
them to prevent other players from deriving their strategy. followed by discovering the turn card (timestamp 628265) and the
final bet round (river card) with all cards discovered (timestamp
During the game, a menu symbol allows to setup, start or cancel a 646974).
Poker game. In addition, it provides the possibility to raise the
blinds during a game. During the rounds, the win probabilities of players change and
they adapt their activities. For instance, player 14 has a win
Beyond a standard game course including logging mechanisms, probability of 68% in the preflop round (timestamp 529349). He
the Poker@PixelSense system may run in a training mode without decides to raise by only 100 credits. In the turn card round, player
logging to introduce new players to Poker in general as well as to 14 wins by a probability of 88% and bets the high amount of 1000
this special software. credits.
3.2 Gathering and Logging Data We decided to use a simple plain text format to log the actions.
The main goal of our Poker game is data collection for the CSV files can be easily read and edited with any text editor or
psychological experiments on decision making. Thus, logging of data analysis tool. Moreover, this helps to minimize the
the game status and all player activities is one of the central integration effort when using the file as input format for another
functionalities of Poker@PixelSense. software tool.
All player activities are stored in a simple text-based log file. 3.3 Preparing the Lab Setting
Figure 5 shows an excerpt of a typical log. Each line in the text As already mentioned the investigator has the responsibility to
file stores details of one activity. The nine attributes of the activity setup and monitor the experiment.
are separated by semicolons.
After defining date and time of the game as well as the involved
Each activity is identified by a timestamp. This is followed by the players, he or she prepares the given lab environment in order to
name of the acting player or “dealer” if the software performs this achieve a comfortable, casino-like atmosphere. This can be
task. The next attributes are the action that was carried out, the addressed by a quiet room with closed sun-blinds (better are
current amount of the player, the hand cards of the player as well curtains), comfortable seats, some snacks and drinks, as well as
as the common board cards and the current pot value. For an easy dimmed light.
interpretation of the player’s decision the software calculates the
win probability of the current player based on his hand cards and Moreover, the investigator has to care for requirements of the
the common board cards. technical environment. Technology does also benefit from
dimmed light, since the touch recognition hardware is based on
optical pattern recognition. A direct and bright light incidence
massively disturbs the recognition and must be prevented.
Furthermore, configuration of the game has to be carried out. create a tactile gaming application which is as close as possible to
Rules are explained to the players, and a pre-phase for training on a common casino-like game. We identified the requirements that
the software takes place. Afterwards, the experiment itself starts, come along with these objectives, analyzed existing software and
consisting of 10 rounds of Poker. Beyond automated recording of described our design approach to fulfill these requirements.
the game, additional information on attitudes, motivation and
emotions of the players is gathered in between rounds via an As a result from this objective, and in contrast to previous work,
online survey on a tablet computer. we decided to integrate the private areas of the players directly
into the game table. We could show that this is a suitable
Finally, the investigator is responsible to save the log file for approach, since like in traditional settings players simply cover
further analysis at the end of an experiment. their cards with their hands when slightly uncovering them. Thus,
complex mechanisms for coupling the table with mobile phones
4. FINDINGS FROM EXPERIMENTS of the players could be avoided. Again, this makes it easier to
When the Poker@PixelSense prototype was completed, we gather synchronized data on the game.
carried out some beta tests with interested colleagues and students
from our team in order to identify weaknesses and possible Analysis of recorded data is subject of current work. Additionally,
improvements of the system. This was also used to verify if logics we think about possible improvements. A higher degree of
and handling of the game are appropriate, especially if the immersion could be reached by using physical gaming cards, as
implemented mechanisms to reveal one’s personal cards are far as they can be recognized by the table. A solution to
suitable. This could be confirmed, and the system is now available circumvent the infra-red sensors’ problem in detecting red color
in a stable version. could be to use old German gaming cards (with black and green
instead of black and red symbols). However, this will be hard for
Starting from summer 2014, we conducted the experiments. The Poker games, but rather suitable for Skat or the like. Finally, the
sample consists of about 60 players, formed to groups of 4 to 6 recognition resolution of the table still has to improve in order to
players according to their level of Poker experience and their detect card symbols of regular size. Extended usability studies
availability on-site. This results in more than 30.000 activities with players could then reveal whether these changes produce a
logged during the experiments (around 10 MB of logging data). more realistic and sound game flow than exclusively playing with
Players are University students from different disciplines. digital cards.
The usefulness of the gathered data for psychological research is The flexibility of the system would further allow for programming
very high, since the players’ behavior is directly recorded by the specific experimental manipulations, such as non-random game
gaming environment itself. This is real behavioral data, which is flow or “planned” gains or losses for certain players. This would
extremely useful because it is very valid and exact. This is in enable us to study specific situational influence factors or events.
strong contrast to other approaches based on self-reports, since it Experimentally manipulating these factors would further
is not biased by memory effects or individuals’ motivation. strengthen the causality of the observed effects.
Moreover, the data is immediately recorded during the decision
making process, without distracting players from their game, Beyond studying players’ behavior in different types of games,
which is a great benefit for accuracy and expressiveness of the the approach of in-situ monitoring could be of certain value also
gathered data. Finally, automated recording saves a lot of time and to other fields. This includes complex business simulations,
money, as the alternative would be to have students record the group-based problem solving etc. Moreover, the experimental
information while watching the players. This data can then be setup could be extended to further sources of data. With regard to
combined with the data assessed through the online survey, individual decision making, information on physiological data
allowing for complex statistical models of participants’ cognition, would add to the explanatory value of the gathered data.
motivation, emotion, and actual behavior. Indicators such as participants’ heart rate or blood pressure could
be used to investigate the psycho-physiological processes behind
At the time this article is finalized, most of the experiments are decision-making, such as situation-induced strain. In addition to
successfully completed. A first analysis of the gathered data logging information on individuals’ touching of certain features
promises interesting insights on decision-making strategies and on the display, eye-tracking devices could provide more
motivational processes of Poker players. Results of the upcoming information on information-seeking behavior prior to actually
in-depth analysis will be prepared for further discussion in the touching the display. Video recording could be used to document
scientific community. The aim is to learn from this well-defined the social interaction and communication between actors, which
game setting how surrounding conditions influence personal would be particularly interesting in group task simulations.
motivation and decision making, in order to transfer these findings Increasing the complexity of the obtainable data will improve the
to other fields which are harder to study. precision with which we can map and predict individuals’
decision-making and behavior. However, the variety of sensors
From a technical point of view, the suitability of the tactile Poker
involved in such an experiment would require a complex
game could be proven. Only minimal problems were reported by
infrastructure to ensure synchronicity and interoperability of
the players, which could be quickly solved on-site and did not
related data and tools. This is an important subject of upcoming
influence the experiments.
research in our group.
5. CONCLUSION AND FURTHER WORK
In this article we present the development of a digital Poker game
on a touch-based, table-sized computer. The main objective was
to automatically gather most accurate and immediate information
on the status of the game and the activities of the players, in order
to study their motivation and decision making. Thus, a second
objective (with even higher impact on the design process) was to
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