Do Cognitive Styles Influence Collective Sensemaking in Distributed Multiplayer Games?
Sultan Alharthi, George Raptis, Christina Katsini, Igor Dolgov, Lennart Nacke, and Phoebe Toups. 2019. Do Cognitive Styles Influence Collective Sensemaking in Distributed Multiplayer Games?. In Proceedings of the ACM Collective Intelligence Conference Series. ACM. Online: https://ci.acm.org/2019/assets/proceedings/CI_2019_paper_35.pdf
Abstract
Effective teamwork is characterized by having a shared understanding of objectives and collaboration
skills [Salas et al. 1992]. In distributed multiplayer games, players need to constantly coordinate actions with each other and collectively make sense of the game objectives to succeed as a team [Alharthi
et al. 2018b]. This is achieved by players processing and exchanging information among team members through game interfaces [Wuertz et al. 2018; Toups et al. 2014]. To better support collaborating
in distributed multiplayer games, we need to understand the human factors that influence how teams
collect, process, and share game information [Alharthi et al. 2018a; Raptis et al. 2016].
Team cognition is one of the human factors that influences collaboration [Gutwin and Greenberg
2004]. Each team member, based on their unique cognitive characteristics, develops a specific approach
to process information and engage in both individual and collective sensemaking activities [Weick
1995]. Sensemaking is a process performed in order to understand a situation and make decisions [Weick 1995]. The need for sensemaking arises in shifting environments, when new challenges, opportunities, and tasks are emergent [Toups et al. 2016]. Information seeking is an essential part of the
process of collective sensemaking, in which information are collected, shared, filtered, processed, authenticated, and interpreted to extract what is needed to understand a situation and effectively work
together as a team [Weick 1995].
Individuals develop different approaches to collect and process information in complex environments. Such different approaches are known as cognitive styles [Kozhevnikov 2007]. A well-known
cognitive style is Field Dependence—Independence (FD-I), which identifies two extremes: field dependent (FD) – integrating information from surrounding context – and field independent (FI) – able to
separate visual information from surrounding context [Witkin et al. 1977]. Considering that people
with disparate cognitive styles process information differently, cognitive styles are expected to play an
important role in the success of teamwork and how teams engage in collective sensemaking activities
in distributed multiplayer games [Chujfi and Meinel 2015].
Based on our motivation and study of related work [Hong et al. 2012; Witkin and Goodenough 1976;
Nisiforou 2015; Raptis et al. 2016; 2018; Michailova and Sidorova 2011], we expect people characterized as FI to be beneficial to teams playing games that involve seeking, processing, and sharing information, as they tend to deconstruct complex scenes faster [Witkin and Goodenough 1976], perform
fewer but more accurate movements [Hong et al. 2012], adopt a more exploratory information seeking
strategy [Raptis et al. 2016], be more engaged in enriched visual contexts [Raptis et al. 2018], and are
less dependent on contextual cues and visualized guiding information [Michailova and Sidorova 2011].
skills [Salas et al. 1992]. In distributed multiplayer games, players need to constantly coordinate actions with each other and collectively make sense of the game objectives to succeed as a team [Alharthi
et al. 2018b]. This is achieved by players processing and exchanging information among team members through game interfaces [Wuertz et al. 2018; Toups et al. 2014]. To better support collaborating
in distributed multiplayer games, we need to understand the human factors that influence how teams
collect, process, and share game information [Alharthi et al. 2018a; Raptis et al. 2016].
Team cognition is one of the human factors that influences collaboration [Gutwin and Greenberg
2004]. Each team member, based on their unique cognitive characteristics, develops a specific approach
to process information and engage in both individual and collective sensemaking activities [Weick
1995]. Sensemaking is a process performed in order to understand a situation and make decisions [Weick 1995]. The need for sensemaking arises in shifting environments, when new challenges, opportunities, and tasks are emergent [Toups et al. 2016]. Information seeking is an essential part of the
process of collective sensemaking, in which information are collected, shared, filtered, processed, authenticated, and interpreted to extract what is needed to understand a situation and effectively work
together as a team [Weick 1995].
Individuals develop different approaches to collect and process information in complex environments. Such different approaches are known as cognitive styles [Kozhevnikov 2007]. A well-known
cognitive style is Field Dependence—Independence (FD-I), which identifies two extremes: field dependent (FD) – integrating information from surrounding context – and field independent (FI) – able to
separate visual information from surrounding context [Witkin et al. 1977]. Considering that people
with disparate cognitive styles process information differently, cognitive styles are expected to play an
important role in the success of teamwork and how teams engage in collective sensemaking activities
in distributed multiplayer games [Chujfi and Meinel 2015].
Based on our motivation and study of related work [Hong et al. 2012; Witkin and Goodenough 1976;
Nisiforou 2015; Raptis et al. 2016; 2018; Michailova and Sidorova 2011], we expect people characterized as FI to be beneficial to teams playing games that involve seeking, processing, and sharing information, as they tend to deconstruct complex scenes faster [Witkin and Goodenough 1976], perform
fewer but more accurate movements [Hong et al. 2012], adopt a more exploratory information seeking
strategy [Raptis et al. 2016], be more engaged in enriched visual contexts [Raptis et al. 2018], and are
less dependent on contextual cues and visualized guiding information [Michailova and Sidorova 2011].