Interaction Diary

Meeting 1 (3 hours)

Met from 9:00 to 12:00 on Thursday
one of two girls playing
about 30 people there
most people were playing one on one games
introduced to the game and how to play
instructor was very patient in explaining
encouraged us that we would get the hang of it the more we play
for some reason it seemed like they really wanted us to learn the game
the room had sporadic game posters
there was also a box of free cards that people could use if they so desired - fosters new players to create their own deck.
Decks can consist of five different colors/elements
first analysis of deck colors:
white deck: consists of humans and angels focuses on giving life back to player
green deck: consists of beasts and elves - has a lot of low level creaters that do not cost much mana
black deck: consists of zombies and undead - can bring back creaters from the dead
red deck: consists of goblins and vampires - spells that hit for 3/5 damage - may also damage yourself
blue deck: has a lot of counter spells and abilities to hinder the other players strategy
there are different rules for casual play versus renouncement play
one player that I played against seemed to get bored because he continuously beat me and I was probably taking a while to make a decision on what to play
It was amusing when we would play a random card that we thought was just okay, but then they proceeded to tell us the strategy behind why that card was so great.
We did not talk much about anything outside of Magic
players have more than one deck of cards
was very willing to teach us how to play
Surprised by how fast they were able to make decisions on what card to play
has a different strategy for each deck
could know what the opponents strategy is by just their first three cards (makes me curious how long they have been playing this for)
extremely different vocabulary mainly because they have all their cards memorized
put cards into covers - this helps to protect the cards
learned that cards could range up to 200 dollars!!
I was actually became comfortable in that atmosphere quicker than I thought
the game mixes strategy and randomization which is fun.
The games took place in a game store. This store contained various board games and other table top games.


Meeting 2 (2 hours)
Met from 10:00 to 12:00 on monday
surprised how fast time can go when playing this game
saw some familiar faces from the previous meeting
am curious to see how often they come to clockworks
Played some games with a guy named Viet
I was surprised that he came over and initiated the game. I thought that we would have to go over and awkwardly ask people if they wanted to play with noobs.
Viet works at clockwork and claims that he isn't very good at the game, but he does have three different decks with sleaves and a game board(which I have no idea what the use is for. - it just looks like a giant mouse pad)
His three decks consisted of a vampire deck, zombie deck, and a white green deck. (ordered from his favorite to least favorite)
He was very kind and insisted that I just drew a bad hand when I lost, but he obviously plays better than I do.
Next time I think it would be interesting to watch a legit game maybe at a tournament so that I can see what a competitive game looks like
I also wonder if people have a "normal seat" that they always play in. This can be discovered in future observations.
another interesting area of research that could be done is to see how the personality of the player correlates with their deck. If for example they like to play with a black/red deck they may be more aggressive  whereas a green/white deck may resemble a more peaceful person.

Meeting 3: (3 hours)
Met from 6:00 to 9:00
This was an interesting time where we decided not to play Magic with them but instead asked them a set of predefined questions and just had a conversation with them. These are the following questions that we asked:
How experienced do you consider yourself?
(1-5, 1 being beginner....5 expert) (quantitative, subjective)

How many hours per week do you play Magic?
(quantitative, objective)

How many hours per week do you spend on Magic outside of battles and playing other people (trading, building decks, etc)?
(quantitative, objective)

How much money have you spent on cards?
(quantitative, subjective)

What is the highest amount you have paid for one card?
(quantitative, objective)

Have you ever played Magic the Gathering as a video game? (ie through steam?)
(quantitative, objective)

Would you consider Magic to be addicting?
(quantitative, subjective)

Would you say that you are addicted to Magic?

(quantitative, subjective)

Would you say that most people you play against are addicted to Magic?

(quantitative, subjective)

When did you begin playing?
(qualitative, objective)

11. What/Whom introduced you to Magic?
(qualitative, objective)

How long did it take to learn?
(quantitative, subjective)

How much longer do you expect to play Magic?
(quantitative, subjective)

Do you spend time with the people you know from Magic outside of the venue?
(quantitative, objective)

Would you say this time spent is mostly talking about Magic?

(quantitative, subjective)

How old are you?
(quantitative, objective)

Do you go to A&M?
(quantitative, objective)

What is your major?

(qualitative, objective)

While askingthese questions, certain discussions were spurred.

I learned more about casual game play verses hard core.

casual gamers seem to regard the "hardcore" gamers in a negative light

and most of the people who played Magic thought of Yugioh as a dummer version and thus attracts dummer people.

One surprising aspect that I saw this time was that there was a group that was playing Apples to Apples - a game that is well known by the average person.

This can be explained by one person's answer to the question : are you addicted to magic. His response was that he is not addicted to Magic specifically but to board games in general.

Another insightful comment was given in response to the question "How long do you expect to continue playing magic?" and His answer was a couple of years because I've put money into it.

There was again only 3 girls in the room including myself, and I was fortunate to interview one of them.

Most of the people that I talked to were very chill and friendly. I could definitely see myself becoming friends with a lot of them.

Assignment 10 - Blog and Read Opening Skinner’s Box

Chapter 1: Opening Skinner's Box: B.F. Skinner's rat race
To be honest, I didn't know much about Skinner before \reading this chapter, and so I was surprised when they said his vision was "to build a worldwide community where the government would consist of behavioral psychologists who could condition, or train, its citizens into phalanxes of benevolent robots." This obviously worried me and wondered why we were learning about his research. After looking into him a little more though, you could see that he just wanted the best for humanity - even if he didn't have the greatest idea of how to go about it. His research was interesting and I can believe he could teach a pig how to vacuum. It will be interesting to read about his other experiments.

Chapter 2: Obscura: Stanley Milgram and Obedience to Authority
Lauren Slater has a very interesting writing style. It is like she is trying to create a fiction page-turner book, but the subject is about experiments..... Anyways, this chapter first goes over Milgram's experiment which we read about in the previous book. Slater explains that he bottled absurd behaviors in his lab. These experiments led to the discovery that people will commit horrible acts even in the absence of aggression. It was interesting to note that there were no consistent character traits which determined if the participant obeyed or disobeyed.

Chapter 3: On Being Sane in Insane Places: Experimenting with Psychiatric Diagnosis
Is it legal to fake a mental illness? Apparently so. Rosenhan's experiment illustrates how "the world is always warped by the lens we are looking through." The most interesting part of this experiment to me was that the other patients in the ward new that the participants were sane way before any of the doctors. I was especially interesting to read about the experiment where students IQ scores increased based on a fake test. Even the experiment with Clever Hans, it proves that we find evidence for a conclusion that has already been made.

Chapter 4: In the unlikely Event of a Water Landing: Darley and Latane's Training Manual - A Five-Stage Approach
Darley and Latane made an experiment to see happens when there is no authority in a group crisis. It was based on a murder where there were many witnesses and yet none acted. So, an experiment was conducted where the participant thought another person was having a seizure. A second experiment was performed where smoke just started coming out of the ceiling. In each case, when there were multiple people no one acted because the responsibility was difused amongst them. However, when only one person was present, they immedialy went for help. The five stages of helping behavior is: 1. You, the potential helper, must notice an event is occurring. 2. You must interpret the event as one in which help is needed. 3. you must assume personal responsibility. 4. you must decide what action to take. 5. you must then take action.

Chapter 5: Quieting the Mind: The Experiments of Leon Festinger
When Festinger infiltrated the cult, he came to the conclusion that religious groups begin to proselytize when their belief is disconfirmed. This is a type of defense mechanism. He also discovered cognitive dissonance. This predicts that the more insignificant the reward is for engaging in a behavior that is inconsistent with one's belief, the more likely it is for that person to change their belief. What I don't understand is why someone would ever engage in a behavior that is contradictory to there belief. (I guess you can say it has something to do with the obedience to authority experiment :p) His experiments rivaled Skinner's because Festinger said that we are driven by punishment and paltriness. (example: fraternity hazings) Festinger defined consonance as paying attention to information that is consonant with our beliefs like surrounding ourselves with similar people to ourselves. Side note: Linda's story is really odd.....

Chapter 6: Monkey Love: Harry Harlow's Primates
In his experiment, he was able to show that infant monkeys cared for a soft surrogate mother than a metal milk-bearing one. This experiment was really interesting because it showed that love/touch is considered a need as much as food. He concluded that the primary function of nursing was not to give food but to "insure frequent and intimate body contact of the infant with the mother". On the creepy side of this experiment, Harlow wanted to see how the babies would react to an "evil" mother who he named the Iron Maiden. This froze them, sprayed water at them, and even stabbed them. The animal rights movement was partially created from this experiment. Even though the babies seemed fine when they were little, they could not figure out how to interact with other animals. And then when they did have kids, their kids were autistic and ill. The key points to love is touch, motion, and play.

Chapter 7:  Rat Park: The Radical Addiction Experiment
Robert Coambs and Patricia Hadaway wanted to see if addiction was inevitable even in a benevolent environment.Alexander  studied this and his conclusion was that there is no such thing as a chemical that causes addiction. He claims that "there is really nothing inherently addictive about any drugs" and that "repeated exposures to even the most enticing drugs do not usually lead to problems". He proceeded to become a student of Harlow's because Alexander was unlucky in love and Harlow was studying love. However, he continued to study addiction especially since Harlow used. Alexander assumed that people didn't have to use but they did because they were adapting to a difficult circumstance. This is shown in the rat park where rats in horrible situations become addicted but those in the park choose not to take the drugs. However, the argument was that if one was allready on the drug, it would be hard to get off of it. But again, you see the park rats to slowly decrease their morphine use. Therefore, he says that it is a choice. Even though this contradicts Kleber's belief, they both want a better social structure. I think it is hard to draw concrete conclusions from this experiment because how different rats are from humans.

Chapter 8: Lost in the Mall: The False Memory Experiment
Freud and Plato had the greatest contribution about memory. However, Elizabth Loftus wanted to challenge this as she created an experiment in which she determined whether memory can be called fiction or fact. She proves that recollections can be contaminated by implying a light was red instead of yellow or that a man in a movie had a beard when in actuality he did not.  Spurred by the Franklin trial, she wanted to go further and prove that memories can be implanted not just altered. So, she had an experiment where a family suggested to another family member that they were lost in a mall when they were little. 24-48 hours later, a fourth of the people had fabricated a long story to fill in all the gaps. This makes me wonder how much of my memory is correct.....Her conclusions produces a lot of abuse for her and her students. The story of Paul Ingrim proves that we concot stories at all costs even if it puts us in a bad light. She says her purpose was to reunite people - to create relationships that she did not have growing up. Her work consumes her and this is sad. This whole book is depressing. It seems that each scientist is looking for something to improve society or themselves and they miss the only thing that matters. Jesus Christ. If they want to find meaning in life, learn who He is and what He has done for you.

Chapter 9: Memory Inc.: Eric Kandel's Sea Slug Experiment
Eric Kandel challenged Loftus by exploring memory recall. I found that it was really creepy that there are no nerves on the brain. H.M. was an interesting case to read about but it was also really creepy. Kandel discovered that there are two different types of memory: procedural and semantic memory. Procedural is mostly the unconscious memory for motor skills whereas semantic memory is how we retain facts. He began his experiment on slugs as he was a radical reductionist. He trained the slugs in three different forms of learning or memory: habituation, sensitization, and classical conditioning. This was later challenged by Tully who was trying to train flies. He was actually one of the first to actually provide a molecular model of primitive memory.  The next step in his research was to figure out how long term and short term memory is connected. The topic of memory is important to computer science because we rely on computers a lot to remember things for us. It king of freaked me out when it started talking about how losing memory would be better for people. This reminded me of the book, The Giver. MEMORY LOSS IS NOT A BENEFIT! Even though, it did touch on how it would be able to cure PTS.....Interesting food for thought.

Chapter 10: Chipped: This Century's Most Radical Mind Cures
This chapter talks about lobotomy and cingulotomy. "In lobotomy, surgeons separate some of the cables connecting the frontal lobes to the thalamus. In cingulotomy, surgeons separate some of the nerve tracts from the frontal lobes to the cingulate gyrus, which is the place in our brain supposedly responsible for mediating anxiety". Antonio Moniz won a Nobel Prize for his discovery in psychosurgery. He thought that mental illnesses were purely organic. He was also the man who came up with inserting dye into the blood stream in order to better see tumors and fault lines. This is called angiography. Carlyle Jacobson and John Fulton snipped the fibers connecting the frontal lobes to the limbic system. This removed a lot of aggression. Moniz wanted to try this on people. I'm surprised that this chapter focused on all of the positive effects of this surgery and barely mentioned the negative effects like seizures, deaths, burst blood vessels, infections, relapses, and incontinence. However, it does seem to work better than pills. Freeman and Watts developed transorbital lobotomy. This is where they cut under the eyes instead of the hairline.