Learning Things - Learn to Play: Designing Tutorials for Video Games - page 46

didn't have functional MRIs, blood flow tests, and electroencephalo-
graphs to illustrate his point, but he was correct. When we examine
the world, we automatize those portions whose details are uninterest-
ing. They become uninteresting by becoming routine. For example,
it is unlikely you are going to remember, if I ask you, what color the
fifteenth house you pass along your route to work might be painted.
On the other hand, if I send you to an amazing amusement park that
you have been dying to see, you will remember your fifteenth ride.
According to Dewey, we enjoy assimilating information that
we perceive to be novel. By creating non-ordinary, or might I say,
extraordinary experiences, we solidify learning in the mind by creat-
ing motivation. This gives me an even clearer answer to the question
asked by the parent earlier: your daughter is motivated to play games
because the experiences are extraordinary. She is less motivated to
perform scholastic tasks because the experiences are ordinary; that is
to say, they have become repetitive and automatized. She is no lon-
ger motivated.
Now, Dewey would likely disagree with me, but motivation is
described very well, in my opinion, by Skinner with something called
operant conditioning . Skinner was also very influential in education,
and is still studied, although his methods of teaching, often blanketed
as behaviorism, have fallen somewhat out of vogue in favor of other
theories that promote unguided learning through discovery, such as
constructivism. While one might think that games are more like open
worlds than behavioral training experiences, I'm here to show you
through game design mechanics that this is simply not the case.
Behaviorism, specifically operant conditioning, provides for moti-
vation in four ways, which I will demonstrate using the training of a
dog to illustrate the point more clearly than decades of incinerated
and electrocuted lab rats can. The four elements are positive reinforce-
ment, negative reinforcement, punishment, and extinction.
Positive reinforcement is being rewarded for doing something. This
is simple—give the dog a treat when he sits, or give your child praise
when he or she does well in whatever hobby your progeny engages.
Negative reinforcement is taking away previously existing restrictions.
he dog gets to have a little more freedom when he doesn't poop in
his kennel, then a little more when he doesn't poop in your shoes, and
so on. Both of these things serve to reinforce a behavior. If either of