Maybe my obsessions about biometrics should be redirected towards “Behavior Modeling.”
1) I thought parts of this were really interesting. Talks about why people do things which others perceive as “irrational.” And notes that the key to studying human behavior is to understand the subject’s perspective (and maybe suss out the scope of their current attention):
(i’m linking to half way through. getting to the goods. but if you have 11 minutes, i’d just watch the whole thing).
2) That video came from a short (7 min?) video in this interesting Gamasutra article (about rewards), which notes that points are NOT rewards. Because you can’t give a reward. Points are simply “awards,” and there’s a difference.
3) And that article is actually the second in a series. The first installment (on play) pointed out the fascinating point that “we seek out challenges for their intrinsic value”. Which is an interesting thing to think about, when designing a game to reward the player. (adding challenge may be more rewarding than peppering coins explosions and points).