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Visual Design Aspects of Advanced Digital Multimedia Learning Materials: Effects on Learning and Information Behavior in Case of Primary School Children
Javora, Ondřej ; Brom, Cyril (advisor) ; Slussareff, Michaela (referee) ; Betrancourt, Mireille (referee)
This thesis investigates the effects of selected visual design aspects of information representation in advanced digital multimedia learning materials (ADMLMs) on learning outcomes and information behavior of primary school children (8-11 years old). It consists of three experimental studies in laboratory conditions, each individually focusing on different issue, including effects of overall visual appearance (VA; N=53), visual dynamicity (VD; N=134), and visual customizability (VC; N=143). The general theoretical framework is based on the insights from science of learning, cognitive psychology, and information science. On one hand, the results show that the investigated visual design aspects do not have a detectable effect on the self-reported learning enjoyment and learning outcomes (i.e., comprehension tests, transfer tests). On the other hand, the results also confirm that children at this age are sensitive to these aspects, which are generally capable to impact children's evaluation of attractiveness (dVA=0.86; dVD=1.11), motivation towards further interaction with the learning materials (x2 VA [2] = 21.269, p < .001; x2 VD [1] = 87.04, p < .001) and related information behavior. The theoretical as well as practical implications are discussed. Although investigated visual design aspects of...
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Space maps for human-like agents
Kotrla, Jakub ; Brom, Cyril (advisor) ; Lukavský, Jiří (referee)
The goal of this thesis is to create model of spatial map for human-like agent living in virtual world. The model will increase agent's ability to mimic some aspects of human behaviour. These includes inaccuracy of spatial memories, gradual learning and forgetting. In thesis we introduce model based on results of research of places cells. Spatial map consists of nodes that are at rst distributed uniformly in the world. Virtual agent wanders through world and perceive surrounding objects. Spatial map gradually changes distribution of nodes in world according to agent's perceptions. Model is able to recognize areas with higher count of objects and create concepts of places. Algorithms of model are described including their time complexity. Model was implemented in Python and tested. At the end of thesis we present several possible extensions and future work.
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Adaptation of spatial navigation tests to virtual reality.
Šupalová, Ivana ; Brom, Cyril (advisor) ; Holan, Tomáš (referee)
At the Department of Neurophysiology of Memory in the Academy of Sciences in Czech Republic are recently performed tests of spatial navigation of people in e xperimental real enviroment called Blue Velvet Arena. In introdution of this thesis is described importancy of these tests for medical purposes and the recent solution. The main aim is to adapt this enviroment to virtual reality, allow it's configuration and enable to collect data retieved during experiment's execution. Resulting system is using cooperation of Unreal engine, application in Java language and script engine. The work is also enabling to use Eyelink II device for measuring eye movements.
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Production rules for the project Pogamut 2
Štolba, Michal ; Brom, Cyril (advisor) ; Sýkora, Ondřej (referee)
The project Pogamut 2 provides a possibility of fast prototyping of agent behaviours in a complex envirorment of the Unreal Tournament 2004 computer game. A fuzzy rule based system was introduced to be used beside the POSH rule based system, which was already a part of the project. Aiming to find out how exactly is it possible to add such system and what possibilities or complications it brings, this thesis presents the theoretical presumptions, their application, a design of an architecture, it's partial implementation and an example of agent controlled by the implemented fuzzy system. The agent's functionality was proved by several experiments. This thesis should also be a basement for furher work, such as full implementation of presented architecture, adding an user interface integrated within Pogamut IDE, and for wider possibilities of experimenting with the fuzzy agents.
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HTN planning for project IVE
Holeček, Ondřej ; Brom, Cyril (advisor) ; Plch, Tomáš (referee)
IVE is an ambitious project whose main effort was to create a highly scalable architecture to allow discrete simulation of large-scale virtual world full of virtual beings and their virtual lives. Part of the project is an implementation of reactive virtual beings fully driven by their environment. In this work I try to extend this reactive intelligence by ability to plan in advance actions and their specific execution order to successfully accomplish its tasks. I am trying to achieve this by attaching external HTN planning system, implementing automatic world representation translation and mutual interaction between IVE framework and planning subsystem. Along with planning I add not only ability to plan ones individual tasks, but also more complex planning of cooperation of multiple beings on common goals, which may be somewhat difficult using only reactive control.
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An iOS implementation of the Shannon switching game
Macík, Miroslav ; Vidová Hladká, Barbora (advisor) ; Brom, Cyril (referee)
Shannon switching game is a two player logical game. The main principle is a graph and its two marked nodes. The first player's goal is to connect these two nodes without being stopped by the other player. Otherwise the second player needs to prevent the first one from connecting them in order to win. This game was created by an American mathematician Claude Shannon. Independently of him David Gale created a very same one, called Bridg-It or Gale. iOS is an operating system created by Apple Inc. company. This system is designed for iPhone mobile phones, iPod music players and iPad tablets. The base for developing this operating system is the Objective-C programming language and Cocoa Touch framework.
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Adaptive agents and emotions
Kadlec, Rudolf ; Brom, Cyril (advisor) ; Kryl, Rudolf (referee)
This thesis investigates possible assets of emotions for autonomous adaptive agents working in environments similar to the real world. In living organisms, emotions have developed as a mechanism of adaptation to the surrounding environment. Therefore it is worth asking whether mechanisms similar to emotions can be implemented in models of autonomous agents. In this thesis a model of ethology inspired agent using reinforcement learning was implemented. This model suggests that emotions influence the balance between exploring new strategies and exploiting the strategies already known (the so-called explore/exploit problem). Negative emotional evaluation leads to changes in action selection strategy. The emotional version proved to be better than the non-emotional one in some environments. In other types of environments, the expectations have not been fulfilled. The instability of the received results is probably caused by non-optimal parameterization of the whole model.
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Effects of narrative in the context of digital game-based learning for young children
Sýkora, Tomáš ; Brom, Cyril (advisor) ; Šisler, Vít (referee)
Research in the digital game-based learning domain has so far shown mixed results as to the use of narrative in educational games. The aim of this thesis is to help to answer the question of whether and to which extent it is reasonable to employ the narrative feature in educational games for young children. In addition to a literature review, the thesis presents an experimental study comparing two versions of a maths game that are the same except for for the richness of the game's story (a value-added study). The participating children (N = 67) from school year 2 and 3 (mean = 8.67 years, SD = 0.4 years) were given the opportunity to play a game for two weeks on touch devices: a game version with a simple narrative frame, or a game version with a rich story narrated through an interactive voiced comic, or a "placebo" game (control group). No significant effect of the rich narrative on the children's engagement, as reported by parents, was found (d = 0.45, p = .245). Furthermore, the two narrative condition groups did not differ in terms of in-game progress (Cliff's δ = 0.01), and the difference was neither significant for the number of solved game tasks (d = 0.08, p = .857), nor the learning gains (d = -0.25, p = .691) measured using a near-transfer maths skill test (pre-post design). Both narrative...
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Plánování osobní historie virtuálního agenta
Kučerová, Lucie ; Brom, Cyril (advisor) ; Toropila, Daniel (referee)
Episodic memory is an important component of "minds" of many longliving virtual agents, because equipping such an agent with his personal history increases his e ciency and believability. So far, research on episodic memory modeling in the context of these agents has focused mostly on producing the memory content on-line, that is, when the agent is being simulated. In this work, we address a complementary issue, automatic generation of the memory content off-line. We see a possible need of a tool for generating memories that anticipate the start of the simulation. Hence we created a complex design method enabling a designer to specify high-level requirements on an agent's history and use planning to automatically generate this history according to these requirements. We detail the structure of the high-level language used for the description of the requirements and the part of this method that concerns itself with the planning. In a set of experiments, we tested the performance of several planners on our task and we present here the results we gained.
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