MOOs/MUD - EDT 605 by Deborah De Pano

October 10, 2015

As I entered the room, I saw an unfamiliar face. This face looked menacing. Mean. I knew I was in big trouble. I reached for my sword and swung. When I opened my eyes, the face was gone. But where? To another room in this house I've built? Or maybe to get reinforcements to come back to finish me. And where is Billy? He's supposed to be my teammate! I need him here to help deal with this threat. Time to send him a message to let him know of the danger I'm in. So, I pound away at my keyboard furiously pleading with him in the chat room, to create as many characters as he can before the face returns! This type of interaction in the computer based virtual world is an example of MOOs/MUDs.

 Profile of Moos/M.U.D.:

MOOs stands for Mud, Object Oriented.  This technology allows users on a computer to build and create, such as the popular game Minecraft or Chit Chat City.  M.U.D. stands for Multi-User Dimension, which are virtual environments where you can create yourself as a character and move about in any type of world, navigating with the use of the mouse.  (Outka, 1996). M.U.D. is also referred to as Multi-User Dungeon or Domain.  Together, these type of internet sites provide opportunity for multiple users to engage and interact with each other (via characters and/or chatting), creating virtual worlds where they can create their own type of world to live in or move around in, create multiple characters, rooms, buildings and interact by competing, fighting, communicating, or basically "living" in a different world.  Users are able to navigate and manipulate the characters within the world they create, chat with other users within their world that they create, and take their imagination wherever it may want to go.  

Profile of Instructional Model 

MOOs/M.U.D.s is associated with the Behaviorism Theory. In order to comprehend how these two are related, here are several words from Professor Linda Harasim's Behaviorist Theory cloud:

Instructional Stimuli Interpretation Operant Behavior Reward Punishment Subjectivity Teaching Machines Unconditioned Stimulus Voluntary Behavior Verbal Behavior Abstract Relationship Behavior Cognitive Domain Human Behavior

In these virtual worlds, circumstances, situations and interactions are not pre-determined. As such, events that occur both good and bad, have a profound effect on the characters which shape future behavior. For example, if a character is attacked by other characters, in order to survive, one must learn to defend him/herself.  Behaviors that are displayed within these virtual worlds often are an extension of the person who created the character, the user.  Conversely, characters can be created as an alter-ego to play out behaviors that would only exist "virtually" and would not be a normal behavior displayed in real life.  According to the Major Learning Theories, we can determine that this type of interaction falls under the category of Behaviorism. As characterized in the narrative above, the user needs to process the information that is in front of him, the unfamiliar face, and decide what actions he will take.  In M.U.D., the user can program his character to act or respond according to what he wishes.  In this case, the character is programmed by the user to seek help from another user in the virtual world, Billy.

To fully dwelve deeper to fully understand what it takes to program a virtual world, here's a link that shows a visual, https://youtu.be/ixJlujkUoMU, (Youser.04:Aardwolf (MUD). 2012).

     Individual Embedded Theories 

Under Behaviorism, Skinner and Thorndike discuss how the human behavior is studied through behavior.   A complex human behavior theory known as "Operant Conditioning" is described by B.F. Skinner, who describes Operant Conditioning as "intentional actions that have an effect on the surrounding environment", which Skinner has based his theory from Psychologist Edward Thorndike, who developed Operant Conditioning within Behaviorism. (Thorndike, 1905). For example, as one user is walking through the virtual world and encounters the unfamiliar face, his reaction will stem from his type of personality or his attitude.  He is able to "act" in any way possible, in what ever imaginative or creative way he chooses his character to react.  In the narrative above, he chooses to plead for the help of his friend Billy to take his character into the room, and to his aid before the unfamiliar face returns.  The observable behavior that is conducted in the virtual world, M.U.D., ties in the relationship of Behaviorism, where users display a wide array of human behavior condusive to the computer-based instruction environment in which the multi-users create.  

 Below is a video from YouTube that previews the top 10 virtual worlds of 2015.  You may have heard of some of them, or may have not.  Yet they are part of the world of M.U.D. in which users are able to become creators of their own imagination.

            Information Processing is part of the Behaviorism theory, which uses a computer model to describe how we take in information, how we process it, retain it and utilize it.  In the virtual world, the computer saves information that is programmed and keeps this information for use when the user requires it.  There are four steps to the Information Processing Theory, which are:

1) Information is sensed and registered
2) Information is temporarily stored in short-term or working, memory.
3) Information is encoded and put in long-term memory.
4) Information is retrieved.

            

            In summary, in the M.U.D. world, Behaviorism and Information Processing is utilized together, with the computer programming information of the user.  As the user creates, stores information, changes information, creates behaviors between characters and manipulates the movement and reaction of the characters, the computer stores the information into memory.  The computer will be readily available for the users next move, if the user chooses to repeat, but in this world, the user can process the information, create and re-direct or recreate as he/she pleases, in which tons of virtual worlds have been created.  It is a world where, with the help of the computer, we are able to utilize our imaginations to the fullest, while socializing and creating with other players (users), and behaving in any manner possible, knowing that this virtual world is a world between you and your computer.

References:

Fox, Andy. 2014. Top 10 Virtual Worlds of 2015. Retrieved at https://youtu.be/QxTKdRpQvbc

Information Processing Model: Sensory, working and long-term memory.Khanacademymedicine.
       2013. Retrieved at http://youtu.be//pMMRE4Q2FGk

McLeod, Saul. 2007. Skinner-Operant Conditioning. Retrieved from Simple Psychology                at http://www.simplypsychology.org/operant-conditioning.html

Minecraft School: Nightmare in Hotel Transylvania. 2015. Retrieved at https://youtu.be/DmbY9ZmyYSY

Webkinz, Gwyneth Loves. 2015. Chit Chat City Tutorial retrieved at https://youtu.be/jkEwgO6wriM

WhatIs.com. 2015. MUD. Retrieved at http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/MUD-Multi-User-         Dungeon

What is MUD. 2001. Retrieved at https://www.zuggsoft.com/zmud/aboutmud.htm

What is MUD/Moo. 1996. Retrieved at http://www.siue.edu/~dsawyer/CMC/MM.html