David Moffat
David Moffat is a lecturer at Glasgow Caledonian University in the Department of Engineering & Computing.
His AI & Games research interests include AI characters with emphasis on their ”emotional” aspects.
Studies are focused on how the emotional experience
of players during games is affected by background
music, and on specific techniques that could measure this effect.
Such techniques have included simple physiological
measures, as well as observational techniques and
the use of eye-tracking technology. In addition, studies include the usage of a Turing-Test paradigm to evaluate the realism and believability of AI characters (NPCs)
in games.
Last but not least, the nature of emotion and how it may provide
a degree of optimisation to the cognitive functioning
of real-time embodied systems (e.g. robots) is being researched. This is called ”emotional robotics” naturally enough.
His main research interest in games their usage as a testbed so that better theories and models
of human-like cognition and emotion can be created and this would benefit greatly the gaming industry.