| Summary: | 碩士 === 南台科技大學 === 資訊傳播系 === 98 === Due to prosperity of entertainment technology, a large number of new and innovative games with diverse playing modes are being rolled out. Nevertheless, game players are mostly unfamiliar with these playing modes, so they have to learn how to operate them and understand all sorts of game design elements if they want to be delighted in role playing. From the perspective of cognitive psychology, game players would rearrange his/her original designated mental model to successfully adapt to the workings of that game (system image) s/he is playing, especially when s/he cannot reach a comprehensive understanding of them. Oftentimes, this system image exists with design model. But, when a game player’s mental model cannot effectively shift into a new one to correspond with the design model, s/he tends to stop playing by considering that game bizarre and tedious. Thus, in terms of game development or related research, it is extraordinarily essential to realize the factors affecting game players’ mental models. Consequently, this research explores the following three issues: A delineation of mental map in players’ mental process, an understanding of factors influencing players’ transformation of mental model, and a realization of players’ levels of mental activity in games they frequently play and ones they are not familiar with. In addition, it aims at an exploration of game players’ mental models for dealing with their mental processes based on related psychology theories and Human-Machine Interface Design. First, I use both common and unfamiliar game types to conduct pre-test and major experiments in this research. Second, game activities of three participants with various game experiences are recorded by a camera through the method of “Thinking Aloud.” Third, experimental processes are written in words for qualitative analyses of open coding, axial coding, and selective coding. Ultimately, the findings end up with four factors: players’ experiences, stimulus situation in games, repetitive plays and players’ explications toward game objects. Besides, game players develop different levels of mental models in different game plays. This research also clarifies the fact that players dealing with common game types build higher mental processes than those with unfamiliar ones do. Some discoveries in this research are expected to provide game developers with a reference for more intriguing new games by better understanding players’ predicted playing behaviors.
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