Thwarting peer pressure

Two UCF professors are working to develop a game using avatars and motion-capture technology that will help young Latinas avoid peer pressure and say no to sex.

Anne Norris, a professor in UCF's college of nursing came up with the idea and approached Charles Hughes in the college of computer science, who often uses technology to address modern issues.

Norris chose young Latinas because, in her studies, she found that there tends to be a higher rate of STDs and teen pregnancy among that group.

The game will be an interactive experience that presents real-life scenarios for the player to respond to. It will serve as a supplement to a sexual education curriculum by helping girls develop certain social skills.

"The game really focuses on keeping the girls from [giving in to] peer pressure," said Norris. "In a sense, it's helping them say ‘no.' "

On March 15, the team of researchers received a $434,800 grant from the National Institutes of Health to help fund their project.

Norris was delighted to hear they received the grant for the proposal she wrote and mailed in September last year.

"It's extremely hard," said Norris of earning a grant. "They get hundreds of applications, and they fund very few."

The proposal Norris penned outlined their plan for the game's development, summarized the costs and emotional effects of an early pregnancy and how this game could prevent that.

"If we can just prevent girls from starting to have sex in early high school or middle school by giving them the skills they need, then we've just saved a lot of money," Norris said.

The characters in the game are controlled by what is called an "interactor." This person remains in a separate room, out of sight from the person playing the game.

The interactor is trained in how to give each specific character a personality, and they wear a motion capture suit to control the movements of the character.

"As an interactor, your main job is to bring life to something that is inherently not living," said Jeff Wirth, head of Wirth Creative and director of the interactive performance lab in UCF's Institute for Simulation and Training.

This means the interactor must have a vast knowledge of different personality types, so that each character can be both believable and relatable. Each character must also have a back story, much like anyone in real life would.

"We start from a place of understanding what different types of characters are necessary in a story," Wirth said. "There has to be something unique about each character in the story so they can fill a certain role."

The researchers developing this game have spent about a year studying middle school-aged Latinas and their behaviors in an effort to fully understand their interactions and mimic them in the game.

The interactor also has the ability to move from character to character in the game rather than just sticking to one character. When the interactor is not controlling a character, the computer takes over in controlling.

"If she (the player) is more interested in one boy, then he can have a larger role," Norris said.

The person playing the game does not need to wear a motion capture suit or anything different from what they would normally wear.

The player sits in a room where life-sized game avatars will be displayed. The player is able to interact with the characters in the game through speech. There is even talk among the developers of allowing the player to communicate through text messaging.