Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection
Barrett, The Honors College at Arizona State University proudly showcases the work of undergraduate honors students by sharing this collection exclusively with the ASU community.
Barrett accepts high performing, academically engaged undergraduate students and works with them in collaboration with all of the other academic units at Arizona State University. All Barrett students complete a thesis or creative project which is an opportunity to explore an intellectual interest and produce an original piece of scholarly research. The thesis or creative project is supervised and defended in front of a faculty committee. Students are able to engage with professors who are nationally recognized in their fields and committed to working with honors students. Completing a Barrett thesis or creative project is an opportunity for undergraduate honors students to contribute to the ASU academic community in a meaningful way.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 38
Description
The purpose of this thesis study was to examine whether the "war on cancer" metaphor influences cancer perception and treatment decision. A total of 249 undergraduates (152 females) from a large southwestern university participated in an online survey experiment and were either randomly assigned to the control condition (N=123) or to the war prime condition (N=126). Participants in the control condition did not receive the metaphor manipulation while participants in the war prime condition received the subtle "war on cancer" metaphor prime. After the prime was given, participants read a scenario, answered questions related to the situation, and responded to demographic questions. The results suggested that, compared to participants in the no-prime condition, participants exposed to the war metaphor were more likely to (a) view melanoma as an acute disease, (b) choose chemotherapy over molecular tests, and (c) prefer more aggressive treatment. These findings illustrated the unintended consequences of the "war on cancer" slogan. The results were encouraging and in the predicted direction, but the effect size was small. The discussion section described possible future directions for research.
ContributorsShangraw, Ann Mariah (Author) / Kwan, Virginia (Thesis director) / Neuberg, Steven (Committee member) / Cavanaugh Toft, Carolyn (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
This project is a Game Engine for 2D Fighting Games which uses Simple DirectMedia Layer and C++. The Game Engine's goal is to model the conventions the genre has for dynamically handling combat between two characters. The characters can be in a variety of different states that animate certain features while also responding to the environment based on key statuses. There is a playable test game that is the subject of a user study. The Game Engine's capabilities are shown by the test game and the limitations / missing features are discussed.
ContributorsStanton, Nicholas Scott (Author) / Kobayashi, Yoshihiro (Thesis director) / Hansford, Dianne (Committee member) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor) / Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
This paper details the process for designing both a simulation of the board game Jaipur, and an artificial intelligence (AI) agent that can play the game against a human player. When designing an AI for a card game, there are two major problems that can arise. The first is the difficulty of using a search space to analyze every possible set of future moves. Due to the randomized nature of the deck of cards, the search space rapidly leads to an exponentially growing set of potential game states to analyze when one tries to look more than one turn ahead. The second aspect that poses difficulty is the element of uncertainty that exists from opponent feedback. Certain moves are weak to specific opponent reactions, and these are difficult to predict due to hidden information. To circumvent these problems, the AI uses a greedy approach to decision making, attempting to maximize the value of its plays immediately, and not play for future turns. The agent utilizes conditional statements to evaluate the game state and choose a game action that it deems optimal, a heuristic to place an expected value (EV) of the goods it can choose from, and selects the best one based on this evaluation. Initial implementation of the simulation was done using C++ through a terminal application, and then was translated to a graphical interface using Unity and C#.
ContributorsOrr, James Christopher (Author) / Kobayashi, Yoshihiro (Thesis director) / Selgrad, Justin (Committee member) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
The media often portrays professional basketball players as narcissistic, entitled and selfish, but are these portrayals accurate? After all, basketball is a team sport and team sport research indicates that players are more altruistic and selfless. This study proposes a way to assess narcissism and altruism through observable behaviors from all the active players in the NBA.
ContributorsPappas, Carissa Anne (Author) / Kwan, Virginia (Thesis director) / Glenberg, Arthur (Committee member) / Mae, Lynda (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor)
Created2013-12
Description
Speech recognition in games is rarely seen. This work presents a project, a 2D computer game named "The Emblems" which utilizes speech recognition as input. The game itself is a two person strategy game whose goal is to defeat the opposing player's army. This report focuses on the speech-recognition aspect of the project. The players interact on a turn-by-turn basis by speaking commands into the computer's microphone. When the computer recognizes a command, it will respond accordingly by having the player's unit perform an action on screen.
ContributorsNguyen, Jordan Ngoc (Author) / Kobayashi, Yoshihiro (Thesis director) / Maciejewski, Ross (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Computing and Informatics Program (Contributor) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
The project, "The Emblems: OpenGL" is a 2D strategy game that incorporates Speech Recognition for control and OpenGL for computer graphics. Players control their own army by voice commands and try to eliminate the opponent's army. This report focuses on the 2D art and visual aspects of the project. There are different sprites for the player's army units and icons within the game. The game also has a grid for easy unit placement.
ContributorsHsia, Allen (Author) / Kobayashi, Yoshihiro (Thesis director) / Maciejewski, Ross (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
The objective of this creative project was to gain experience in digital modeling, animation, coding, shader development and implementation, model integration techniques, and application of gaming principles and design through developing a professional educational game. The team collaborated with Glendale Community College (GCC) to produce an interactive product intended to supplement educational instructions regarding nutrition. The educational game developed, "Nutribots" features the player acting as a nutrition based nanobot sent to the small intestine to help the body. Throughout the game the player will be asked nutrition based questions to test their knowledge of proteins, carbohydrates, and lipids. If the player is unable to answer the question, they must use game mechanics to progress and receive the information as a reward. The level is completed as soon as the question is answered correctly. If the player answers the questions incorrectly twenty times within the entirety of the game, the team loses faith in the player, and the player must reset from title screen. This is to limit guessing and to make sure the player retains the information through repetition once it is demonstrated that they do not know the answers. The team was split into two different groups for the development of this game. The first part of the team developed models, animations, and textures using Autodesk Maya 2016 and Marvelous Designer. The second part of the team developed code and shaders, and implemented products from the first team using Unity and Visual Studio. Once a prototype of the game was developed, it was show-cased amongst peers to gain feedback. Upon receiving feedback, the team implemented the desired changes accordingly. Development for this project began on November 2015 and ended on April 2017. Special thanks to Laura Avila Department Chair and Jennifer Nolz from Glendale Community College Technology and Consumer Sciences, Food and Nutrition Department.
ContributorsNolz, Daisy (Co-author) / Martin, Austin (Co-author) / Quinio, Santiago (Co-author) / Armstrong, Jessica (Co-author) / Kobayashi, Yoshihiro (Thesis director) / Valderrama, Jamie (Committee member) / School of Arts, Media and Engineering (Contributor) / School of Film, Dance and Theatre (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor) / Computing and Informatics Program (Contributor) / Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts (Contributor) / School of Sustainability (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-05
Description
Learning to program is no easy task, and many students experience their first programming during their university education. Unfortunately, programming classes have a large number of students enrolled, so it is nearly impossible for professors to associate with the students at an individual level and provide the personal attention each student needs. This project aims to provide professors with a tool to quickly respond to the current understanding of the students. This web-based application gives professors the control to quickly ask Java programming questions, and the ability to see the aggregate data on how many of the students have successfully completed the assigned questions. With this system, the students are provided with extra programming practice in a controlled environment, and if there is an error in their program, the system will provide feedback describing what the error means and what steps the student can take to fix it.
ContributorsVillela, Daniel Linus (Author) / Kobayashi, Yoshihiro (Thesis director) / Nelson, Brian (Committee member) / Hsiao, Sharon (Committee member) / Computing and Informatics Program (Contributor) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-05
Description
A recent controversy has surrounded service dogs in public environments. Use of service dogs may trigger discrimination against individuals with non-visible disabilities. Major goals of this thesis study are to examine if significant differences exist in personality perceptions and attitude towards service dog owners with visible disabilities versus those with non-visible disabilities, and whether these perceptions and attitude predict how they would be treated in a public setting. The study employed a mixed 2 x2 factorial experiment design. The first independent variable was visibility of the disability, with the two levels being visible vs non-visible, and this factor was non-repeated in nature. The second independent variable was the target of evaluation, with the owner and the dog being the two levels, and this was a repeated measure. Specifically, this study assessed personality perceptions using the Big Five personality traits (Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability, Openness to Experience) and operationalized attitude in terms of the positivity of personality perceptions. Additionally, this study examined whether an owner of a service dog with a non-visible disability would be treated differently from their counterpart who has a visible disability. In the study, participants were given a scenario and picture where they encounter an individual who either had a visible or non-visible disability with a service dog at a restaurant. Then, participants rated the owner and the dog individually on the Big Five personality traits, and indicated whether and how likely they would seat the individual and their service dog at the restaurant. When considering the visibility of a disability alone, an individual with a non-visible disability was perceived as less conscientious. When considering how the owner and the dog were perceived regardless of visibility of disability, owners were rated significantly lower than their dog on agreeableness and extraversion, but significantly higher on openness to experience. There was also a significant difference in treatment of the dog owners based on the visibility of their disability, service dog owners with non-visible disabilities have a higher likelihood of experiencing unlawful treatment. Furthermore, personality perceptions and attitude were significantly correlated with treatment for both individuals with non-visible and visible disabilities. Together, findings of this study inform the design of future research. Future research on this topic may help inform policy makers the challenges and unfair treatment facing individuals who have non-visible disabilities.
ContributorsSanta Cruz, Alyssa Ann (Author) / Kwan, Virginia (Thesis director) / Glenberg, Arthur (Committee member) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Description
Natural Language Processing and Virtual Reality are hot topics in the present. How can we synthesize these together in order to make a cohesive experience? The game focuses on users using vocal commands, building structures, and memorizing spatial objects. In order to get proper vocal commands, the IBM Watson API for Natural Language Processing was incorporated into our game system. User experience elements like gestures, UI color change, and images were used to help guide users in memorizing and building structures. The process to create these elements were streamlined through the VRTK library in Unity. The game has two segments. The first segment is a tutorial level where the user learns to perform motions and in-game actions. The second segment is a game where the user must correctly create a structure by utilizing vocal commands and spatial recognition. A standardized usability test, System Usability Scale, was used to evaluate the effectiveness of the game. A survey was also created in order to evaluate a more descriptive user opinion. Overall, users gave a positive score on the System Usability Scale and slightly positive reviews in the custom survey.
ContributorsOrtega, Excel (Co-author) / Ryan, Alexander (Co-author) / Kobayashi, Yoshihiro (Thesis director) / Nelson, Brian (Committee member) / Computing and Informatics Program (Contributor) / School of Art (Contributor) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05