The University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Department of Computer Science
9201 University City Boulevard, 421 A Woodward Hall
Phone: 704-687-8569, Fax: 704-687-3516
Charlotte, NC 28223-0001


Understanding the Observation and Direction of Agent Actions

Welcome to "Understanding the Observation and Direction of Agent Actions," a web-based experiment that examines how people describe specific behaviors and how they would direct others to prioritize and conduct specified operations. You must be at least 18 years old to participate in this study. Before you begin,, please read the consent form below and click on the "I Agree" button at the bottom of the page if you understand the statements and freely consent to participate in the study.

Consent Form

This study involves a web-based experiment designed to understand how people provide direction for a task and how they describe the observation of a task being performed. G. Michael Youngblood, Ph.D. and the researchers of the Game Intelligence Group are conducting the study. The University Institutional Review Board has approved this study. No deception is involved, and the study involves no more than minimal risk to participants (i.e., the level of risk encountered in daily life).

Participation in the study typically takes 10-60 minutes and is strictly anonymous. If you agree to participate, you will begin by answering a series of demographics questions. Then you will be given an overall task description to read. This task description will describe a scenario and the characters in the scenario. Once you have read the description you will be asked to write a detailed set of instructions to guide a person to complete the task you read about. For example, you might be given the task description for an urban search and rescue mission and be asked to describe how a search and rescue person would respond in this situation. Next, you will watch a video clip depicting a specific scenario. Again, this could be a video of a search and rescue mission. You will then be asked to write a description of the activities and behaviors you saw in the video clip (what you saw first, the order of importance, etc.). The goal for both writing tasks is to use enough detail in your descriptions so that someone else could repeat these same actions based only on what you have written.

All responses are treated as confidential, and in no case will your responses be identified. Rather, all data will be pooled and published in aggregate form only. You should be aware, however, that the experiment is not being run from a "secure" https server of the kind typically used to handle credit card transactions, so there is a small possibility that responses could be viewed by unauthorized third parties (e.g., computer hackers).

Participation is voluntary; refusal to take part in the study involves no penalty or loss of benefits to which you are otherwise entitled, and you may withdraw from the study at any time without penalty or loss of benefits to which you are otherwise entitled. There is no monetary or otherwise compensation for participation in this study.

If you have further questions or concerns about your rights as a participant in this study, contact the Compliance Office at 704.687.2291. If you have questions concerning the study, contact the principal investigator, Dr. Michael Youngblood at 704.687.7989 or by email at youngbld@uncc.edu.

If you are 18 years of age or older, understand the statements above, and freely consent to participate in the study, click on the "I Agree" button to begin the experiment.