Associate ProfessorAaron Drummond

Project Total: $30,151; This project uses a large, role-playing megagame to explore how people understand and trust AI. Building on a previous RAi UK project, researchers in the UK and Australia will run linked game workshops where participants must make decisions using AI-driven information. The team will analyse how players talk about fairness, responsibility and risk, combining observations with short surveys. Findings will feed into a practical framework showing how games can be used to build Responsible AI skills and support future public engagement and education in the UK, Australia and beyond. Funded by: Responsible AI UK - Grant-Research; Longborough University; University of Tasmania ($595).

Project Total: $181,659; This research will provide a foundation for evidence-informed policy, enable enhanced service delivery, and guide targeted communication strategies for gambling support services in Tasmania. Funded by: Department of Premier and Cabinet ($181,658); University of Tasmania.

Project Total: $1,951; Funded by: PUBLIC ($1,951); University of Tasmania.

Project Total: $12,236; Funded by: Auckland University of Technology

Project Total: $300,000; In the last year, politicians, gamers, and parents worldwide have expressed serious concerns about the recent emergence of gambling-related design features in videogames available to children (e.g., so called Loot Boxes?), and the potential psychological, financial, and physical health risks these features pose. No research directly addresses this issue. However, two recent publications highlight that these design features share important psychological properties with gambling. Primarily, like poker machine gambling, these features offer rewards of randomly-determined value, based on variable reinforcement schedules (i.e., although successful outcomes are determined by the number of attempts a player makes, the precise number of attempts required and the value of the successful outcome cannot be determined beforehand). This sort of reward mechanism results in the rapid acquisition of new behaviours (e.g., betting), produces highly persistent behaviours, and is fundamental to many forms of conventional gambling. With a novel application of robust psychological theory (operant conditioning), we propose to establish the prevalence of, and experimentally verify the psychological mechanisms underpinning, problematic gaming behaviours associated with in-game gambling-related mechanisms, with a view to inform theory, public policy debates, and interventions to curtail problematic outcomes. Funded by: The Royal Society of New Zealand - Grant-Marsden Fund; University of Tasmania.

Project Total: $21,855; Funded by: Massey University

Project Total: $19,996; Funded by: Massey University

Project Total: $5,000; Funded by: Massey University

Project Total: $6,235; Funded by: Massey University

Project Total: $12,650; Funded by: Massey University

Project Total: $90,000; Funded by: Department of Veterans' Affairs

Project Total: $64,143; Funded by: NCVER