InterFACES virtuais: análise microgenética de processos de interação social no jogo "THE SIMS®"

Abstract

This research had as general objective to investigate, by microgenetic analysis, the possibility of description of the social interaction in a virtual word, the computer game called “The Sims®”. The option for this game came from the fact that it can turn viable the simulation of real social situations, which could be difficult to be reproduced experimentally. Specifically, this study has the objective of describe the interactions in the context of Piaget’s Theory of Social Change (1954; 1965/1973). The interactions among the players, the created-characters and the game ambient utensils were classified in categories, created for this study and, from these classifications, participant’s ways of operation were identified, as well as relations among subjects interactions and Piaget’s interpersonal relations diagram. The data collect procedure occurred from June to November of 2006, and it has as participants 10 High School students from a private school of the Espirito Santo State. The research had as methodological resource the Microgenetics Analysis and consisted of six phases: 1rst) preparation: the participants have used the game tutorial to guarantee the knowledge of its functionalities; 2nd) creation of characters and general configurations of the game; 3rd) simulation sessions: the participants have played two sessions of about 30 minutes each one, and it had been recorded by a software that captures screens, being executed in computer second plain; 4th) preliminary processing of the data; 5th) interviews with the players; and 6th) final analysis of the data. As results, it was possible to verify that all the players had been occupied, in the most part of the time, with satisfying the characters’ necessities, according to what they had defined as initial objective; eight of them had defined the physical and "personality" personages attributes similar with their own characteristics. From the analysis of the participant’s games, was evidenced the viability of social interactions description in the Piaget´s theory of social exchanges, at least in the game “The Sims”, therefore in this context the social factor does not imply in physical presence, necessarily, but it´s characterized as "space of meeting" in space and time, turning possible to the "virtual" to be adopted as this space of social interaction.