@article { peña17, abstract = {This study explored how group identification, avatar similarity identification, and social presence mediated the effect of character type (avatars or agents) and social identity cues (presence or absence of avatars wearing participants’ school colors) on game enjoyment. Playing with teammate avatars increased enjoyment indirectly by enhancing group identification. In addition, the presence of social identity cues increased enjoyment indirectly by augmenting identification with one’s avatar. Unexpectedly, playing in multiplayer mode in the presence of social identity cues decreased enjoyment, whereas playing in multiplayer mode in the absence of social identity cues increased enjoyment. Social presence was not a reliable mediator. The findings supported media enjoyment and social identity theories, and highlighted how virtual character type and identification processes influence enjoyment.}, journal = {Journal of Media Psychology}, keywords = {Intelligent Virtual Agents;Affective Computing;Computer Games;Multi-Agent Societies;}, month = {April}, pages = {1035-1042}, publisher = {Hogrefe Publishing}, title = {The Effects of Playing with Human vs. Computer- controlled Characters and Social Identity Cues on Enjoyment: Specifying the Mediation Effects of Social Presence, Similarity Identification, and Group Identification}, year = {2017}, author = {Jorge Peña and Jannath Ghaznavi and Nick Brody and Rui Prada and Carlos Martinho and Pedro Santos and Hugo Damas and Joana Dimas} }