The two source theses
Instrument wordings and band thresholds are quoted from these rather than paraphrased, so a reading taken in one course is comparable with one taken in another.
The master's thesis. Supplies course one entire, the pact argument at §2.1 and the restoration instrument at §5.6, and the five questions and three postures that course two uses. Built as a dossier and as a working reader.
The bachelor's thesis, and course three's spine: its self-determination chapter, its critique of player archetypes as marketing segments, its Story of Misery chapter, and the three projects it documents — VALLAE, Cloudy Horizons and Coil Hibiki. The third test is this thesis's own observation about Cloudy Horizons.
Shared — assigned by more than one course
These four do the structural work. A student taking any one course meets at least two of them.
The attentional environment as structural rather than conspiratorial; impulsive against reflective will; agency as the measure of a technology. Assigned by all three courses.
The two systems, loss aversion, the availability heuristic, and why a statistical profile collapses on a named individual. With Tversky, the heuristics and biases set course three works through.
The principles, and the engineering of the moment before the message — which is what notification timing is.
Attention restoration theory, directed attention fatigue, and the four properties. The source of the design criteria and of the delta instrument.
The unconscious architecture and what behavioural data can therefore never capture; neuroplasticity, and why a design decision is also a decision about the architecture a person brings to everything afterwards.
The manipulation criterion — influence that does not sufficiently engage the capacity for reflection — and the publicity principle behind it. Short, and the two criteria course two uses most.
Course one — Media as Universe
The attention economy: naming the mechanics, and finding where the model that uses them breaks.
Fragility as dependence on a counterparty's stability, and why systems optimised for short-term efficiency go blind to their own fragility.
Attention as the scarce resource. Short, and the origin of the content budget.
Course three — Alternative Storytelling
Narrative and play: the pact, the three tests, and building the alternative.
Autonomy, competence and relatedness: the criteria behind test one. Read an overview rather than the full literature.
The four conditions, and the reason this course treats flow as a hazard as well as a goal.
Emotion by design: how constructed atmosphere nudges players toward introspection and connection.
The dramatic arc, oxytocin, and the behavioural consequence.
Oxytocin, cortisol, pain perception. The measured case for narration, and the evidence behind the Transport Test.
The systematic distribution of a narrative across platforms, each contributing to the whole.
How storytelling gives rewards meaning. Read it critically: it is the field's own manual.
One passage, and the origin of the pact. It turns up in both source theses.
Conversation theory, narrative pedagogy, and the distinction between narrative teaching and narrative learning.
The figures behind week three.