The non-player character (NPC) theory shows how popular culture's misunderstandings of human cognition mirror flawed ideas from cognitive science.

In fact, when it comes to character, a more top-down approach is likely to yield better results, as teams can save valuable time and energy by eliminating players early on in the process.

The 2016 Republican Presidential Primaries provided two outstanding examples of candidates who might as well have been NPCs. In the 2016-02-06 debate, Marco Rubio got called out by Chris Christy ...