Causing Fear, Suspense, and Anxiety Using Sound Design in Computer Games - Game Sound Technology and Player Interaction: Concepts and Developments - page 178

of emotions while playing a game, which Perron
(2005a) termed gameplay emotions. Gameplay
emotions are different than everyday emotions. For
instance, gameplay emotions can be paradoxical
in nature, such as deliberating watching a scary
movie to enjoy the sensation of fear (Cunningham
et al., 2011). The following discussion on emo-
tions is focused on fear, anxiety, and suspense.

(Barlow, 1988). May (1977) resolves whether
anxiety is innate or not by suggesting that all
humans have the instinctive capacity to react to
threats, whether the threat is concrete (for fear) or
unspecific (anxiety). However, what the individual
considers threats may be learned and are triggered
by the appraisal of particular events or stimuli.

The Cognitive Perspective of Emotions

theories of Emotions and Games

The importance of appraisals of particular events
or stimuli, and their associations with emotions,
is illuminated by the cognitive theory of emo-
tions (Cornelius, 1996). Based on the cognitive
perspective, emotions and behavior are constantly
changing as an individual appraises and reap-
praises the changing environment (Folkman &
Lazarus, 1990). Depending on what the player
of a game is consciously thinking of a situation,
he or she can experience any of a range of emo-
tions and behaviors. Appraisals and reappraisals
are important parts of the emotional experience
of survival horror games (Perron, 2004). Game
players may feel fear and anxiety by appraising
particular sounds as being “scary” or “creepy” or
they may appraise the same game sounds as “silly.”
Game designers can promote the experience of fear
and anxiety through priming cues, such as music,
acousmatic sound effects, and visuals, which
can encourage “thinking” about the scariness or
creepiness of the game. After being primed, the
player is more likely to appraise particular stimuli
in the way that is desired by the game designer,
such as fear when suddenly a monster appears in
survival horror computer games.

The Darwinian Perspective of Emotions

In the Darwinian perspective of emotions, there
are certain basic emotions that are inherited and
shared across the human experience. Researchers
of the Darwinian perspective, such as Plutchik
(1984), have identified several primary emotions,
such as rage, loathing, grief, amazement, terror,
admiration, ecstasy, and vigilance. Each of these
emotions has several levels of intensity. For
instance, the less intense levels of the emotion
of terror are fear and then apprehension. Game
players can be observed showing many of these
identified primary emotions. For example, play-
ers often feel fear or apprehension at the appear-
ance of the enemy, particularly in survival horror
computer games.
Plutchik's theory posits that we can promote
fear in everyone. Fear is a psychological experi-
ence to prepare individuals for the 'freeze, fight or
flight' response (Gray, 1971). However, Plutchik's
theory does not easily account for anxiety. Fear is a
reaction to a specific danger or threat while anxiety
is unspecific, vague, and objectless (May, 1977).
Thus, anxiety is not a lower level of intensity of
fear, or even apprehension. Anxiety is diffuse with
a vague sense of apprehension (Kaplan & Sadock,
1998), rather than apprehension due to a specific
stimulus (Gullone, King, & Ollendick, 2000).
Anxiety is often thought to be a future-oriented
mood--a vague discomforting sense--that things
will go wrong, which can have an adaptive func-
tion of enhancing performance at optimal levels

The James-Lange
Perspective of Emotions

Appraisals are also an important part of the
James-Lange perspective of emotions. However,
in this perspective the appraisals are unconscious
evaluations of the body's response to stimuli
(Cornelius, 1996). While playing games, the body