Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
anxiety in America than in countries where there
are fewer shotguns.
Though “response to sound, therefore, can
vary from player to player” (Collins et al., 2011),
the theories of emotion described in this section
provide a framework to understand the sources and
range of emotional responses of players to game
sound. In the Darwinian perspective, there are
certain basic emotions that are inherited and shared
across the human experience. The cognitive per-
spective to emotions contributes to understanding
them by explicating the importance of appraisals
of stimuli and their underlying association with
emotions. Researchers of the James-Lange theory
of emotions believe that humans first experience
bodily changes as a result of the perception of the
emotion-eliciting stimuli and that is the experience
of the feeling. Furthermore, the social constructiv-
ist perspective posits the theory that emotions are
learned and culturally determined. These emotion
theories correspond to three generally accepted
forms of human expression of emotions: expres-
sive behavior (showing the emotion), subjective
experience (appraising the feeling), and the physi-
ological component (sympathetic arousal) (see
Cunningham et al., 2011).
As previously mentioned, anxiety, at first
glance, could be conceptualized as a less intense
experience of fear, but this is not considered by
most emotion researchers to be the case. Fear
and anxiety are closely related but not the same
(Gullone, King, & Ollendick, 2000). Fear is an
emotional response to a particular event or object
and anxiety is an emotional response to an un-
specific event or object. Though fear and anxiety
are considered as two separate mental processes,
representing different affective and cognitive
states, the two are considered linked. Fear can
feed off anxiety and vice-versa. Game designers
may be able to increase players' fear if the play-
ers are already anxious rather than in a state of
calm. Because the player is already in a state of
nervousness and worry, he or she may perceive
a threat to be more dangerous than warranted,
resulting in an elevated fear response.
So, what is the emotion of suspense? Compared
to fear and anxiety, there has been very little
research on suspense. However, psychologists
quoted in Paradox of Suspense (Carroll, 1996) pro-
vide this definition of suspense: “…a Fear emotion
coupled with the cognitive state of uncertainty”
(p. 78). That is, fear coupled with anxiety. The
film scholar, Zillman (1991), describes suspense
as “the experience of uncertainty regarding the
outcome of a potentially hostile confrontation” (p.
283), which is similar to the definition of anxiety
but with more emphasis on specific stimuli that
are associated with fear. Thus, we conclude that
suspense is the intersection or overlap of fear and
anxiety. Suspense can be viewed as fear of im-
minent threat that is likely to occur, but has not
appeared, and/or a state of high anxiety due to an
impending dangerous situation. As Krzywinska
(2002), a professor in film studies, states: “Many
video games deploy sound as a key sign of impend-
ing danger, designed to agitate a tingling sense in
anticipation of the need to act” (p. 213).
Fear, anxiety, and suspense are gameplay
emotions that are intentionally promoted in the
design of survival horror games. Game designers
control all that the player sees and hears within the
survival horror game experience, and they have
used this control to develop sound design tech-
niques to elevate the player's fear, suspense, and
anxiety. Some of these techniques are explained
in the following section.
sound Design in Games
Sound design is used in almost all computer
games. To design the soundscape in a computer
game, there are a large number of sound proper-
ties that can be manipulated (see Liljedahl, 2011;
Wilhelmsson & Wallén, 2011). In this chapter,
sound properties are reduced to three independent
variables: volume, timing, and source. We believe
that these are three of the most basic properties
Search WWH ::




Custom Search