Emotion, Content, and Context in Sound and Music - Game Sound Technology and Player Interaction: Concepts and Developments - page 238

of being frightened, provided we are within a
controlled environment.
Freeman (2004) provides a list of reasons that
support the activation of emotion in computer
games, citing “art and money” (p. 1) as the principle
drivers, although his work focuses mainly on the
latter, such as competitive advantages for games
development companies, rather than direct benefit
to consumers and game players. Nevertheless, as
Freeman advocates, this awareness in the indus-
try of the need to integrate emotion further into
computer gaming, is evidence of market demand
and big business interest in this exciting field.
Emotion manifests itself in many ways and
there is an identifiable physical symptom in the
user. Whilst the studies discussed later concentrate
on identifying physical emotional reaction, these
have not always been directly linked to the player's
physical interaction with the game. However,
research by Sykes and Brown (2003) describes
an initial study that deals with investigating not
just emotional response or reaction in users but
emotional interaction with a game.
Sykes and Brown also support the theory
that emotional reaction and interaction represent
significant potential in being able to adapt and
manipulate gaming environments in response
to the emotional and affective states of the user.
Their investigation dealt with determining if the
amount of pressure applied to the buttons of a
computer game controller pad correlated with an
increased level of difficulty in the game environ-
ment. A benefit of using this approach as opposed
to galvanic skin response or heart rate monitoring
is that those mechanisms can be altered by the
environmental changes around the user whereas
changes in pressure applied to the game control-
ler are much more likely to have been caused
by events occurring in the game. Their results
indicated that players did indeed apply greater
pressure to the game controller when a greater
level of difficulty and concentration was required
in the game. Although the study is preliminary
and relatively small-scale, the authors' methods

of analysis employ significance testing of the
data collected.
Ravaja et al. (2005) conducted experiments that
attempt to evidence the impact of computer game-
play upon human emotions by employing an array
of biometric measurements. This is based upon the
generally held theory that emotion is expressed
by humans in three forms: “subjective experience
(e.g., feeling joyous), expressive behavior (e.g.,
smiling), and the physiological component (e.g.,
sympathetic arousal)” (p. 2). Taking this further,
the authors make the point that the psychological
connection between a player and a computer game
exceeds pure emotion and touches cognition where
players make assertions and links to the game:
believing they are a super-hero or ninja warrior, for
example. This work also highlights the issue that,
until recently, research into emotional enjoyment
and influence has focused upon non-interactive,
mass media communication channels, such as
television, film and radio.
The wide range of measurements used by
Ravaja et al. is concise and, as the authors indicate,
few other studies have employed such a wide
range of metrics when investigating emotional
connection with computer gameplay. The authors
use electrocardiogram (ECG)/inter-beat intervals
(IBI), facial electromyography (EMG) and skin
conductance level (SCL) as measurements dur-
ing their experiments. The experiments showed
that reliable results are achieved across a range
of subjects in response to significant events in
a game scenario (such as success, failure, poor
performance and so on). This work provides very
strong evidence that subjects exhibit strong, iden-
tifiable physical reactions that are typical during
emotional arousal when playing with computer
games. It supports the argument, made in this
chapter, that emotion, through physical distur-
bance, is a strong method for detecting emotional
state and response when interacting with computer
games. Broadly speaking, positive and negative
game events correlated to positive and negative
emotional reactions in players. However, one