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gies in first-person shooter (FPS) games which
provide a range of conceptual tools for analyzing
immersive functions of game sound (Grimshaw,
2008a; Grimshaw & Schott, 2008). In an argument
for physical immersion of players through spatial
qualities of game sound (Grimshaw, 2007), we
find the concept of sensory immersion reoccurring
(Ermi & Mäyrä, 2005). The perception of game
sound in this context is not only loading player's
mental and attentional capacities but is also having
an effect on the player's unconscious emotional
state. The phenomenon of physical sonic immer-
sion is not new, but has been observed before
for movie theatre audiences and the concept has
been transferred to sound design in FPS simula-
tions and games (Shilling, Zyda, & Wardynski,
2002). In some cases, the sensory intensity levels
of game sound may be such that affect really is
a gut feeling as alluded to earlier in this chapter.
Possible immersion through computer game
sound may be strong enough to enable a similar
affective experience by playing with audio only,
as investigations in this direction suggest (Röber
& Masuch, 2005).
increases during positive moods. High obicularis
oculi muscle activity (responsible for closing the
eyelid) is associated with mildly positive emotions
(Cacioppo, Tassinary, & Berntson, 2007). An
advantage of physiological assessment is that it
can assess covert activity of facial muscles with
great sensitivity to subtle reactions (Ravaja, 2004).
Measuring emotions in the circumplex model of
emotional valence and arousal is now possible
during interactive events, such as playing games,
by covertly recording the physiological activity of
brow, cheek and eyelid muscle (Mandryk, 2008;
Nacke & Lindley, 2008; Ravaja, et al., 2008).
For the correct assessment of arousal, addi-
tional measurement of a person's electrodermal
activity (EDA) is necessary (Lykken & Venables,
1971), which is either measured from palmar sites
(thenar/hypothenar eminences of the hand) or
plantar sites (e.g. above abductor hallucis muscle
and midway between the proximal phalanx of
the big toe) (Boucsein, 1992). The conductance
of the skin is directly related to the production
of sweat in the eccrine sweat glands, which is
entirely controlled by a human's sympathetic
nervous system. Increased sweat gland activity
is related to electrical skin conductance. Using
EMG measurements of facial muscles that reliably
measure basic emotions and EDA measurements
that indicate a person's arousal, we can correlate
emotional states of users to specific game events
or even complete game sessions (Nacke, Lindley,
& Stellmach, 2008; Ravaja, et al., 2008). Below,
we refer to several experiments analyzing cumula-
tive measurements of EMG and EDA to assess the
overall affective experience of players in diverse
game sound scenarios.
PsYcHOPHYsIOLOGIcAL
MEAsUrEMENt OF EMOtIONs
As we have discussed before, a rather modern ap-
proach is the two-dimensional model of emotional
affect and arousal suggested by Russell (1980,
see Figure 1). Ekman's (1992) insight that basic
emotions are reflected in facial expressions was
fundamental for subsequent studies investigating
physiological responses of facial muscles using a
method called electromyography (EMG) which
measures subtle reactions of muscles in the human
body (Cacioppo, Berntson, Larsen, Poehlmann,
& Ito, 2004). For example, corrugator muscle
activity (in charge of lowering the eyebrow) was
found to increase when a person is in a bad mood
(Larsen, Norris, & Cacioppo, 2003). In contrast to
this, zygomaticus muscle activity (on the cheek)
Pointers from Psychophysiological
Experiments
A set of preliminary experiments (Grimshaw et al.,
2008; Nacke, 2009; Nacke, Grimshaw, & Lindley,
2010) investigated the impact of the sonic user
experience and psychophysiological effects of
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