Player-Game Interaction Through Affective Sound - Game Sound Technology and Player Interaction: Concepts and Developments - page 274

game sound (i.e., diegetic sound FX) and music
in an FPS game. They measured EMG and EDA
responses together with subjective questionnaire
responses for 36 undergraduate students with a 2 ×
2 repeated-measures factorial design using sound
(on and off) and music (on and off) as predictor
variables with a counter-balanced order of sound
and music presentation in an FPS game level.
Among many results, two are particularly
interesting: (1) higher co-active EMG brow and
eyelid activity when music was present than when
it was absent (regardless of other sounds) and (2)
a strong effect of sound on gameplay experience
dimensions (IJsselsteijn, Poels, & de Kort, 2008).
In the case of the latter result, higher subjective
ratings of immersion, flow, positive affect, and
challenge, together with lower negative affect
and tension ratings, were discovered when sound
was present than when it was absent (regardless
of music). The psychophysiological results of this
study put the usefulness of (tonic) psychophysi-
ological measures to the test, since the literature
points to expressions of antipathy when the facial
muscles under investigation are activated at the
same time (Bradley, Codispoti, Cuthbert, & Lang,
2001). The caveat here is that the most common
stimuli that have been used in psychophysiological
research are pictures (Lang, Greenwald, Bradley,
& Hamm, 1993). Using music, especially in a
highly immersive environment such as a first-
person perspective digital game, may lead to a
number of emotions being elicited simultaneously
and which might lie outside of the dimensional
space that is being used in Russell's (1980) model.
This opinion argues that a person's emotional
experience is a cognitive interpretation of this
automatic physiological response (Russell, 2003).
But the bipolarity of the valence-arousal dimen-
sions have been criticized before as the model is
too rigid to allow for simultaneous (i.e., positive
and negative) emotion measurements (Tellegen,
Watson, & Clark, 1999). Using sound and music
in a digital game is, however, a very ambiguous
and complex use of stimuli and prior research has

suggested that the emotional responses to such
complex stimuli can be simultaneously positive
and negative (Larsen, McGraw, & Cacioppo,
2001; Larsen, McGraw, Mellers, & Cacioppo,
2004). Tellegen, et al. (1999) proposed a structural
hierarchical model of emotion which might be
more suited in this context by providing for both
independent positive emotional activation (PA)
and negative emotional activation (NA) organized
in a three-level hierarchy. The top level is formed
by a general bipolar Happiness-Unhappiness
dimension, followed by the PA and NA dimen-
sion allowing discrete emotions to form its base.
With this model, we could argue that the find-
ings of Nacke et al. (2010) show an independent
positive and negative emotional activation during
the music conditions. This would, however, also
indicate that the physiological activity is not a
direct result of the sound and music conditions,
but arguably of a combination of stimuli present
during these conditions.
In addition, greater electrodermal activity
was found for female players when both sound
and music were off, while the responses for male
players were almost identical (see Figure 2). The
authors assumed music to have a calming effect
on female players, resulting in less arousal during
gameplay. For females, music was also connected
with pleasant emotions as higher eyelid EMG ac-
tivity indicated. Overall, the psychophysiological
results from that study pointed toward a positive
emotional effect of the presence of both sound
and music (see also Nacke, 2009). Interesting
in this context is that music does not seem to be
experienced significantly differently on a subjec-
tive level, whereas sound was clearly indicated as
having an influence on game experience. Higher
subjective ratings of immersion, flow, positive af-
fect, and challenge, together with lower negative
affect and tension ratings when sound was present,
paint a positive picture of sound for a good game
experience (particularly so when music is absent).
The results discussed above are ones that run
the gamut from expected (sound contributes