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The role of music in video games
Abstract
From security training simulations to war games to role-playing games, to sports games to gambling, playing video games has become a social phenomena, and the increasing number of players that cross gender, culture, and age is on a dramatic upward trajectory. Playing Video Games: Motives, Responses, and Consequences integrates communication, psychology, and technology to examine the psychological and mediated aspects of playing video games. It is the first volume to delve deeply into these aspects of computer game play. It fits squarely into the media psychology arm of entertainment studies, the next big wave in media studies. The book targets one of the most popular and pervasive media in modern times, and it will serve to define the area of study and provide a theoretical spine for future research.
This unique and timely volume will appeal to scholars, researchers, and graduate students in media studies and mass communication, psychology, and marketing.
... The present study presents a real-life evidence for the role of context in musical meaning, considering that the scenes of musical performance in the videogame also determines the words that were mapped to the musical melody. Third, the results of this work are consistent with the claim that videogame music supports the perception of game world, player's involvement and game narrative (Zehnder and Lipscomb, 2006;Grimshaw, 2008;Nacke et al., 2010;Sanders and Cairns, 2010). While research on videogame music mostly emphasises music structure and gameworld contexts (Munday, 2007;Laroche, 2012), the present study indicates that cultural background of gamers is also relevant. ...
... Such studies will not only contribute to the fields of linguistics, psychology and music but the emerging field of videogame music, where there is a consensus that background music of a videogame increases the level of "cognitive immersion" or "being in the game" (e.g. Zehnder and Lipscomb, 2006;Grimshaw, 2008;Nacke et al., 2010;Sanders and Cairns, 2010;Fu, 2015). The use of cultural experience and situational contexts in the interpretive moves by the Yorùbá gamers is possibly because music in African tradition is strongly functional, linked to dance and externally motivated by social and musical contexts (Agawu, 2006(Agawu, , 2001. ...
An aspect of gaming culture among Yorùbá millennials is verbally interpreting certain musical motifs of the popular videogame called Super Mario Bros. The themes of the verbal interpretations are comparable to those of music texts at traditional Yorùbá competitions. Drawing on the Yorùbá music tradition, the account in this work is that, to the gamers, the background music of the videogame performs a similar function as the music at traditional Yorùbá competitions. Semantically, the choice of words in the linguistic interpretation is conditioned by the situational contexts or scenes where the music is heard in the videogame. The results of an acoustic analysis show that the pitch contours of the linguistic interpretations resemble the pitch trajectories of the corresponding music motifs. Thus, the sequence of words in each linguistic interpretation is determined by vocal imitation. This study suggests that the linguistic processing of music does not only involve phonetic iconicity but includes contextual inference and social expectation. The interpretive moves clearly point to strong parallels between sound-meaning mapping in spoken language and music.
... Suurin osa pelimusiikin tutkimuksesta on keskittynyt pelimusiikin välittömiin vaikutuksiin ja merkityksiin, eli musiikin ja äänen rooliin ja toimintaan pelikokemuksen yhteydessä (esim. Summers 2016;Zehnder ja Lipscomb 2006). Tässä tutkimuksessa tavoittelemme laajempaa ymmärrystä ihmisten suhteesta pelimusiikkiin tarkastelemalla, miten pelimusiikki ulottuu ihmisten arkeen ja miten pelimusiikkia käytetään pelaamisen kontekstin ulkopuolella. ...
The uses and functions of game music in everyday life The premise of this article is the idea that games and their music do not only relate to playing, but are also part of people’s musical practices outside of the actual gameplay situation. However, so far very little research has been done on the meanings of game music outside of gaming. In this study, we aim for a broader understanding of people’s relationship with game music by examining how game music is used outside of the context of gaming. The empirical analysis of the article is based on two datasets collected in Finland. The primary material consists of written stories (N=183) about personally meaningful game music memories. In addition to this, we use survey data (N=785) concerning people’s activities with their favorite game music outside of the game. In the study, we investigated (1) how varied and common the activities of using game music are, (2) what different types of game music use can be discerned, and (3) what psychological functions of game music are disclosed in the personal stories. According to both datasets, musical practices with game music in people’s everyday life were common. The ways of using game music were also diverse. In general, digital games appear to be a viable resource for engaging in musical practices and acquiring musical experiences. Through cluster analysis, three different types of game music use were outlined from the survey answers: performing/reproducing, reminiscing and appreciating the game experience, which refer to preferences for interacting with game music. Regarding the functions of music, the results imply that the functions of music documented in music psychology literature (mood management, aesthetic pleasure, self-enhancement, memory connection, social bonding) are well suited for analyzing the personal meanings of game music. In all, from the results, it can be established that the aesthetic value of game music for people, at least to some extent, seems to be conditioned by the gameplay experience, even if the music is separated from gaming.
... Musik dalam video games, dapat meningkatkan rasa yang ada didalamnya. Menurut (Zehnder & Lipscomb, 2006) hal ini meliputi suasana, narasi, pergantian plot, emosi, rasa estetika, dan menjaga tematis kesatuan dalam video game. Pernyataan ini diperkuat oleh pendapat (Smith, 2020), dimana musik dapat menjadi peningkat emosi yang ampuh untuk memperkaya pengalaman bermain pemain. ...
œDragonflight adalah komposisi musik yang dimainkan dalam permainan daring œGuild Wars 2. Komposisi ini menjadi pengiring dalam puncak cerita œliving World Season 4, dimana tokoh utama berada pada puncak peperangan melawan naga kristal bernama œKralkatorrik. œDragonflight menyajikan komposisi musik yang megah, menegangkan, intens, dan epik ditengah kompleksitas suara atau audio dalam permainan. Keunikan karya ini berada pada karakter komposisi yang mendukung narasi cerita permainan (storytelling) tidak hanya dari pemilihan instrumentasi hingga teknik permainan namun juga mengangkat nilai estetis, historis, dan psikologis. Artikel ini membahas tentang elemen-elemen dalam komposisi musik œDragonflight yang diteliti dengan ilmu estetika sehingga dapat memberikan penjelasan dibalik pemilihan melodi, akor, ritmis, dan instrumentasi dalam komposisi tersebut. Peneliti menganalisis data tersebut dengan ilmu bentuk musik sebagai tinjauan pendukung dan ilmu estetika. Elemen musik yang diteliti dipilah berdasarkan penelitian relevan tentang video game music oleh Xavier Derrick Werlé, yaitu (1) penggunaan tonalitas minor; (2) big crescendo; (3) repetisi; (4) sequence; (5) instrumentasi perkusi, brass, choir; (6) sudden silence. Hasil dari penelitian ini adalah untuk memaparkan bagaimana estetika komposisi dapat mendukung pengalaman bermain. Kata Kunci: Video Game Music, Digital Music, Musik Permainan, Dragonflight
... In this work, we focus on BGM and SFX. Background music is usually non-narrative, lower than other sound elements. It conveys emotions and cooperates with the story for a better experience [23]. All the game designers and players hope video games can be as immersive as possible. ...
... Geslin et al., 2016;GomezRomero-Borquez and Del-Valle-Soto, 2020) and on graphics in general (e.g., Lee L. et al., 2016;McLaughlin et al., 2010;Clarke and Mitchell, 2007), on audiovisual style (Järvinen, 2002), on music (e.g. Zehnder and Lipscomb, 2006;Munday, 2007), and on game mechanics (e.g. Fiadotau, 2015). ...
Is our way of expressing meanings through digital interactive artifacts simple? How does our sensemaking work when we try to understand Interactive Digital Narratives? To answer these and other questions, the present article discusses a complex-systemic understanding of the expressive mechanisms of Interactive Digital Narratives, to argue the expressive complexity of these artifacts. Interactors of Interactive Digital Narratives necessarily base their hermeneutic processes mainly on what is conveyed in the artifact itself; yet the question of how meaning is expressed in (and sense-making is guided by) Interactive Digital Narratives remains significantly open. I contend that sense-making in such artifacts works by synthetizing the knowledge coming from a number of layers of information, which are intercurrent, interdependent and interoperating, and which concurrently participate in the creation of an overall meaning of a higher order. According to complex systems theory, these layers are therefore elements of a complex system: this justifies the understanding. Even though largely unexplored, this understanding may help advance our knowledge of the representational capabilities and affordances of Interactive Digital Narrarives, not least in representing multifaceted worlds and complex phenomena. A complex-systemic view can also improve our comprehension of the interpretative processes involved in the sense-making of Interactive Digital Narratives. Furthermore, the awareness gained through this understanding could be useful to get a better sense of the impact of the narratives featured in these artifacts, and ultimately to create more engaging and more powerful experiences that can help foster the societal impact of Interactive Digital Narratives.
... Music acts as an integral part of a game and can play a huge role in the moods of the players. Zhang and Fu (2015) quote Zehnder and Lipscomb (2006), who insisted that music can serve to "enhance a sense of immersion, cue narrative or plot changes, act as an emotional signifier, enhance the sense of aesthetic continuity, and cultivate the thematic unity of the video game" (Zhang and Fu, 2015). Undoubtedly, musical games and their implementations are a growing field of research that has a lot of potentials to be looked into further. ...
This paper provides a survey of existing systems and discusses the purposes that music therapy and video games serve. The effects of musical games and singing on psychological and physical well-being, learning and cognitive training are discussed. According to previous research, singing, as a part of music therapy, has proved to impact stress hormones positively, and also commonly contributed to medical rehabilitation. This paper, therefore, aims to shed light on the prospects of previous studies inspiring future development of voice-input based games for music therapy and stress reduction.
... Such studies will not only contribute to the fields of linguistics, psychology and music, they will contribute to the emerging field of video game music, where there is a consensus that background music of a video game increases the level of "cognitive immersion" or "being in the game" (e.g. Zehnder and Lipscomb, 2006;Grimshaw, 2008;Nacke et al., 2010;Sanders and Cairns, 2010;Fu, 2015). The use of cultural experience and situational contexts in the interpretive moves by the Yorùbá gamers is possibly because music in African tradition is functional, linked to dance and externally motivated by social and musical contexts (Agawu, 2006(Agawu, , 2001. ...
An aspect of gaming culture among Yorùbá millennials is the linguistic interpretations of the background music that accompanies the popular video game called Super Mario. The themes of the interpretations are comparable to those of music texts at traditional Yorùbá events. Drawing on the Yorùbá tradition, the account is that the gamers assumed that the background music of the game has a similar function as the music at traditional Yorùbá events. The choice of words in the interpretation is conditioned by the situational contexts where the music is heard in the video game. The results of acoustic analyses show that the interpretations are also determined by mapping the pitch trajectories of the music melodies to the tones of the gamers’ language. Notably, the results of this study suggest that the linguistic processing of music may not only involve phonetic iconicity (Steinbeis and Koelsch, 2011) but situational context and social expectation.
... helps in the composition of the scenario and the immersion of the players. Zehnder and Lipscomb (2006) also state that music can suggest changes in the narrative or plot of a game, act as an emotional signifier, improve the sense of aesthetic continuity and cultivate thematic unity. ...
Public participation in art performances has been leveraged by the use of technology as a mediating element between the public and artists. However, technological mediation alone may not be enough to ensure effective auditory participation. In this article, we present the performance “ O Chaos das 5 ”, an audiovisual digital performance with a strong technological support that had the support of game theory to achieve a more effective participation of the audience in their presentations.
... Although we usually call computer games as "video" games, the audio also plays an important part in video games [8] [9] [10]. Zehnder and Lipscomb [11] made a conclusion about the functions of music in video games. It can serve to "enhance a sense of immersion, cue narrative or plot changes, act as an emotional signifier, enhance the sense of aesthetic continuity, and cultivate the thematic unity of a video game". ...
... In summary, music plays various different roles in video games. Zehnder and Lipscomb (2006) state that music can provide a sense of immersion, complement the game 22 CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW narrative, or provide emotional subtext to a scene. In addition, as stated by Jørgensen (2010), game music can help inform players about their progress, as well as inform gameplay. ...
In video games, music must often change quickly from one piece to another due to player interaction, such as when moving between different areas. This quick change in music can often sound jarring if the two pieces are very different from each other. Several transition techniques have been used in industry such as the abrupt cut transition, crossfading, horizontal resequencing and vertical reorchestration among others. However, while several claims are made about their effectiveness (or lack thereof), none of these have been experimentally tested.
To investigate how effective each transition technique is, this dissertation empirically evaluates each technique in a study informed by music psychology. This is done based on several features identified as being important for successful transitions. The obtained results led to a novel approach to musical transitions in video games by investigating the use of a multiple viewpoint system, with viewpoints being modelled using Markov models. This algorithm allowed the seamless generation of music that could serve as a transition between two composed pieces of music. While transitions in games normally occur over a zone boundary, the algorithm presented in this dissertation takes place over a transition region, giving the generated music enough time to transition.
This novel approach was evaluated in a bespoke video game environment, where participants navigated through several pairs of different game environments and rated the resulting musical transitions. The results indicate that the generated transitions perform as well as crossfading, a technique commonly used in the industry. Since crossfading is not always appropriate, being able to use generated transitions gives composers another tool in their toolbox. Furthermore, the principled approach taken opens up avenues for further research.
... Additionally, future scholarship may also benefit from identifying and analyzing entertainment effects resulting from unique characteristics of games beyond interactivity, sociality, and storytelling, in particular the aesthetic experience. For example, due to their interactivity, games pose specific demands to the composition of soundtrack music which received little attention in video game entertainment research (as an exception: Zehnder & Lipscomb, 2006). Additionally, in conjunction with the progress of gaming hardware, developers constantly evolve the graphics of digital games. ...
... 34); and the role (or power) of music in this respect is obvious, even if challenging to quantify (though see some of the other contributions to this volume). Similarly, Zehnder and Lipscomb (2006) suggest that music is used to 'enhance a sense of immersion' by 'cueing narrative or plot changes, acting as an emotional signifier, enhancing the sense of aesthetic continuity and cultivating the thematic unity of a video game'. ...
A recurring challenge in the use of BCI (and more generally HCI) for musical expression is in the design and conduct of appropriate evaluation strategies when considering BCI systems for music composition or performance. Assessing the value of computationally assisted creativity is challenging in most artistic domains, and the assessment of computer assisted (or entirely computer generated) music is no different. BCI provides two unique possibilities over traditional evaluation strategies: firstly, the possibility of devising evaluations which do not require conscious input from the listener (and therefore do not detract from the immersive experience of performing, creating, or listening to music), and secondly in devising neurofeedback loops to actively maneuver the creator or listener through an expressive musical experience. Music offers some unusual challenges in comparison to other artistic interfaces: for example, often it is made in ensemble, and there is evidence to suggest neurophysiological differences are evident in ensemble measurement when compared to solo performance activities, for example see (Babiloni et al. in cortex 47:1082–1090, 2011). Moreover, a central purpose of music is often to incite movement (swaying, nodding head, dancing)—both in performer and audience—and as such this also offers up challenges for BCI/HCI design. This chapter considers historical approaches as well as making proposals for borrowing solutions from the world of auditory display (also referred to as sonification) and psychoacoustic evaluation techniques, to propose a hybrid paradigm for the evaluation of expression in BCI music applications.
... 34); and the role (or power) of music in this respect is obvious, even if challenging to quantify (though see some of the other contributions to this volume). Similarly, Zehnder and Lipscomb (2006) suggest that music is used to 'enhance a sense of immersion' by 'cueing narrative or plot changes, acting as an emotional signifier, enhancing the sense of aesthetic continuity and cultivating the thematic unity of a video game'. ...
This book presents an overview of the emerging field of emotion in videogame soundtracking. The emotional impact of music has been well-documented, particularly when used to enhance the impact of a multimodal experience, such as combining images with audio as found in the videogames industry. Soundtracking videogames presents a unique challenge compared to traditional composition (for example film music) in that the narrative of gameplay is non-linear – Player dependent actions can change the narrative and thus the emotional characteristics required in the soundtrack. Historical approaches to emotion measurement, and the musical feature mapping and music selection that might be used in video game soundtracking are outlined, before a series of cutting edge examples are given. These examples include algorithmic composition techniques, automated emotion matching from biosensors, motion capture techniques, emotionally-targeted speech synthesis and signal processing, and automated repurposing of existing music (for example from a players own library). The book concludes with some possibilities for the future.
... Classifying games in the different categories is a subjective issue. While the boundaries of a species are clear, many games cannot be entirely attributed to one species as Zehnder and Lipscomb (2006) claim. A serious game is a game designed primarily for entertainment purposes and finds application in health and sports. ...
Video games are the most accepted form of entertainment. However, there are games not designed primarily for entertainment purposes and these are called serious games. In particular, developers have created video games that promote exercise and healthy lifestyles, called Active Video Games or “exergames”. After 1970’s developers added music to their games. The goal was to create an emotional engagement and give players a better experience. Background music, proved to be one of the most important features of a game, because it causes emotional responses. The element of music attributed to increased stimulation and mood is the tempo (fast or slow). The fast tempo affects positive space-related abilities compared to the slowest pace.
The thesis focuses on the analysis and interpretation of visions of the metaverse from
the perspective of Generation Z. Metaverse, a concept combining elements of augmented and
virtual reality creates a complex virtual environment that is the subject of growing interest in
both academic and commercial circles. This study aims to provide a deeper
understanding of the attitudes and expectations of Generation Z towards the metaverse, which is
crucial for the future development and implementation of these technologies.
The theoretical part of the paper introduces the key ideas of classical media theorists
and their projection onto the metaverse environment. This section provides a foundation for
understanding how new media transform social interactions and how the metaverse can further
this transformation.
The empirical part of the thesis is based on quantitative research, specifically
a questionnaire survey conducted among members of Generation Z in the Czech Republic. The
research aims to identify how this generation perceives the metaverse, and what are their main
expectations and concerns related to this technology. The results of the survey are analysed and
interpreted to provide a comprehensive view of Generation Z's attitude towards the
metaverse environment.
The final part – the research – presents a unique set of data that reflects the current
attitudinal tendencies of Generation Z in relation to the metaverse. This empirical data is key to
understanding the specific attitudes and expectations that this demographic exhibits towards
virtual spaces. Additionally, the thesis identifies and discusses potential directions for future
research, particularly regarding comparing the tendencies of Generation Z and Alpha or
extending the findings of the current study to a national level.
Keywords
media, metaverse, generation Z, expectations, survey research
In the realm of music we have multiple examples of successful rock stars, composers and producers who describe themselves as self-taught. This suggests there might be a demand in formal music education for learning technologies that support students' self-propelled discovery. In this theoretical work, we explore the design space of educational music composing games that would allow students to explore and learn music theory concepts at their leisure. We designed four unique tile-based music creation games based on popular contemporary video game genres, and evaluated them from the perspectives of learning and musical expression. This study opens up new avenues in music composing game design, and offers examples of some ways in which games can be harnessed as vehicles to learn music theory and composition.
Players increasingly adopt a data-driven approach to review and improve their gaming skills. In the wake of this, spatio-temporal visualizations gained popularity but remain challenging to design. Storyline visualizations are unique in the way they integrate time and location information into a single view to show how entity relationships develop over time. We adopt the storyline visualization technique to summarize gameplay for the purpose of post-play review. We demonstrate the method by applying it to League of Legends matches and evaluated it with 39 players of the game in a task-based online study using the triad framework for spatio-temporal queries by Peuquet. Results indicate that players responded positively to the approach and could, by and large, solve tasks well but that time-based tasks proved most challenging and least efficient to solve. Based on our findings, we reflect on possibilities for enhancing the design of storyline visualizations for game-related data analysis.
Designing serious games (SG) for children with a cognitive disorder like dyslexia presents some challenges. Indeed, understanding the needs of target users can provide guidelines for creating digital learning environments that attract their interest and meet their special needs. However, little interest is given to the contribution of dyslexic children and stakeholders to the design process. In this study, we applied a traceable human experiment design research to evaluate devices in a research context by integrating a user-centered design approach. Here, we present the first iteration of the research cycle. Using exploratory qualitative methodology, we discuss how participatory design can significantly contribute to the design of SG in the dyslexic education. Our protocol includes 15 primary dyslexic children (ages 8–12) and 3 speech therapists, designers, and researchers. Involving children with special educational needs as partners in the design process provided new insight into the role children play in participatory design, despite their learning difficulties. Results seem to indicate that designing a SG to support dyslexic children in improving their reading skills may require the involvement of speech therapists and game designers.
An aspect of gaming culture among Yorùbá millennials is verbally interpreting certain musical motifs of the popular videogame called Super Mario Bros. The themes of the verbal interpretations are comparable to those of music texts at traditional Yorùbá competitions. Drawing on the Yorùbá music tradition, the account in this work is that, to the gamers, the background music of the videogame performs a similar function as the music at traditional Yorùbá competitions. Semantically, the choice of words in the linguistic interpretation is conditioned by the situational contexts or scenes where the music is heard in the video-game. The results of an acoustic analysis show that the pitch contours of the linguistic interpretations resemble the pitch trajectories of the corresponding music motifs. Thus, the sequence of words in each linguistic interpretation is determined by vocal imitation. This study suggests that the linguistic processing of music does not only involve phonetic iconicity but includes contextual inference and social expectation. The interpretive moves clearly point to strong parallels between sound-meaning mapping in spoken language and music.
Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) applications are being used in every aspect of life as information technology develops and advances. Music is one of these applications that has gotten a lot of attention in the previous several years. AI-based creative and clever solutions have altered the music industry. These technologies make it incredibly easy for composers to create high-quality music. Artificial intelligence and music (AIM) is a new field that is being utilized to create and manage sounds for a variety of media, including the Internet, video games, and so on. Sounds in games are incredibly effective and can be made even more appealing with the use of AI techniques. The quality of the game's noises has a direct impact on the player's productivity and enjoyment. Game designers can use computer-assisted technologies to create sounds for various scenarios or situations in a game, such as horror, suspense, and conveying information to the player. A game's useful and effective audio can assist visually challenged players during various game events. A high level of musicology knowledge is required for better music creation and composition. AIM has made a variety of sophisticated and interactive tools available for efficient and effective music learning. The goal of this work is to provide a comprehensive assessment of the literature on AI-assisted music classification in video games. The study exhibited literature analysis from a variety of viewpoints, which will be used by researchers to develop new solutions in the sector.
In this study, I use a representative survey from the German Twin Family Panel (N = 5,472) to examine the extent to which genetic and environmental factors account for time spent playing video games on personal computers and gaming consoles. Results show that genetic variation among twins explains a non-trivial amount of variation in video game play. Through ACE modeling techniques, I find that between 25% to 39% of the total variance in time spent playing video games can be attributed to shared genetic traits with the remainder explained by shared environmental factors (e.g., parenting and culture) and environmental attributes unique to individuals. This study and its findings provide a starting point for future genetic and neurological research on video game use and effects.
The hospitality industry faces significant challenges from the acceleration of travelers using mobile technology, especially in the Covid-19 aftermath. Consumer behaviour is changing in the service sector, creating new forms of mobilities and types of tourists. Users are taking advantage of the opportunity to access information easier and faster, anywhere causing new promotional strategies for hospitality businesses. However, it is recognized that the adoption of mobile applications does not guarantee competitive advantage. This research is inspired by the success of mobile games, and the importance of delivering fun. It explores hotel visitors’ meaning of ‘fun’ when using a mobile hotel gamified application. This is to give mobile gamified application developers an indication on the fun elements that would make such a technology engaging with the users. Visual materials were used applying game mechanics and aesthetics in a hotel application helping participants understand how the fun elements are incorporated so they can focus/target on the elements they find more attractive.
Exergaming has brought new fitness experience for people with restricted behavior in the post-epidemic era, but the current research on exergaming and home fitness behavior of general healthy users is basically in a gap. In this context, this study obtained a total of 603 valid game evaluations through interviews on user experience and online open questionnaires, 330 of which were collected as valid questionnaires through collating and summarizing them, fitness game evaluation scales were developed through factor analysis, and structural equation modeling was used to analyze the intrinsic linkage among factors influencing users’ use of fitness games. The results show that the influencing factors are: technical quality, functional quality, social interaction, playfulness, ease of use and usefulness, among which usefulness has the highest explained variance, and technical quality positively affects functional quality, ease of use, social interaction and playfulness meanwhile indirectly affecting usefulness, while social interaction also positively affects playfulness, functional quality and ease of use meanwhile indirectly affecting usefulness. This leads to the conclusion that technical quality is the basis for the success of each factor, social interaction facilitates all aspects of the games, and usefulness is the key to exergaming. This study is a groundbreaking exploration of the factors that influence users' use of fitness games, which provides some references for subsequent research, development and operation related to fitness games.
Background:
Serious games for the training of prevention behaviors have been widely recognized as potentially valuable tools for adolescents and young adults across a variety of risk behaviors. However, the role of agency as a distinguishing factor from traditional health interventions has seldom been isolated and grounded in the persuasive health communication theory. Fear appeals have different effects on intentions to perform prevention behaviors depending on the immediacy of the consequences. Looking into how to increase self-efficacy beliefs for health behavior with distant consequences is the first step toward improving game-based interventions for adverse health outcomes.
Objective:
This study aimed to investigate the effect of agency on self-efficacy and the intention to drink less alcohol in an interactive digital narrative fear appeal. Furthermore, the communicated immediacy of threat outcomes was evaluated as a potential moderator of the effect of agency on self-efficacy.
Methods:
A web-based experimental study was conducted with university students (N=178). The participants were presented with a fear appeal outlining the consequences of excessive alcohol use in a fully automated web-based interactive narrative. Participants either had perceived control over the outcome of the narrative scenario (high agency) or no control over the outcome (low agency). The threat was either framed as a short-term (high immediacy) or long-term (low immediacy) negative health outcome resulting from the execution of the risk behavior (drinking too much alcohol).
Results:
A total of 123 valid cases were analyzed. Self-efficacy and intention to limit alcohol intake were not influenced by the agency manipulation. Self-efficacy was shown to be a significant predictor of behavioral intention. The immediacy of the threat did not moderate the relationship between agency and self-efficacy.
Conclusions:
Although agency manipulation was successful, we could not find evidence of an effect of agency or threat immediacy on self-efficacy. The implications for different operationalizations of different agency concepts, as well as the malleability of self-efficacy beliefs for long-term threats, are discussed. The use of repeated versus single interventions and different threat types (eg, health and social threats) should be tested empirically to establish a way forward for diversifying intervention approaches.
Trial registration:
ClinicalTrials.gov NCT05321238; https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT05321238.
Background
Individuals choose to engage in multiple types of online team-based video games. Gameplay options allow for player preferences to shape their gaming experience. Within the multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) genre, players can decide whether to play matches with familiar or random teammates and whether their performance impacts their skill rating. Individual differences in video game engagement and genre preferences have been connected with player motivations and uses of video games and psychological traits that influence social interactions. The present study examined the extent to which the match preferences of MOBA players related to these factors.
Methods
Individuals attending an international MOBA tournament were recruited for the present research. Player MOBA match selection history was collected along with questionnaires measuring video game uses and gratifications, preference for solitude, tolerance of disagreement, and a test of theory of mind ability.
Results
Three main findings were observed. First, the highest-rated video game motivation was to socially interact with others. Second, players that displayed different preferences for types of MOBA matches varied in social interaction and competition video gameplay motivation scales. Third, although individual differences in fantasy video game motivation were correlated with theory of mind ability and preference for solitude, they did not vary by MOBA match preferences.
Conclusions
The results of the present study indicated that MOBA players were more strongly motivated by social aspects of video gameplay and variations in video game motivation to compete correlated with the extent to which they engaged in different types of MOBA play.
Objective: Game-based interventions can easily disseminate health information to hard-to-reach populations, such as sexual and gender minority youth (SGMY; e.g., gay/lesbian, bisexual, and transgender youth). SGMY disproportionately experience health problems, which have been attributed to greater violence victimization, such as bullying. Nevertheless, few interventions exist to improve health outcomes for bullied SGMY. Since game-based interventions offer economically viable and easily scalable solutions, we explored why bullied SGMY play games, the gaming characteristics they enjoy, and their preferences for future game-based interventions. Materials and Methods: We conducted semistructured qualitative interviews with 20 14- to 18-year-old U.S.-residing bullied SGMY recruited from social media. We asked participants about their current gaming experiences, preferences, and suggestions for future games and then conducted thematic analysis. Results: The majority of SGMY reported playing games to experience positive feelings associated with higher degrees of agency. Through controlling in-game storyline and character customization settings, SGMY described feeling safe and engaged in game play. In addition, SGMY reported playing games as a distraction from the real world. Coping with stress and other negative emotions was a commonly reported motivation for playing games, as was gleaning happiness independent from stress management. Furthermore, SGMY mentioned using games to connect with people, both in-person and virtually, to develop and maintain friendships. Conclusion: This study highlights specific methods of tailoring games to the interests of bullied SGMY. In addition, our findings are preliminary indicators that SGMY may use games to achieve healthy psychosocial developmental milestones. This study may be integral in informing the development of future game-based interventions for SGMY.
Recently, digital games are used as a form of new media with massive potential for learning the English language. To understand the typology of user experiences with digital games, the presence-involvement-flow framework (PIFF) was utilized. A series of semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten tertiary students in Northern Malaysia. Participants were asked to download and familiarize five digital language games (Duolingo, Memrise, Word Connect, Word Domination, and Word Tower Puzzles) before the interviews. Thematic analysis technique was used to analyze the responses. The study’s thematic network comprises four global themes (game structure, feelings, skills gained, and prerequisites) and seven organizing themes (instruction, game design, positive emotional outcome, negative emotional outcome, soft skills, technical skills, and skills required). The result is expected to be a good guideline or research framework for practitioners and researchers in exploring further the concept of user experience with English language digital games.
Qualitative studies have identified a diverse array of motivations for purchasing items within video games through chance-based mechanisms (i.e., “loot boxes”). Given that some individuals—particularly those at risk of disordered gaming and/or gambling—are prone to over-involvement with loot box purchasing, it is important to have a reliable, valid means of measuring the role of different motivations in driving purchasing behaviour. Building on prior qualitative research, this paper reports the development and validation of the “RAFFLE” scale, to measure the Reasons and Facilitators for Loot box Engagement. A 23-item, seven-factor scale was developed through cognitive interviews (n = 25) followed by two surveys of UK-based gamers who purchase loot boxes; analysed via exploratory (n = 503) and confirmatory (n = 1495) factor analysis, respectively. Subscales encompassed “enhancement’; “progression’; “social pressure’; “distraction/compulsion’; “altruism’; “fear of missing out’; and “resale”. The scale showed good criterion and construct validity (correlating well with measures of loot box engagement; the risky loot box index (r = 0.63) and monthly self-reported spend (r = 0.38)), and good internal validity (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.84). Parallels with, and divergence from, motivations for related activities of gaming and gambling, and alignment with broader theoretical models of motivation, are discussed.
The gamification concept is rapidly grabbing attention of different sectors in the current competitive business ecosystem. Companies are amalgamating game elements to enrich customer enhancement. However, empirical studies incorporating Augmented Reality (AR) elements in the same are lacking. Therefore, main objective of this research is to inspect elements of AR, impacting the customer brand engagement in game filters of Instagram. Drawing on S-D Logic the authors aim to explore the impact of gameful experience on creating customer engagement. The capability of Customer Brand Engagement (CBE) to influence Brand Satisfaction (BS) and Brand loyalty (BL) is also explored in the study. Convenient sampling method was adopted to gather 458 responses from Gen Z in India. Responses were gathered using self-administered questionnaire. Findings of the study expand CBE literature to a new technology and refines knowledge of relationship between AR and preexisting CBE dimensions (affective, cognitive and activation), leading to BS and BL. This study has some implications for managerial decision making in creating resilient and long-term relations with customers.
Background
Video games are expanding exponentially with their increased popularity among users. However, this popularity has also led to an increase in reported video game addiction. There may be consumer engagement–related factors that may influence video game addiction.
Objective
This study aims to empirically examine the impact of the dimensions of consumer video game engagement on video game addiction. The dimensions are dedication, absorption, conscious attention, social connection, enthusiasm, and interaction. We utilize the uses and gratifications theory to study the video game engagement dimensions as potential factors through which gamers feel gratified and engaged in video game playing. Additionally, this study incorporates the cultivation theory to investigate how video game engagement factors trigger video game addiction.
Methods
A two-step process was applied for data analysis on valid cases of 176 gamers aged 15-25 years: video game addiction was specified and validated as a reflective-formative construct, and hypothesis testing was later performed using the WarpPLS on valid respondents.
Results
The analysis uncovered 2 dimensions of video game engagement: social connection with P=.08 and interaction with P=.49, which did not significantly contribute to video game addiction.
Conclusions
This study offers unique insights to a myriad of stakeholders, mostly psychologists and psychiatrists, who routinely prescribe behavior modification techniques to treat video game addiction.
Electronic Sports (eSports) is a fast-growing domain within the entertainment sector and becomes economically relevant in terms of a paying audience, merchandise, and major tournaments with highly endowed prize money. First-person shooter (FPS) games represent a dominant discipline. Professional training methodologies such as post-match analyses and tactics discussions are becoming essential in training sessions besides pure mechanical-oriented exercises such as aiming and movement. Furthermore, professional sports coaches are involved in the training of players. In this paper, we are investigating this newly developing profession, specifically, how multimedia systems can be built to support coaches and players in analyzing data of previous matches for preparing for future ones. In the example of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO), we identified a set of six criteria that can be incorporated into tools to support the analysis of FPS matches. We describe user interface functionalities that allow to interactively analyze the highly multivariate data of FPS matches. We show our concepts’ technical feasibility by implementing them within a tool – CS:Show. Within an expert user study, evaluate our concepts with professionals. We conclude that our proposed eSports analysis tool was preferred over analysis functionalities built in in CS:GO. Supported by statistically significant evidence, our participants rated our tool more efficient, more usable, and assigned the tool with higher analytical ability than an average tool for analyzing FPS eSports matches.
Background
Game-based learning appears to be a promising instructional method because of its engaging properties and positive effects on motivation and learning. There are numerous options to design game-based learning; however, there is little data-informed knowledge to guide the choice of the most effective game-based learning design for a given educational context. The effectiveness of game-based learning appears to be dependent on the degree to which players like the game. Hence, individual differences in game preferences should be taken into account when selecting a specific game-based learning design.
Objective
We aimed to identify patterns in students’ perceptions of play and games—player types and their most important characteristics.
Methods
We used Q methodology to identify patterns in opinions on game preferences. We recruited undergraduate medical and dental students to participate in our study and asked participants to sort and rank 49 statements on game preferences. These statements were derived from a prior focus group study and literature on game preferences. We used by-person factor analysis and varimax rotation to identify common viewpoints. Both factors and participants’ comments were used to interpret and describe patterns in game preferences.
Results
From participants’ (n=102) responses, we identified 5 distinct patterns in game preferences: the social achiever, the explorer, the socializer, the competitor, and the troll. These patterns revolved around 2 salient themes: sociability and achievement. The 5 patterns differed regarding cheating, playing alone, story-telling, and the complexity of winning.
Conclusions
The patterns were clearly interpretable, distinct, and showed that medical and dental students ranged widely in how they perceive play. Such patterns may suggest that it is important to take students’ game preferences into account when designing game-based learning and demonstrate that not every game-based learning-strategy fits all students. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to use a scientifically sound approach to identify player types. This can help future researchers and educators select effective game-based learning game elements purposefully and in a student-centered way.
One of the challenges emerging from the ever-growing tourism market is the utilization of new technologies and trends to create new and attractive tourism products. eSports are a modern Web-oriented, technological trend that has the potential to create new tourism products and destinations. The “eSports tourism” has many similarities to traditional sports tourism, with the exception that the main attraction, in the case of eSports tourism, is that the speculators are watching video game players instead of athletes participating in traditional individual or team sports. The worldwide growing market of eSports with a buyer size of $906 million in 2018 (Influencer Marketing Hub. (2020). https://influencermarketinghub.com/growth-of-esports-stats/) creates promising opportunities for the development of eSports tourism in Greece as well. Thus, this paper aims to investigate the potentials of such a special tourism form by studying and describing the context of eSports tourism, under the following aspects: (a) the consuming behavior of a eSports tourists, (b) the economic impact, in terms of tourism-related revenue, mainly spread in the destination, and (c) the case of eSports tourism as an event or congress tourism form as well as its differences with sports tourism and other special and alternative tourism forms. The opportunities arising in Greece and especially in cities like Patras are discussed, mostly due to the congress venues and the existing technological infrastructures. The paper is conceptual and the methodology followed focuses mainly on Internet research, related articles, social media, and scientific papers.
Background
In times where distance learning is becoming the norm, game-based learning (GBL) is increasingly applied to health profession education. Yet, decisions for if, when, how, and for whom GBL should be designed cannot be made on a solid empirical basis. Though the act of play seems to be intertwined with GBL, it is generally ignored in the current scientific literature.
Objective
The objective of our study was to explore students’ perceptions of play in leisure time and of GBL as part of a mechanistic, bottom-up approach towards evidence-informed design and implementation of GBL in health profession education.
Methods
We conducted 6 focus group discussions with medical and dentistry students, which were analyzed using thematic analysis.
Results
A total of 58 students participated. We identified 4 major themes based on the students’ perception of play in leisure time and on the combination of play and learning. Our results indicate that, while play preferences were highly various in our health profession student cohort, pleasure was the common ground reported for playing. Crucially, play and the serious act of learning seemed paradoxical, indicating that the value and meaning of play are strongly context-dependent for students.
Conclusions
Four key points can be constructed from our study. First, students play for pleasure. Perceptions of pleasure vary considerably among students. Second, students consider play as inefficient. Inefficiency will only be justified when it increases learning. Third, play should be balanced with the serious and only be used for difficult or tedious courses. Fourth, GBL activities should not be made compulsory for students. We provide practical implications and directions for future research.
Historical video games, as one genre of historical reenactment in the digital environment, have rapidly evolved in China during the past two decades. Probing the affective, imaginative, and playful nature of historical video games, this article argues that the power of historical video games lies first in the methodological value and pedagogical virtue of the counterfactual thinking, and second in the potential to digitally and collectively shape the historical consciousness of players. With a potential for a shared authority, historical video games have emerged as participatory public history in China.
Building on game design and education research, this paper introduces narrative-focused role-playing games as a way to promote visualization literacy in young children. Visualization literacy skills are vital in understanding the world around us and constructing meaningful visualizations, yet, how to better develop these skills at an early age remains largely overlooked and understudied. Only recently has the visualization community started to fill this gap, resulting in preliminary studies and development of educational tools for use in early education. We add to these efforts through the exploration of gamification to support learning, and identify an opportunity to apply role-playing game-based designs by leveraging the presence of narratives in data-related problems involving visualizations. We study the effects of including narrative elements on learning through a technology probe, grounded in a set of design considerations stemming from visualization, game design and education science. We create two versions of a game – one with narrative elements and one without – and evaluate our instances on 33 child participants between 11- to 13-years old using a between-subjects study design. Despite participants requiring double the amount of time to complete their game due to additional narrative elements, the inclusion of such elements were found to improve engagement without sacrificing learning; our results indicate no significant differences in development of graph-reading skills, but significant differences in engagement and overall enjoyment of the game. We report observations and qualitative feedback collected, and note areas for improvement and room for future work.
This book focuses on the growing body of empirical research investigating the cognition of musical multimedia, with an emphasis on temporally organized auditory and visual structures. ‘Multimedia’ commonly refers to audiovisual presentations in film, television, video, interactive gaming, computer interfaces, and on the Internet. The term ‘empirical’ refers to the process of collecting data from human participants via systematically designed experiments. Such empirical research provides a framework for understanding the relationships between music, sound, and image in multimedia contexts. The international collection of contributors represents eight countries and a range of disciplines including psychology, neuroscience, musicology, media studies, film, and communications. Each chapter includes a comprehensive review of the topic and, where appropriate, identifies models that can be empirically tested. Part I presents contrasting theoretical approaches from cognitive psychology, philosophy, semiotics, communications, musicology, and neuroscience. Part II reviews research on the structural aspects of music and multimedia, while Part III focuses on research related to the influence of music on perceived meaning in the multimedia experience. Part IV explores empirical findings on a variety of real-world applications of music in multimedia including entertainment and educational media for children, video and computer games, television and online advertising, auditory displays of information, and the impact of surround sound, showing how theory and practice intertwine in various examples of multimedia. Part V includes a final chapter that consolidates emergent themes and concludes with the value of broadening the scope of research to encompass multisensory, multidisciplinary, and cross-cultural perspectives to advance our understanding of the role of music in multimedia.
Most game-designers likely stick to the assumption that background music is a design feature for fostering fun and game play. From a psychological point of view, these (intuitive) aspects act upon the intrinsic motivation and the flow experience of players. However, from a pure cognitive perspective on instructional design, background music could also be considered to be redundant information, which distracts from learning. The presented study investigated the influence of background music (present vs. not present) within an educational adventure game on motivational (intrinsic motivation, experienced flow) and cognitive variables (cognitive load, learning success). The results suggest a high motivational potential of background music. However, neither positive nor negative effects on learning were detected. Thus, background music can be considered as a motivating design element of educational games without negative side-effects on learning.
This article presents an empirical study of the role of video game audio on performance. Twenty participants played The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess on the Wii console for a 45-minute session on five consecutive days. Employing a repeated measures design, the authors exposed players to one orientation session and four sound conditions, i.e., silence, remote control sounds, remote control and screen sounds, and unrelated music played on a boom-box, in a counterbalanced order. Performance was weakest when playing without sound, increasingly stronger with audio emitted by remote control only, and by remote-and-screen respectively. Surprisingly, the highest scores were earned when playing with music that was unrelated to players’ actions or events unfolding on screen. These findings point to the challenges of processing multisensory cues during the initial stages of an elaborate role-playing game, and suggest that the most effective players swiftly develop strategies incorporating task-relevant information conveyed by both sound and images.
Background:
In the United States, young minority men who have sex with men (MSM) are the most likely to become infected with HIV. Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is an efficacious and promising prevention strategy. However, PrEP's safety and effectiveness can be greatly compromised by suboptimal adherence to treatment. To maximize the positive impact of PrEP, it is necessary to combine its prescription with cost-effective behavioral interventions that promote adherence and decrease HIV risk behaviors. In this project, we developed a theoretically informed app/gaming intervention to engage young MSM in learning information, practicing behaviors, and improving motivation for HIV preventative behaviors and PrEP adherence.
Objective:
The goal of this project was to develop and test a cutting-edge, engaging, and entertaining app/gaming intervention for improving adherence to PrEP and building HIV prevention knowledge, skills, and behavior.
Methods:
This study was conducted in two phases. In the developmental phase, we conducted qualitative interviews with young MSM (n=20) to guide the development of the gaming intervention. In the randomized controlled trial, we tested the preliminary efficacy of the gaming intervention compared to a comparison condition among young MSM. Subjects were recruited from the University of Mississippi Medical Center HIV/STI testing clinics (n=60).
Results:
Institutional review board approval was received in February 2015. Research activities began in June 2015 and are still ongoing.
Conclusions:
This app/gaming intervention aimed to improve PrEP adherence and HIV preventative behaviors in young MSM. Engaging young MSM in learning information, practicing behaviors, and improving motivation for increased adherence to PrEP has the potential to decrease HIV seroconversion. It is important to develop interventions that are enjoyable, engaging, and easily incorporated into clinical settings.
Trial registration:
ClinicalTrials.gov RCT02611362; https://tinyurl.com/y65gkuwr.
International registered report identifier (irrid):
DERR1-10.2196/18640.
Background
In the last few years, the introduction of immersive technologies, especially virtual reality, into the gaming market has dramatically altered the traditional concept of video games. Given the unique features of virtual reality in terms of interaction and its ability to completely immerse the individual into the game, this technology should increase the propensity for video games to effectively elicit positive emotions and decrease negative emotions and anxiety in the players. However, to date, few studies have investigated the ability of virtual reality games to induce positive emotions, and the possible effect of this new type of video game in diminishing negative emotions and anxiety has not yet been tested. Furthermore, given the critical role of body movement in individuals’ well-being and in emotional responses to video games, it seems critical to investigate how body involvement can be exploited to modulate the psychological benefits of virtual reality games in terms of enhancing players’ positive emotions and decreasing negative emotions and anxiety.
Objective
This within-subjects study aimed to explore the ability of commercial virtual reality games to induce positive emotions and diminish negative emotions and state anxiety of the players, investigating the effects of the level of body involvement requested by the game (ie, high vs low).
MethodsA total of 36 young adults played a low body-involvement (ie, Fruit Ninja VR) and a high body-involvement (ie, Audioshield) video game in virtual reality. The Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, Form-Y1 (STAI-Y1) were used to assess positive and negative emotions and state anxiety.
ResultsResults of the generalized linear model (GLM) for repeated-measures multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) revealed a statistically significant increase in the intensity of happiness (P
This article investigates the effect of mobile learning support on students' academic success on a database management systems (DBMS) course. The research was carried out with 36 students attending a state university in Turkey. In this study, a mixed method was used, which includes both quantitative and qualitative data collection techniques. For the quantitative data, the study was conducted in accordance with the pre-test and post-test-based two group quasi-experimental model. For the qualitative data, the descriptive analysis technique was used. The independent sample t-test and paired simple t-test were employed in the analysis phase. According to the findings, mobile learning positively affected students' academic achievement on the DBMS course, in that the students supported by mobile learning were more successful than students supported only by face-to-face training method. Finally, it is seen that the students have emphasized themes of motivation, 1-1 access, and an interest in terms of the effect of m-learning approach on academic success.
Analyses of user experience in the electronic entertainment industry currently rely on self-reporting methods, such as surveys, ratings, focus group interviews, etc. We argue that self-reporting alone carries inherent problems-mainly the misinterpretation and temporal delay during longer experiments-and therefore, should not be used as a sole metric. To tackle this problem, we propose the possibility of modeling consumer experience using psychophysiological measures and demonstrate how such models can be trained using machine learning methods. We use a machine learning approach to model user experience using real-time data produced by the autonomic nervous system and involuntary psychophysiological responses. Multiple psychophysiological measures, such as heart rate, electrodermal activity, and respiratory activity, have been used in combination with self-reporting to prepare training sets for machine learning algorithms. The training data was collected from 31 participants during hour-long experiment sessions, where they played multiple video-games. Afterwards, we trained and compared the results of four different machine learning models, out of which the best one produced ∼96% accuracy. The results suggest that psychophysiological measures can indeed be used to assess the enjoyment of digital entertainment consumers.
Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate which narrative elements of digital game narratives are
preferred by the general adolescent population, and to examine associations with gender, socioeconomic status
(SES), and gameplay frequency. Further, the study aims to discuss how results can be translated to serious
digital games.
Materials and Methods: Adolescents were recruited through school to complete a survey on narrative preferences
in digital games. The survey included questions on sociodemographic information, frequency of gameplay, and an
open-ended question on what could be an appealing narrative for them. Data were analyzed in a mixed-methods
approach, using thematic analysis and chi-square analyses to determine narrative preferences and the associations
between game narrative elements and player characteristics (gender, SES, and frequency of gameplay).
Results: The sample consisted of 446 adolescents (12–15 years old) who described 30 narrative subthemes.
Preferences included human characters as protagonists; nonhuman characters only as antagonists; realistic
settings, such as public places or cities; and a strong conflict surrounding crime, catastrophe, or war. Girls more
often than boys defined characters by their age, included avatars, located the narrative in private places,
developed profession-related skills, and included a positive atmosphere. Adolescents of nonacademic education
more often than adolescents of academic education defined characters by criminal actions. Infrequent players
more often included human characters defined by their age than frequent players. After performing a Bonferroni
correction, narrative preferences for several gender differences remained.
Conclusion: Different narrative elements related to subgroups of adolescents by gender, SES, and frequency of
gameplay. Customization of narratives in serious digital health games should be warranted for boys and girls;
yet, further research is needed to specify how to address girls in particular.
This article investigates the effect of mobile learning support on students' academic success on a database management systems (DBMS) course. The research was carried out with 36 students attending a state university in Turkey. In this study, a mixed method was used, which includes both quantitative and qualitative data collection techniques. For the quantitative data, the study was conducted in accordance with the pre-test and post-test-based two group quasi-experimental model. For the qualitative data, the descriptive analysis technique was used. The independent sample t-test and paired simple t-test were employed in the analysis phase. According to the findings, mobile learning positively affected students' academic achievement on the DBMS course, in that the students supported by mobile learning were more successful than students supported only by face-to-face training method. Finally, it is seen that the students have emphasized themes of motivation, 1-1 access, and an interest in terms of the effect of m-learning approach on academic success.
Moral dilemmas are a staple of narratives in games. Allowing the player to choose and impact a game's story is an important part of enjoying an interactive narrative. Yet when it comes to how we design and test games with moral dilemmas, there is little written on the subject. From this premise, The Moral Gameplay Taxonomy has been developed. Developed through an examination of 23 games, the taxonomy consists of two dimensions, creating four quadrants, which represent the different types of choices (systemic and scripted) provided to the player, and the style of endings (branching and linear). As this is a preliminary study, further work needs to be undertaken to develop the taxonomy further. It will be a valuable tool for examining how the design of moral dilemmas can affect player perceived agency and enjoyment in games.
Background. Health constitutes a major field in serious games because of the wide range of applications and the significant contribution to humans and society. The spectrum of games for health meets the needs for education, training, treatment, rehabilitation, research, well-being, prevention, motivation and others.
Aim. Cells of War is a serious card game, aiming to familiarize the players with the complex functionalities of the immune system, inform on diseases coming from viruses, bacteria, parasites or fungi and explain how some daily habits may affect health.
Method. This article analyzes all the design steps followed in order to integrate the learning content into the game mechanics and game-play. The offline card game was developed in the game engine Unity, making it possible to build executables for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X and distribute them to the users for the first pilot evaluation. The results of the pilot evaluation are presented along with useful feedback for the game.
Results. Cells of War was evaluated by a wide range of people on different age groups, interests, gaming background, knowledge background and among them a few health specialists and educators. Overall the game achieved to transfer some knowledge, while the feedback will contribute to the improvement of the game.
Conclusions. The pilot evaluation of Cells of War showed that the game is fun, well designed and achieves to educate the players, although the participants suggested a few issues for improvement. Cells of War has to be used and evaluated by students and teachers in order to assess the game as an instructional tool in schools and
evaluate its impact on learning the functionalities of the immune system.
There is substantial informal and anecdotal evidence that music and moving images interact in powerful and effective ways, but until recently there has been virtually no systematic study of this relationship. The experiment reported here is a modification of the approach adopted by Marshall and Cohen (1988), using a semantic differential technique to measure subjects’ ratings of audiovisual combinations. The present study uses computer generated moving images and specially composed music to investigate the interaction of different visual and musical parameters. The results show that the effects of music on the rating of the visual images are essentially additive, and that no interactions between specific musical styles and particular visual images take place. This failure of specific audiovisual combinations to acquire particular semantic characteristics may be attributed to the simplicity of the visual images in the experiment. An approach to the interpretation of audiovisual combinations based on principles of ecological social perception is proposed.
This study investigated the effects of film music by using both standardized methods (rating scales) and qualitative research methods. An experimental film of about 10 min duration was created to resemble part of a real feature film with various interpretations. Three professional film music composers produced music soundtracks for the film in the style of a thriller, a melodrama and one other version. For the study, five versions were selected differing in style, orchestration, use of motifs, and the place and length of the music in relation to the film. Using both rating scales and open-ended questions, over 400 subjects provided information about the relationships between the characters and about the history and outcome of the events depicted by the film excerpt. Results indicated that film music polarizes the emotional atmosphere and influences the understanding of the plot.
In 3 experiments, we examined the influence of musical underscoring on judgments of closure in filmed events. In Experiment 1, a 12 s animated episode was judged to end with greater closure if underscoring was strongly closed than if it was weakly closed. This influence of music was implicit: When asked to justify their judgments, participants mainly cited only qualities of the visual information. Experiment 2 provided evidence that music can influence perceived closure in longer film episodes, but it also revealed that musical accompaniment does not always influence judgments of closure. Experiment 3 examined the effect of underscoring for 12 brief film excerpts from a commercial motion picture. Ratings of closure were obtained for 3 conditions: underscores only, films without underscores, and films with underscores. Again, underscoring influenced perceived closure in films. However, ratings of closure were more heavily influenced by visual information than by underscoring. Other effects of closure in film music are discussed.
This study engages theories of film and myth in culture through an experimental study of high school and college students’ perceptions of a forty-three-minute edited episode of a heroic action film. Participants were tested for their understanding of program themes as well as for their selection of role models. The authors find significant differences in younger and older adolescents’ understanding of heroic themes, mythic archetypes, and other abstract program messages about the duality of human existence (i.e., we have both good and evil qualities). This study provides a developmental perspective to the semiology of myth, thereby contributing to theories of media, culture, and child development.
Psychological experiments dealing with the music-dependent perception of film sequences often use reductionist approaches (stereotyped stimuli) and rely on subjects' direct (overt) ratings of the material (e.g., using semantic differentials). For this study, a more ecologically valid covert design was constructed to investigate experimentally musical context effects on perceivers' plot-related expectations. Forty-eight participants were presented with one of two music versions (original v. fake score) of the visually identical film sequence. They then wrote brief continuations of the plot, which were subsequently analysed using quantitative and qualitative content analysis, with the focus on emotional content. Results show that viewers'/listeners' anticipations about the further development of a sequence are systematically influenced by the underlying film music, which implicitly co-determines the psychological reality of the scene.
Physiognomic perception, a term coined by Heinz Werner, refers to a mode of perception attuned to expression or expressive attributes. The term applies readily to the perception of faces, gestures, intonation, and mood. It has also been implicated in the perception of the arts and music and is therefore relevant to understanding the perception of film that is accompanied by music. The concept of physiognomic perception distinguishes perceptual experience from emotional response. It is proposed that this distinction must be maintained in analyzing the film-music experience and its dynamics in order that perceptual properties of music and film be identified as such instead of spuriously attributed to emotional responses on the part of the film spectator. Furthermore, the concept of physiognomic perception provides an alternative to the view that music contributes to film perception by simply adding associations. In making this argument, the paper reviews the theory of physiognomic perception, citing historical antecedents in classical Greek philosophy relative to physiognomy and physiognomics, and ideas subsequently derived from that intellectual tradition in terms of the musical modes and affections in music, as formulated in medieval and baroque music theory, respectively. Connections are also made with the general notion of "aesthetic perception," Lipps’ theory of "empathy," and more contemporary psychological aesthetic ideas of Arnheim and Gibson.
Effects of temporal accent structure on the remembering of filmed narratives were examined by varying the placement and number of commercial breaks. Commercials either highlighted a story's underlying organization by occurring between major episode boundaries (i.e., at breakpoint locations) or obscured this structural arrangement by occurring within episodes (i.e., at nonbreakpoints). Relative to the accentuation of nonbreakpoints, results indicated that the attentional highlighting of episode boundaries yielded higher recall and recognition performance and better memory for temporal order information and details from the story's plot. Selective recall and recognition of breakpoint scenes was significantly higher than that of nonbreakpoints, suggesting that people use episode boundaries as referents for attending and remembering. These findings illustrate certain structural invariants across environmental events and ways in which event structure can be used in remembering.
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Psychological experiments and analyses have been done to investigate quantitatively how the ideas of a musician are conveyed to the audience. The musician performed 1 minute of the beginning of the first movement of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto with 10 different nuances: weak, powerful, bright, sad, sophisticated, beautiful, dreamy, fashionable, simple, and deep. Sixteen listeners, including the violinist, were asked to give their impressions of each of the 10 performances by the semantic differential method. The data obtained were analyzed by Kruskal's multidimensional scaling technique. The results revealed that, on the whole, the player's intention and the listener's impression, although there were individual discrepancies, were in general agreement.
This article comments on Johnson, Jackson, and Gatto (this issue) and Zillmann et al. (this issue), each of which demonstrates effects from a brief exposure to "gangsta rap" music videos. Results from both experiments suggest that the social themes contained in rap music videos can produce potent and predictable effects on viewers' subsequent impressions and social judgments through the mechanism 'of cognitive priming. A critical examination of the strengths and weaknesses of both experiments—and resultant limitations to generalizability—is offered.
confirms that performers make systematic and significant deviations from strict metricality, but that it is hard to make generalizations about the nature of the deviations (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)