Articles:Measuring Emotional Valence during Interactive Experiences: Boys at Video Game Play

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Contents

What we know

  • video games need to evoke some heightened level of emotional experience during play
  • varying emotion profiles...designer goal.
    1. negative emotion during challenge
    2. positive emotional spike when the challenge is overcome

problem

  • standard usability outcome measures such as time on task and number of errors will not be helpful in measuring enjoyment
  • moment to moment measures are tough since the associated intrusiveness of think alouds.
  • reflective measure lack the ability to give reliable and uncontaminated data.
  • ethonography is a good alternative, however some facial expressions are too subtle to notice
  • heart rate, skin conductance are limited as emotion measure. Mostly measure measure arousal.
  • reading sometime take up to 6 seconds post-stimulus, causing poor temporal.

EMG

  • Tiny sensors are placed over certain facial muscles and the minute changes in the electrical activity reflect changes in muscle tension that underlie changes in facial expressions.
  • capable of measuring facial muscle activity to weakly evocative emotional stimuli even when no changes in facial displays have been observed with the FACS system
  • influenced by mental effort and emotional valence

Placement

zygomaticus muscle EMG

  • controls smiling
  • found to be significantly greater during positive events
  • positively associated with positive emotional stimuli and positive mood state

corrugator muscle EMG

  • controls frowning
  • significantly greater during negative events
  • lowers the eyebrow and is involved in producing frowns
  • varies inversely with the emotional valence of presented stimuli and reports of mood state
  • mental effort
  • perception of goal obsticles.
  • tension
  • frustration

Preping option

  • Experienced players could be allowed to play the game and identify all the positive and negative aspects of the game
  • experimenter behind a low wall

limitation

  • limited to how positive or negative a viewer’’s emotional state is (jpy, saddness)
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