Intelligent Technologies for Interactive Entertainment. 8th International Conference, INTETAIN 2016, Utrecht, The Netherlands, June 28–30, 2016, Revised Selected Papers

Research Article

Measuring Affective, Physiological and Behavioural Differences in Solo, Competitive and Collaborative Games

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  • @INPROCEEDINGS{10.1007/978-3-319-49616-0_18,
        author={Daniel G\^{a}bana Arellano and Laurissa Tokarchuk and Hatice Gunes},
        title={Measuring Affective, Physiological and Behavioural Differences in Solo, Competitive and Collaborative Games},
        proceedings={Intelligent Technologies for Interactive Entertainment. 8th International Conference, INTETAIN 2016, Utrecht, The Netherlands, June 28--30, 2016, Revised Selected Papers},
        proceedings_a={INTETAIN},
        year={2017},
        month={1},
        keywords={Affective gaming Physiological signals Non-verbal behaviour},
        doi={10.1007/978-3-319-49616-0_18}
    }
    
  • Daniel Gábana Arellano
    Laurissa Tokarchuk
    Hatice Gunes
    Year: 2017
    Measuring Affective, Physiological and Behavioural Differences in Solo, Competitive and Collaborative Games
    INTETAIN
    Springer
    DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-49616-0_18
Daniel Gábana Arellano1,*, Laurissa Tokarchuk1,*, Hatice Gunes2,*
  • 1: Queen Mary University of London
  • 2: University of Cambridge
*Contact email: d.gabanaarellano@qmul.ac.uk, laurissa.tokarchuk@qmul.ac.uk, hatice.gunes@cl.cam.ac.uk

Abstract

In this paper, we aim to measure affect and behaviour indicators of players to understand how they feel in different play modes and how games could be improved to enhance user experience, immersion and engagement. We analyse the affective states in sets of two users playing a Wii video game in three play modes: solo, competitive and collaborative. We measured their physiological signals and observed the non-verbal behaviours to infer their affective states. Although other studies have looked at these signals in gaming, this work focuses on the differences between the three play modes aforementioned. Our results show that: (1) Players experience similar levels of arousal during both solo and collaborative play modes; (2) players’ heart rates are significantly correlated during the competitive mode but not during the collaborative one; and (3) heart rate variability is a good indicator of engagement when playing video games.