Effects of reactions generated by a virtual world on game players under laughing/non-laughing conditions.

Abstract

This report examined the psychological and physiological effects of game events generated in response to a player's laughter by measuring player's heart rate (HR), skin conductance level (SCL), zygomaticus major (ZYG), and corrugator supercilii (COR) to elucidate whether the virtual world responding to player's laughter more attracts them. Participants played two conditional virtual online games, and their HR, SCL, ZYG and COR were recorded during the game. The experiment consisted of two conditions, i.e. laugh event condition and non_laugh event condition. In the laugh event condition, the system responds to the player's laughter with the game event. In the non_laugh event condition, the system presents game events when the player is not laughing. A three-way analysis of variance was performed using HR, SCL, ZYG and COR signals to test the hypothesis that there is time-series variation in each physiological response between event presentation (laugh/non_laugh) and between event types (advantageous/disadvantageous). As a result, the presentation of the event to the player's laughter decreased HR, significantly activated SCL, and significantry deactivated ZYG. On the other hand, the presentation of the event to non-laughing players decreased HR, significantry activated ZYG and COR. This result suggested that the presentation of game events makes laughing players more emotionally aroused and suppresses their pleasant emotions, while those affect non-laughing players differently.