Physiological study on the effect of game events in response to player's laughter

Abstract

To investigate whether computer's automatic responses to our emotional expression influences our cognitive and emotional involvement in a virtual world, this study examined to measure the player's physiological reactions to game events presented in response to the players' spontaneous laughter. Participants played two conditional virtual games in our experiments, and their electrocardiogram, electrodermal activity, and facial electromyography (corrugator supercilii muscle and zygomaticus major muscle) were recorded during the games. The experiment consisted of two conditions, namely advantageous event condition and disadvantageous event condition. In the advantageous event condition, the system responded to the player's laughter with an event that benefitted the player. In the disadvantageous event condition, the system responded to the player's laughter with an event that annoyed the player. A three-way analysis of variance was performed using these physiological signals to test the hypothesis that there is time-series variation in physiological responses between both event types and event durations. As a result, a significantly slower heart rate was observed after the presentation of an event in both the advantageous/disadvantageous event conditions. This result suggests that the players paid more attention to the game when any event was generated against their laughter. Moreover, both type of events to the player's laughter more activated electrodermal activity and corrugator supercilii muscle. In particular, the disadvantageous events to the player's laughter more activated corrugator supercilii muscle than the advantageous event. These results suggest that players were more emotionally engaged in the game when they encountered troublesome or fortunate situations while laughing.