More than a feeling: Measurement of sonic user experience and psychophysiology in a first-person shooter game

The combination of psychophysiological and psychometric methods provides reliablemeasurements of affective user experience (UX). Understanding the nature of affective UX ininteractive entertainment, especially with a focus on sonic stimuli, is an ongoing researchchallenge. In the empirical study reported here, participants played a fast-paced, immersive first-person shooter (FPS) game modification, in which sound (on/off) and music (on/off) weremanipulated, while psychophysiological recordings of electrodermal activity (EDA) and facialmuscle activity (EMG) were recorded in addition to a game experience questionnaire (GEQ).Results indicate no main or interaction effects of sound or music on EMG and EDA. However, asignificant main effect of sound on all GEQ dimensions (immersion, tension, competence, flow,negative affect, positive affect, and challenge) was found. In addition, an interaction effect ofsound and music on GEQ dimension tension and flow indicates an important relationship ofsound and music for gameplay experience. Additionally, we report the results of a correlationbetween GEQ dimensions and EMG/EDA activity. We conclude subjective measures couldadvance our understanding of sonic UX in games, while affective tonic (i.e., long-termpsychophysiological) measures of sonic UX in games did not yield statistically significantresults. One approach for future affective psychophysiological measures of sonic UX could beexperiments investigating phasic (i.e., event-related) psychophysiological measures of sonicgameplay elements in digital games. This could improve our general understanding of sonic UXbeyond affective gaming evaluation.