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research-article

Using startle reflex to compare playing and watching in a horror game

Authors:

Karen L. Blackmore,

William Coppins,

Keith V. NesbittAuthors Info & Claims

ACSW '16: Proceedings of the Australasian Computer Science Week Multiconference

Article No.: 72, Pages 1 - 7

https://doi.org/10.1145/2843043.2843482

Published: 01 February 2016 Publication History

Abstract

Human startle reflex has been identified as a valid physiological measure of valence and arousal, providing a useful mechanism for evaluating player engagement in video games. In this research, we use electromyography (EMG) recording of the startle reflex of participants to explore the impact of playing, versus watching a play through, of a game. Participants in the research played and watched Parsec Studio's Slender: The Eight Pages, a freely available video game within the horror genre. Experiments were conducted both with participants both playing and watching the game, with results showing a statistically significant difference in startle responses between the two conditions. The results suggest that the fear state of the game is enhanced through player interaction and increased attention.

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Cited By

Terkildsen TEngelst LClasen M(2023)Work Hard, Scare Hard? An Investigation of How Mental Workload Impacts Jump Scare IntensityProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36110217:CHI PLAY(27-44)Online publication date: 4-Oct-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3611021
Guglielmo GKlincewicz M(2021)The Temperature of Morality: A Behavioral Study Concerning the Effect of Moral Decisions on Facial Thermal Variations in Video GamesProceedings of the 16th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games10.1145/3472538.3472582(1-4)Online publication date: 3-Aug-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3472538.3472582
Ribeiro GRogers KAltmeyer MTerkildsen TNacke LMirza-Babaei PMcArthur VVanden Abeele VBirk M(2020)Game AtmosphereProceedings of the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play10.1145/3410404.3414245(107-119)Online publication date: 2-Nov-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3410404.3414245
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Using startle reflex to compare playing and watching in a horror game
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Human computer interaction (HCI)
    1. HCI design and evaluation methods
      1. Laboratory experiments

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cover image ACM Other conferences

ACSW '16: Proceedings of the Australasian Computer Science Week Multiconference

February 2016

654 pages

ISBN:9781450340427

DOI:10.1145/2843043

Copyright © 2016 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Association for Computing Machinery

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Publication History

Published: 01 February 2016

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ACSW '16

ACSW '16: Australasian Computer Science Week

February 1 - 5, 2016

Canberra, Australia

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ACSW '16 Paper Acceptance Rate 77 of 172 submissions, 45%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 204 of 424 submissions, 48%

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Cited By

Terkildsen TEngelst LClasen M(2023)Work Hard, Scare Hard? An Investigation of How Mental Workload Impacts Jump Scare IntensityProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36110217:CHI PLAY(27-44)Online publication date: 4-Oct-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3611021
Guglielmo GKlincewicz M(2021)The Temperature of Morality: A Behavioral Study Concerning the Effect of Moral Decisions on Facial Thermal Variations in Video GamesProceedings of the 16th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games10.1145/3472538.3472582(1-4)Online publication date: 3-Aug-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3472538.3472582
Ribeiro GRogers KAltmeyer MTerkildsen TNacke LMirza-Babaei PMcArthur VVanden Abeele VBirk M(2020)Game AtmosphereProceedings of the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play10.1145/3410404.3414245(107-119)Online publication date: 2-Nov-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3410404.3414245
Fowler ANesbitt KCanossa A(2019)Identifying Cognitive Load in a Computer Game: An exploratory study of young children2019 IEEE Conference on Games (CoG)10.1109/CIG.2019.8848064(1-6)Online publication date: Aug-2019
https://doi.org/10.1109/CIG.2019.8848064
Clavero Jiménez MJames AGómez Maureira MKniestedt I(2018)Dreadful Virtualities: A Comparative Case Study of Player Responses to a Horror Game in Virtual Reality and Flat ScreenAdvances in Computer Entertainment Technology10.1007/978-3-319-76270-8_17(239-260)Online publication date: 21-Feb-2018
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76270-8_17

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