Abstract
Subliminal priming is an extensively researched technique in cognitive psychology. Research often focuses on highly controlled lab-environments, with only a few studies attempting to translate it to applications outside the laboratory. In this study, visual affect priming was deployed in the complex environment of a horror computer game, while maintaining strict standards in regard to subliminal thresholds. Fear-inducing images of one prime-type were shown repeatedly to players (N=60) during 5-minute playing sessions, using sandwich masking and a prime-duration of 33.3 ms. Three types of images were compared to an empty control-image: text, faces and spiders. Players were monitored with heart-rate and galvanic skin response (GSR) sensors to determine effects on a physiological level and were interviewed directly after playing. Results show no significant differences in affective self-report. GSR measures show an increase of relaxation between the start and finish of the game for players who were primed with face images, which we attribute to a result of our relative small player sample. We conclude that in a perceptually complex environment such as a video-game, subliminal visual priming does not noticeably influence player affect. However, measures directly around prime-windows coinciding with in-game sounds showed a significantly effect on GSR. This suggests that GSR is a suitable tool to gauge the affective impact of game elements.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | 2015 International Conference on Affective Computing and Intelligent Interaction (ACII) |
Place of Publication | Xi'an, China |
Publisher | IEEE |
Pages | 705-711 |
Number of pages | 7 |
ISBN (Electronic) | 978-1-4799-9952-1 |
ISBN (Print) | 978-1-4799-9954-5 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 21 Sept 2015 |
Event | ACII 2015 - Xi'an, China Duration: 21 Sept 2015 → 24 Sept 2015 |
Conference
Conference | ACII 2015 |
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Country/Territory | China |
City | Xi'an |
Period | 21/09/15 → 24/09/15 |
Keywords
- Affective gaming
- priming
- fear
- player affect