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An Analysis of Physiological and Psychological Responses in Virtual Reality and Flat Screen Gaming

Ritik Vatsal, Shrivatsa Mishra, Rushil Thareja, Mrinmoy Chakrabarty, Ojaswa Sharma, Jainendra Shukla

TL;DR

The first systematic comparison and analysis of emotional and physiological responses to commercially available games in VR and FS environments revealed that VR gaming elicited more pronounced emotions, higher arousal, increased cognitive load and stress, and lower dominance than FS gaming.

Abstract

Recent research has focused on the effectiveness of Virtual Reality (VR) in games as a more immersive method of interaction. However, there is a lack of robust analysis of the physiological effects between VR and flatscreen (FS) gaming. This paper introduces the first systematic comparison and analysis of emotional and physiological responses to commercially available games in VR and FS environments. To elicit these responses, we first selected four games through a pilot study of 6 participants to cover all four quadrants of the valence-arousal space. Using these games, we recorded the physiological activity, including Blood Volume Pulse and Electrodermal Activity, and self-reported emotions of 33 participants in a user study. Our data analysis revealed that VR gaming elicited more pronounced emotions, higher arousal, increased cognitive load and stress, and lower dominance than FS gaming. The Virtual Reality and Flat Screen (VRFS) dataset, containing over 15 hours of multimodal data comparing FS and VR gaming across different games, is also made publicly available for research purposes. Our analysis provides valuable insights for further investigations into the physiological and emotional effects of VR and FS gaming.

An Analysis of Physiological and Psychological Responses in Virtual Reality and Flat Screen Gaming

TL;DR

The first systematic comparison and analysis of emotional and physiological responses to commercially available games in VR and FS environments revealed that VR gaming elicited more pronounced emotions, higher arousal, increased cognitive load and stress, and lower dominance than FS gaming.

Abstract

Recent research has focused on the effectiveness of Virtual Reality (VR) in games as a more immersive method of interaction. However, there is a lack of robust analysis of the physiological effects between VR and flatscreen (FS) gaming. This paper introduces the first systematic comparison and analysis of emotional and physiological responses to commercially available games in VR and FS environments. To elicit these responses, we first selected four games through a pilot study of 6 participants to cover all four quadrants of the valence-arousal space. Using these games, we recorded the physiological activity, including Blood Volume Pulse and Electrodermal Activity, and self-reported emotions of 33 participants in a user study. Our data analysis revealed that VR gaming elicited more pronounced emotions, higher arousal, increased cognitive load and stress, and lower dominance than FS gaming. The Virtual Reality and Flat Screen (VRFS) dataset, containing over 15 hours of multimodal data comparing FS and VR gaming across different games, is also made publicly available for research purposes. Our analysis provides valuable insights for further investigations into the physiological and emotional effects of VR and FS gaming.
Paper Structure (32 sections, 2 equations, 6 figures, 6 tables)

This paper contains 32 sections, 2 equations, 6 figures, 6 tables.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Related work
  3. Analysis of Emotions
  4. Emotions in VR
  5. Affective Datasets
  6. Stimuli Selection Procedure
  7. Stimuli Shortlisting
  8. Pilot Trial
  9. Experimental Setup and Data Collection
  10. Ethics
  11. Participant Screening Criteria
  12. Psychological Measures
  13. Physiological Measures
  14. BVP
  15. Electrodermal Activity
  16. ...and 17 more sections

Figures (6)

  • Figure 1: Games plotted in respective quadrants according to arousal and valence results from pilot SAM study. Encircled games were selected for the final study.
  • Figure 2: In-game screenshots of selected four games. (a) Phasmophobia: High Arousal Low Valence; (b) Dirt Rally 2.0: High Arousal High Valence; (c) Minecraft: Low Arousal Low Valence; (d) War Thunder: Low Arousal High Valence
  • Figure 3: Reported values of (a) arousal, (b) valence, and (c) dominance of players using SAM in different games in both VR and FS.
  • Figure 4: Reported values of different emotions upon playing games in VR and FS using VAS.
  • Figure 5: SCL of players in VR and FS to different games using EDA data.
  • ...and 1 more figures