Tom Alexander Garner

A preliminary experiment to assess the fear value of preselected sound parameters in a survival horror game

This paper presents an experiment testing which sound parameters, in a survival horror game context, most warrant further investigation as a means to control the level of fear in such games. The experiment is part of a long-term study ultimately designed to support the development of a biofeedback procedural audio engine for computer games. By this means, it is hoped to provide an enhanced gaming experience whereby sound synthesis and audio processing is conducted in real-time according to the players affect responses and emotional state. Results indicate that coarse manipulation of audio parameters has the potential to influence the intensity of the players fear response whilst playing a survival horror game. Evidence is also presented that supports the integration of event logging and realtime participant vocal response into an experimental design to gather unbiased, quantitative data that can be associated with qualitative emotional response.

A climate of fear: considerations for designing a virtual acoustic ecology of fear

This paper proposes a framework that incorporates fear, acoustics, thought processing and digital game sound theory; with the potential to not only improve understanding of our relationship with fear, but also generate a foundation for reliable and significant manipulation of the fear experience. A brief literature review provides the context for a discussion of fear and sound in virtual worlds before the framework is described; concluding remarks point to future empirical work testing and refining the framework.

Identifying habitual statistical features of EEG in response to fear-related stimuli in an audio-only computer video game

A better understanding of observable and quantifiable psychophysiological outputs such as electroencephalography (EEG) during computer video gameplay has significant potential to support the development of an automated, emotionally intelligent system. Integrated into a game engine, such a system could facilitate an effective biofeedback loop, accurately interpreting player emotions and adjusting gameplay parameters to respond to players emotional states in a way that moves towards exciting ventures in affective interactivity. This paper presents a crucial step to reaching this objective by way of examining the statistical features of EEG that may relate to user experience during audio-centric gameplay. An audio-only test game ensures that game sound is the exclusive stimulus modality with gameplay contextualisation and qualitative data collection enabling the study to focus specifically upon fear. Though requiring of an unambiguous horror-game context, the results documented within this paper identify several statistical features of EEG data that could differentiate fear from calm.

The use of sound to represent data and concepts as a means to engender creative thought: some thoughts on implementation and a research agenda

This paper poses the question: How can sound be used to function analogously to the function of the images in a graph in order to create the conditions for creative thought and insight to occur and thus to facilitate the synthesis of new knowledge? It uses this to develop further questions and a research agenda. In particular, it is concerned with the use of sonification of the non-audio data and concepts represented in a diagram or graph and the techniques that might be used to foster a creative research environment using sound. The ultimate goal of the research agenda is to go beyond sonification and to use sound pro-actively in a Virtual Research Environment in order to create the conditions for creative thinking and insight to occur with the hope that this may then lead to the synthesis of new knowledge.