Wouter van den Hoogen

Pleasure to Play, Arousal to Stay: The Effect of Player Emotions on Digital Game Preferences and Playing Time

This study investigated how player emotions during game-play, measured through self-report and physiological recordings, predict playing time and game preferences. We distinguished between short-term (immediately after game-play) and long-term (after 3 weeks) playing time and game preferences. While pleasure was most predictive for short-term playing time and game preferences, arousal, particularly for game preferences, was most predictive on the longer term. This result was found through both self-report and physiological emotion measures. This study initiates theorizing about digital gaming as a hedonic consumer product and sketches future research endeavors of this topic.

Between Challenge and Defeat: Repeated Player-Death and Game Enjoyment

This article contributes to research on the complex relation between dying in a digital game and player experience. In this article, we extend recent findings (Ravaja, Turpeinen, Saari, Kelti-kangas-Järvinen, & Puttonen, 2008) indicating that player death may induce positive affect. The study explored whether smiling upon dying in a game should be attributed to transient relief experiences or, instead, related to being challenged to try harder. Facial expressions were recorded while players experienced frequent deaths and occasionally reached safe zones in a shooter game. Players, indeed, smiled after dying, as testified by deactivation of the corrugator supercilii and activation of the zygomaticus major. Although retrospective subjective evaluations showed player-death events were appraised negatively, importantly, zygomaticus major activation decreased with repeated player-deaths. Moreover, safe zones did not result in patterns of facial electromyography activity indicating pleasure, countering a transient relief explanation. We propose that, as part of the ongoing game, player death reinforces the sense of challenge that the game offers. While dying may not be fun in itself, being challenged may initially be experienced as enjoyable and, therefore, evoke a smile. Without clear progress in the game and a lost sense of challenge, however, dying is no longer a laughing matter.

Visualizing the third dimension in virtual training environments for neurologically impaired persons: beneficial or disruptive?

BackgroundMany contemporary systems for neurorehabilitation utilize 3D virtual environments (VEs) that allow for training patients’ hand or arm movements. In the current paper we comparatively test the effectiveness of two characteristics of VEs in rehabilitation training when utilizing a 3D haptic interaction device: Stereo Visualization (monoscopic vs stereoscopic image presentation) and Graphic Environment (2.5D vs 3D).MethodAn experimental study was conducted using a factorial within-subjects design. Patients (10 MS, 8 CVA) completed three tasks, each including a specific arm-movement along one of three directional axes (left-right, up-down and forward-backward).ResultsThe use of stereoscopy within a virtual training environment for neurorehabilitation of CVA and MS patients is most beneficial when the task itself requires movement in depth. Further, the 2.5D environment yields the highest efficiency and accuracy in terms of patients’ movements. These findings were, however, dependent on participants’ stereoscopic ability.ConclusionDespite the performance benefits of stereoscopy, our findings illustrate the non-triviality of choices of using stereoscopy, and the type of graphic environment implemented. These choices should be made with the task and target group, and even the individual patient in mind.

Yes Wii can! Using digital games as a rehabilitation platform after stroke - The role of social support

A CVA or stroke is frequently a life changing event for both the person suffering the CVA as well as their immediate family. During the chronic phase, many stroke survivors return home where they are cared for by their partner. What was normal before may have become completely impossible or has to be re-learned. Patients will have to find a new balance in their living routine, also redefining their relationship with their spouse and their children, especially those living at home. Depression after stroke affects approximately one third of stroke patients, either as a consequence of the disrupting effects of stroke on the brain, or because the patient is going through a phase of bereavement, through loss of physical and mental abilities, job, income, status, respect, and even relationships. Also, partners of stroke patients run an increased risk of becoming depressed, which is related to depression and a low level of general activities in the patient [1]. Motivating a patient to become more active again is a significant challenge, but has tremendous potential benefits, both for patients as well as their immediate family and caretakers.