Motivation as a function of success frequency

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Game Design

Background:

• The principle of intermediate challenge posits that optimal motivation occurs at a difficulty level that is neither too easy nor too hard.
• Quantifying the relationship between challenge, success, and motivation is crucial for understanding engagement in interactive systems.

Purpose of the Study:

• To test if the optimal motivation from intermediate challenge can be quantified as an inverted-U relationship between motivation and success frequency.
• To investigate how success frequency influences motivation in a target-catching game.

Main Methods:

• Two experiments were conducted with participants playing a game involving navigating a scene to catch targets.
• Experiment 1 (N=101): Free play duration; motivation measured by the probability of continuing at a given success frequency.
• Experiment 2 (N=70): Fixed play duration; motivation measured via repeated self-reports.

Main Results:

• In Experiment 1, play duration exhibited an inverted-U relationship with success frequency.
• In Experiment 2, self-reported motivation demonstrated an inverted-U relationship with success frequency.
• A linear increase in the probability to continue was observed with increasing success frequency in Experiment 1.

Conclusions:

• Motivation is dependent on success frequency, supporting the concept of intermediate challenge being optimally motivating.
• Tentative evidence suggests that the relationship between motivation and success frequency can be quantified by an inverted-U curve.