Affective response to volitional input perturbations in obstacle avoidance and target tracking games.

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Neuroscience
• Human-Computer Interaction

Background:

• Understanding affective responses to loss of volitional control is crucial for designing engaging and user-centered interactive systems.
• Game-like tasks provide a controlled yet immersive environment to study these responses.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate affective responses to volitional control perturbations in game-like scenarios.
• To correlate behavioral and physiological measures with self-reported emotional states.

Main Methods:

• Utilized two game-like tasks, Catnip and Dinorun, with introduced perturbations.
• Collected behavioral data, physiological measures (pupillometry, electroencephalography - EEG), and self-reported survey responses (Self-Assessment Manikin - SAM).

Main Results:

• Subject gameplay characteristics correlated with valence and dominance scores.
• Perturbations in Dinorun led to decreased response scores and significant pupillary dilation.
• EEG analysis revealed evoked neural responses to perturbed events in central and parietal brain regions.

Conclusions:

• Game-like perturbations effectively elicit measurable affective and physiological responses, indicating a loss of volitional control.
• These findings provide a foundation for further research into affective computing and user experience design.