The measurement of meaning

The concept of presence, or “being there” is a frequently emphasized factor in immersive mediated environments. It is often assumed that greater levels of immersive quality elicit higher levels of presence, in turn enhancing the effectiveness of a mediated experience. To investigate this assumption the current meta-analysis synthesizes decades of empirical research examining the effect of immersive system technology on user experiences of presence. Aggregating 115 effect sizes from 83 studies, it finds that technological immersion has a medium-sized effect on presence. Additionally, results show that increased levels of user-tracking, the use of stereoscopic visuals, and wider fields of view of visual displays are significantly more impactful than improvements to most other immersive system features, including quality of visual and auditory content. These findings are discussed in light of theoretical accounts of the presence construct as well as practical implications for design.

How Immersive Is Enough? A Meta-Analysis of the Effect of Immersive Technology on User Presence

Blue space: The importance of water for preference, affect, and restorativeness ratings of natural and built scenes

Physical settings can play a role in coping with stress; in particular experimental research has found strong evidence between exposure to natural environments and recovery from physiological stress and mental fatigue, giving support to both Stress Recovery Theory and Attention Restoration Theory. In fact, exposure to natural environments protects people against the impact of environmental stressors and offer physiological, emotional and attention restoration more so than urban environments. Natural places that allow the renewal of personal adaptive resources to meet the demands of everyday life are called restorative environments. Natural environments elicit greater calming responses than urban environments, and in relation to their vision there is a general reduction of physiological symptoms of stress. Exposure to natural scenes mediates the negative effects of stress reducing the negative mood state and above all enhancing positive emotions. Moreover, one can recover the decrease of cognitive performance associated with stress, especially reflected in attention tasks, through the salutary effect of viewing nature. Giving the many benefits of contact with nature, plans for urban environments should attend to restorativeness.

https://www.mdpi.com/2076-328X/4/4/394/pdf

The role of nature in coping with psycho-physiological stress: a literature review on restorativeness.

Several metrics have been proposed in literature to assess the perceptual quality of two-dimensional images. However, no similar effort has been devoted to quality assessment of stereoscopic images. Therefore, in this paper, we review the different issues related to 3D visualization, and we propose a quality metric for the assessment of stereopairs using the fusion of 2D quality metrics and of the depth information. The proposed metric is evaluated using the SAMVIQ methodology for subjective assessment. Specifically, distortions deriving from coding are taken into account and the quality degradation of the stereopair is estimated by means of subjective tests.

https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00362891/document

Quality Assessment of Stereoscopic Images

This document contains the English version of the Game Experience Questionnaire. The development and testing of the Game Experience Questionnaire is described in project Deliverable 3.3. The Game Experience Questionnaire has a modular structure and consists of : 1. The core questionnaire 2. The Social Presence Module 3. The Post-game module. In addition to these modules, a concise in-game version of the GEQ was developed. All three modules are meant to be administered immediately after the game-session has finished, in the order given above. Part one and two probe the players’ feelings and thoughts while playing the game; Part 3, the post-game module, assesses how players felt after they had stopped playing. Part 1 is the core part of the GEQ. It assesses game experience as scores on seven components: Immersion, Flow, Competence, Positive and Negative Affect, Tension, and Challenge. For a robust measure, we need five items per component. As translation of questionnaire items, no matter how carefully performed, sometimes results in suboptimal scoring patterns, we have added a spare item to all components. After the first use of the translated GEQs, scale analyses will be performed to check whether any item should be discarded or replaced. Part 2, the social presence module, investigates psychological and behavioural involvement of the player with other social entities, be they virtual (i.e., in-game characters), mediated (e.g., others playing online), or co-located. This module should only be administered when at least one of these types of co-players were involved in the game. Part 3, the post-game module, assesses how players felt after they had stopped playing. This is a relevant module for assessing naturalistic gaming (i.e., when gamers have voluntarily decided to play), but may also be relevant in experimental research. The In-game version of the GEQ is a concise version of the core questionnaire. It has an identical component structure and consists of items selected from this module. The in-game questionnaire is developed for assessing game experience at multiple intervals during a game session, or play-back session. This should facilitate the validation of continuous and real-time indicators some of the partners in the FUGA project are developing.

/pdf/the-game-experience-questionnaire-wh22qwjjdi.pdf

The Game Experience Questionnaire

The current report describes the development of the Game Experience Questionnaire, a self-report measure that aims to comprehensively and reliably characterise the multifaceted experience of playing digital games. Its development and evaluation precede the testing of the other measures of game experience targeted in the FUGA project, as it will be employed for evaluating validity of these measures. The theoretical work performed by all partners in the FUGA project (Deliverable 2.1) provided a firm and broad basis for the development of the scale. In addition, relevant scientific literature was reviewed for any conceptualisations that might complement this work and for existing scales that might serve as a starting point or inspiration for item formulation. Furthermore, empirical data was gathered during focus group interviews with different types of gamers. These interviews served as a test for comparing scientific conceptualisations and lay descriptions of first-hand experiences. They were also used as a reference guide on choice of wording in the item formulation phase. The Game experience questionnaire is developed with a modular structure, consisting of: 1. The core questionnaire (GEQ). This is the heart of the Game Experience Questionnaire, probing multiple components of players’experience while gaming. 2. The post-game questionnaire (PGQ), probing gamers’experience after the gaming session and any after effects. 3. The social presence module (SPGQ), probing gamers’experience of and involvement with their co-player(s). These three lists are to be administered after the gaming session has ended. Additionally, a short in- game version of the GEQ was developed, the iGEQ, for probing in-game experience multiple times during a gaming session. A large scale survey was performed to test the long list (>100 items) and explore the factor structure of the questionnaires. Factor analyses provided a structure for the scale that made good sense in the light of theoretical considerations, with subscales that were all easy to interpret. Subsequent reliability tests resulted in the construction of robust subscales with satisfactory to high internal consistencies. Additional explorations were subsequently performed to check sensitivity and validity of the developed measures. Statistical analyses firmly demonstrated that the GEQ and additional modules were sensitive enough to pick up differences between gamers, game types, play characteristics, and social context of play. The findings already provide new insights to scholars in the field. The Game Experience Questionnaire is now ready to be translated and used in FUGA experimentations.

/pdf/d3-3-game-experience-questionnaire-development-of-a-self-4dw0ioud0y.pdf

D3.3 : Game Experience Questionnaire:development of a self-report measure to assess the psychological impact of digital games

A higher illuminance induces alertness even during office hours: findings on subjective measures, task performance and heart rate measures.

In this paper, we describe the challenge of adequately characterizing and measuring experiences associated with playing digital games. We discuss the applicability of traditional usability metrics to user-centred game design, and highlight two prominent concepts, flow and immersion, as potential candidates for evaluating gameplay. The paper concludes by describing the multi-measure approach taken by the Game Experience Research Lab in Eindhoven.

/pdf/characterising-and-measuring-user-experiences-in-digital-omp2voo8gf.pdf

de Yaw Yvonne Kort

Papers

The Game Experience Questionnaire

D3.3 : Game Experience Questionnaire:development of a self-report measure to assess the psychological impact of digital games

A higher illuminance induces alertness even during office hours: findings on subjective measures, task performance and heart rate measures.

Characterising and measuring user experiences in digital games

What's wrong with virtual trees? Restoring from stress in a mediated environment