Continuous recognition of player’s affective body expression as dynamic quality of aesthetic experience
II.Background A.Body movement and Emotional experience
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- B.Body movement and affective experience in games
II.BackgroundA.Body movement and Emotional experienceA growing number of studies in embodied cognition and affective science have shown that body movements do not only express a person’s feelings and thoughts but also influence them. Such studies have, in fact, shown effects on emotional experience, attitude towards product and people, cognitive capabilities and self-perception (for a review see [18]). Studies such as [19]-[21] have shown, for example, that when human participants were purposely placed in a certain affective posture (e.g., slumped vs. upright), the rating of their own performances reflected the valence of the postural expression. A similar effect has been observed in relation to product evaluation. [22]-[24] showed that, when people evaluated products while performing unrelated movements that are generally associated with a particular valence (e.g., head nodding vs. head shaking), the valence of those movements biased the evaluation of the product. Researchers investigating the biological and neurological explanations of these effects (e.g., [25]) have suggested that postures or movements activate the brain approach-avoidance mechanisms that then bias the processing of any incoming information. Carney et al. [26] showed that posing in high power displays produces an increase in testosterone and a decrease in cortisol that produce an increased feeling of power and tolerance to risk. Cole et al. [27] also proposed the term affective proprioception and discuss the possible neurological basis and evolutionary origin for the existence of a dedicated connection between a proprioceptive system and the brain area involved in the affective processing of stimuli akin to that of the tactile system. According to this latter perspective, body movement would produce an affective experience on the basis of the quality of the movement itself (e.g., fluid and open vs. jerky and closed), and not just on the physiological changes it induces in the body. B.Body movement and affective experience in gamesGiven the evidence of the relation between body movement and cognitive and affective processes, it is clear that body movement in games has a role not only in reading how a person feels, but also in affecting how a person feels about and experiences the events of the game. As such, it is paramount to consider how the movement imposed by the designers or afforded by the game controller may become a means for measuring the player’s experience. Recent works in HCI have investigated the role of body movement in game experience within the context of whole-body computer games. In [28], [29], for example, the authors present a boxing game in which the vision-based system automatically detects the different type of boxing movements and appropriately responds to the player. The players reported higher enjoyment than when playing the same game with the keyboard. Following these results, researchers are developing more robust techniques to allow for body-movement tracking, gesture recognition and avatar animations (e.g., [30]-[32]). Whereas these studies focus on increasing the quality and the accuracy of the feedback in response to body movement, there is still limited understanding of how body movement contributes to the player’s experience [6], [33]. Bianchi-Berthouze [6] investigated, through various studies, how body movements that were imposed on players, in whole-body computer games, produced changes in the emotional, social and role-play experience of the player. Her framework extends current engagement models presented in the game literature (e.g., [34]-[36]) by exploring the role of proprioceptive feedback. In her paper, she identifies five categories of body movements that affect the player’s experience: movements necessary to play the game, movements facilitating the control of the game, movements related to the role-play the game offers, affective body expressions and social gestures. Building on works in an embodied cognition discussed in the previous section, her studies show that, through proprioceptive feedback, each category of movements plays a key role in facilitating a transition from a pure hard-fun engagement [13], where the player’s motivations are mainly to win and challenge themselves, to an experience that grounds its pleasure in taking up the role-play that the game offers. She argues that such movements could be a means for the players actively to construct affective meanings of their own game experience. Further studies have investigated, more in depth, the contribution of body movement to player engagement. Pasch et al. [37] and Nijhar et al. [38] found that players’ motivations to play the game affect the way players decide to engage their body movement in the game. When hard-fun (winning the game) is the main motivation, their results show that the players make use of body movements to exploit optimally the functionalities the controller offers to gain points. Extra movements are adopted only to simplify the control (e.g., distributed cognition over resources available [39], [40]) or during moments of disengagement and frustration [6], [41]. It becomes, in fact, paramount in this situation that the game offers the right balance between challenge and body movement skills to maintain the player’s engagement, as discussed by Csikszentmihalyis in his theory of flow [42]. When easy-fun is instead the motivation for playing, the results of [37], [38] show that the players fully engage with and gain pleasure from their body movement (in line with the idea of affective proprioception proposed by Cole [27]), even when this may interfere with obtaining points. There is no conscious reflection on what the body is doing [42], but there is a direct experience of the feelings and meanings that the enacted body movements create. Differently from a desk-top situation, the body is not a source of distraction but a source of experience [6]. Melzer et al. [8] and Isbister et al. [9] investigate, more in depth, how the quality of body movement required to play the game affects differently the emotional states of the player. Melzer et al. found that playing a Nintendo Wii game (Manhunt 2), that encouraged rapid aggressive gestures, led to higher negative affect than when players played the same game using a standard controller. Isbister et al. found that an increased amount of vigorous movement was statistically correlated with a reported increase of arousal. They also found evidence of increased social connectedness as in [6]. In summary, all these studies are not only contributing to a better understanding of how body movement affects the game experience and how this can be improved; they also point to the fact that, by tracking and recognizing body movement, we may have a better understanding of the players’ quality of the experience that they are either already experiencing or are constructing. 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