Use of the Physiological Response to Improve the Gaming Experience

Abstract

New virtual reality technologies allow the user to gain a greater sense of presence in virtual environments. One of the areas where these technologies can have a major impact is the area of games that allow users to explore these environments and interact with them by receiving feedback from their actions in real time. The present study aimed to evaluate if the use of physiological signals to update the virtual environment in realtime could be used to increase the feeling of presence. To perform this study, an experimental study was designed based on a game that allowed the use of physiological data to calculate the participant's arousal in real-time and, based on that, modify certain elements of the virtual environment where the participants were asked to fulfill a task. With the analysis of the data obtained, it was possible to verify that the use of biofeedback did not reveal statistically significant differences for the variables tested, however, it can be concluded that the use of biofeedback improves some subscales of presence, being the users with more experience in games and more computer knowledge susceptible to such changes. © 2018 IEEE.