Emotions, Technology, and Digital Games

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• Publisher: Academic Press
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN:
  9780128017388
• eBook ISBN:
  9780128018408
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Cognitive Psychology & Cognition
• Index: Psychology

Emotions, Technology, and Digital Games explores the need for people to experience enjoyment, excitement, anxiety, anger, frustration, and many other emotions. The book provides essential information on why it is necessary to have a greater understanding of the power these emotions have on players, and how they affect players during, and after, a game. This book takes this understanding and shows how it can be used in practical ways, including the design of video games for teaching and learning, creating tools to measure social and emotional development of children, determining how empathy-related thought processes affect ethical decision-making, and examining how the fictional world of game play can influence and shape real-life experiences. - Details how games affect emotions—both during and after play - Describes how we can manage a player's affective reactions - Applies the emotional affect to making games more immersive - Examines game-based learning and education - Identifies which components of online games support socio-emotional development - Discusses the impact of game-based emotions beyond the context of games

Section III

Emotional Affordances, Videogames, and Learning

Chapter 9

Affect During Instructional Video Game Learning

Story’s Potential Role

Osvaldo Jiménez Computer Science Department, University of the Pacific, Stockton, California, USA

Abstract

Games have been linked to provoking a wide variety of emotional reactions, from fear (Therrien, 2009) to joy (Malone, 1981). While some of the authors in this volume have reported on the variety of emotional interactions that games can provide, such as mirroring of emotions (Humphries & McDonald, 2011), this chapter will examine how the presence of a component of a computer game, namely the story, may have had an impact on the link between emotions and learning. Specifically, this chapter focuses on the component of “story” in a game, and how the inclusion of a story may have both an emotional and subsequent learning impact. To explain this relationship, this chapter is separated into three sections. First, there is a discussion on the previous literature surrounding the potential links between story, emotions, learning, and games. Second, this chapter leverages this literature to introduce a study, which will investigate the potential role that story has in games, learning, and student emotions. Finally, the chapter will discuss the unexpected results from this study, further analyzing the potential links between emotions and learning, and grounding this analysis with the research literature.

Keywords

Educational games

Game design

Stories in games

Classroom research

Games, Emotions, and Learning: The Story’s Role in all Three

In order to examine the links between games, emotion, and learning, it is important to establish the links between the three. The links between games, emotions, and learning have been described by both researchers in this volume, researchers in other fields (Light, 2003), and industry professionals (Lazzaro, 2004). In addition to links between games, emotions, and learning, there have also been other researchers, who in making the case for using games for learning, have discussed the positive effect that children feel in playing games (Gee, 2003; Prensky, 2007; Shaffer, 2006). Arguments made by these authors further reinforce the idea that the three are interrelated. While one may immediately associate video games with positive effect, increased heart-rate, and plain joy, video games have also been linked to negative emotions. For example, researchers have concluded that awarding violent behaviors in a game context (versus punishing or doing nothing) increased the amount of hostile emotion that players experience (Carnagey & Anderson, 2005). With the previous authors discussing an increase in negative emotions, and the mainstream notion that games produce or increase positive emotions, one may conclude that video games often amplify player emotions. Nonetheless, other researchers have found that people who play violent games have a greater capacity to suppress their emotions. These researchers further argue that when players suppress their emotions, such as fear, it helps those players make decisions (Weber, Ritterfeld, & Mathiak, 2006). The debate or discussion on when video games increase or suppress emotions is outside the scope of this chapter; rather, the research presented so far is meant to highlight the strong link between playing games and emotions. Carnagey & Anderson’s research also provides support for a link between a game’s design and the emotions that the game produces. In their study, rewarding players in the game who exhibited violent behaviors, had profound effects on player’s emotions (2005). Carnagey & Anderson’s findings support the idea that the types of structures and design decisions that are introduced in games can impact the emotions that players can experience. These emotions, in turn, may influence what students learn.

With literature reviews discussing both positive and negative emotional effects related to playing video games (Barlett, Anderson, & Swing, 2009), one may wonder how story fits in. In my analysis, I have only found a few research studies which discuss the role of “story” in games, as having an impact on learning (Habgood & Ainsworth, 2011; Habgood, Ainsworth, & Benford, 2005) and motivation (Malone, 1981; Parker & Lepper, 1992). With research on the link between story and games still in its infancy, it is prudent to look at a mature field of study that has found ties between emo...

Table of contents

• Cover image
• Title page
• Table of Contents
• Copyright
• Contributors
• Foreword
• Preface
• Section I: Embodied Experiences: Affective and Cognitive Benefits of Gaming
• Section II: Emotions Tools and Ties
• Section III: Emotional Affordances, Videogames, and Learning
• Index