The pupil response as an indicator of user experience in a digital exercise game

Abstract

To study whether psychophysiological indicators are suitable measures of user experience in a digital exercise game (exergame), a laboratory study employing both psychophysiological and self‐report measures was conducted. Sixty‐six participants cycled for 10 min on an ergometer while pupil diameter, skin conductance, and heart rate were measured; afterward, they completed a user experience questionnaire. The participants performed under three experimental conditions varying between subjects: active gaming (participants controlled the altitude of a digital bird by varying their pedal rate in order to catch letters flying across the screen), observing a game (they observed a replay of another participant’s game), and no‐game (blank screen). Only the gaming condition showed evidence for statistically significant pupil dilations—indicating emotional arousal—in response to game events (catching a letter) or corresponding points in time. The observational condition did not differ statistically from the no‐game control condition. Self‐reports also indicated that the gaming condition was rated most fun and least demanding. Other psychophysiological indicators (heart rate, skin conductance) showed no systematic effects in response to game events, rather they steadily increased during training. Thus, pupil responses were shown to be suitable indicators of positive emotional reactions to game events and user experience in a (training) game.

A Review of the Use of Gaze and Pupil Metrics to Assess Mental Workload in Gamified and Simulated Sensorimotor Tasks

“…The locus coeruleus also inhibits the pupil constriction pathway [ 52 ]. It is well established in research settings that pupil dilation increases with task effort and arousal in healthy individuals [ 6 , 8 , 11 , 13 , 15 , 16 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 27 , 28 ], as well as in individuals with CNS pathology, including stroke [ 8 ] and Parkinson’s disease [ 12 ]. In cases where researchers evaluate multiple eye metrics, pupil diameter is often reported as a more consistent marker of cognitive effort compared with other measures [ 6 , 15 , 16 ].…”

“…This is what motivated Liu et al [ 14 ] to investigate fixation measures as a complementary measure to pupil dilation to improve the identification of task demand. In addition to cognitive workload, pupil dilation also increases with emotional arousal [ 6 , 11 , 18 ] and other higher cognitive processes, making it difficult to discern which specific process is responsible for the pupil response.…”

“…In addition to the growing use of autonomic and gaze metrics, performance measures and subjective assessments are more traditional methods used to evaluate the task difficulty. Many of the reviewed studies used all three types of assessment [ 9 , 11 , 14 , 16 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 28 ]. The performance measures included game score, accuracy, time to complete, number of attempts, etc.…”

Comparing the Impact of Heart Rate-Based In-Game Adaptations in an Exergame-Based Functional High-Intensity Interval Training on Training Intensity and Experience in Healthy Young Adults

“…Studies that look at the individual components of an exergame and their interdependencies seem promising to determine the influence of the above-mentioned loads and thus to support the integration of suitable objective and subjective parameters for real-time in-exergame adaptations ( Gutjahr et al, 2019 ; Martin-Niedecken et al, 2020 ). For example, one should keep in mind whether the game scenario, and thus the processed information, is coupled (e.g., running in an engaging environment and catching a robber) or uncoupled (e.g., running and solving calculation tasks) to the player’s physically performed movements because this further affects the interplay of the exergame components ( Herold et al, 2018 ; Martin-Niedecken et al, 2019a ).…”

A multidisciplinary investigation to unravel the complexity of the sense of embodiment in teleoperation

“…They aim at reflecting the functions and reactions of the human body to the change of the outside environment and the inside of the body (e.g., that is why they correlate with cognitive effort, which can be a purely internal process). Using a combination of physiological approaches to measure human behavior, not specifically SoE, is not novel [106,263], and neither compares nor investigates what information they can provide and how accurately [116]. However, this measure is still novel and needs more validation.…”