Violent video games increase voice stress: An experimental study.

Abstract

In most violent video games, players are put in stressful situations where enemies are trying to kill them. This is reflected by the results of previous research showing that violent video games increase physiological arousal (e.g., heart rate, blood pressure, galvanic skin response). In this study, I investigate the effect of playing violent video games on emotional stress detected by a new methodology: voice analysis. Because changes and disturbances in vocal responses can be understood as reactions to emotional stress, I expected that violent videogames would increase voice stress. Participants (N ϭ 87 French university students; 40% female; M age ϭ 21.2) played either a violent or nonviolent game for 20 min. After game play, participants read a stressprovoking story aloud while their voices were recorded. Voice recordings were analyzed to determine the amount of emotional stress in participants' voices using Automated Voice Stress Analysis. As hypothesized, voice stress was higher among violent video game players than among nonviolent video game players. Voice stress was also higher for men than for women. No interaction between video game content and the gender of participants was observed. This study confirms that violent video games have physiological consequences on players, as predicted by the General Aggression Model and also introduces a promising nonobtrusive physiological measure in media psychology research.

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