- N=15, Three random groups (N=5), 11 male, 4 female, aged between 18 and 26.
- They were evaluating two Alan Wake trailers in the study with different types of music.
- Study was about comparison of affects when viewing of the clip with different music (group1: silence, clip 1, and fearful, clip 2; g2 sad and aggressive; g3: happy and fearful).
- Participants labeled their affects and study indicates that background music influenced labeling in statistically significantly.
- Skin conductivity,heart rate, and pupil-range indications measured corresponded to the reported affects.
- Study was also addressing to the question whether music influenced player’s thinking: especially aggressive music made participant infer situation differently (question used here was something like: “Alan Wake have gun in his coat pocket, agree-disagree).
- They state: “An inappropriate piece of music can kill the experience for the player”, which seem intuitively correct.
- However, the study does not address whether playing the game would change the results; there might be differences between concentrating on clip and concentrating on making decisions (especially if cognitive load of playing is high).
Moffat & Kiegler. 2006. Investigating the Affects of Music on Emotion in Games. Presented at Audio Mostly Games, Piteaå, Sweden (October 11 – 12). Available http://wood.tii.se/sonic/images/stories/amc06/amc_proceedings_low.pdf.
Petri Lankoski 