FPS Deaths Provide Sweet Relief To Victims
By John Timmer
February 25, 2008 - 09:20PM CT

The literature regarding the affect of violent gaming on a person's psyche is complex and often contradictory. Ultimately, many of the contradictions may result from differences in what's being measured and how those measurements are interpreted. These challenges are nicely illustrated by a paper in the most recent issue of the journal Emotion.

The paper tracks the emotional responses of players of a first person shooter as they kill and get killed, but it leaves unanswered questions regarding what emotions those responses actually reflect. The design of the study was pretty straightforward. A group of Finnish college students, lured with free movie tickets, were asked to play two games: the first person shooter James Bond 007: NightFire, and the nonviolent Super Monkey Ball 2.

While playing, skin conductance levels were monitored to track emotional arousal, while specific emotions were measured by electrodes that followed the activities of facial muscles. The students were also given a test (the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire) that determined psychotic tendencies. According to the authors, those who get high scores on the test are, "impulsive, sadistic, hostile, aggressive, unemotional, and lacking in empathy."

They also tend to find media portrayals of violence amusing, rather than disturbing. When playing James Bond, both killing and being killed consistently triggered emotional responses. The big surprise came in the measurements of facial muscles: "instead of joy resulting from victory and success, wounding and killing the opponent elicited anxiety, anger, or both."

Ars Technica
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