Psychophysiological Approach for Determining Mental States Associated With Serious Games

Abstract

The role of cognitive aspects has been widely researched in learning context. Yet very handful of studies are visible in the literature that digs deeper to find the role of affect in learning situations. While this situation remains the same it seems that the learning /teaching methods used in learning contexts also not proven success. We have found that gaming, in particularly serious gaming is an appropriate way of learning and acquiring new knowledge. Flow theory which states that certain mental states are a product of challenge level of a task and users skill level stands as a gateway to evaluate the affective states in learning context. In this study we have used serious games as the method of learning and to assess the relationship between affective states and flow theory we have followed a psychophysiological approach. This research is composed of a well-designed experiment initiated after a thorough literature survey and several pilot experiments. We have went extreme lengths to protect the purity of primary data obtained in the experiment. After a successful data collection, analysis was conducted and after that we concluded that affective states can be measured in serious games and relaxation and challenge has strong relationship. And also we have found that some personality traits such as conscientiousness have a strong relationship with the affective states. Validly of the finding were proven via statistical methods.