audiovisual cues x immersion
The Challenge
Modern slots machines induce game immersion in users. Design features can influence play and may interact with personal risk factors. Past work show win-paired, audiovisual cues strongly motivate behaviour. But, there is no evidence showing if audiovisual cues lead to immersion during slot machine play.
The Approach
Undergraduate students played a realistic multi-line slot machine simulator while wearing a mobile eye-tracker (Pupil Labs). Post play, they finished a few questionnaires. We examined:
- Self-reported immersion: a cognitive variable (subjective immersion)
- Spin Initiation Latency: a behavioural UX metric
- Dwell Time: a behavioural measure of attention (assumed to indicate objective immersion)
We developed and conducted gamma-log-logistic regression models on R1, 2 and non-parametric rank-aligned models2, 3.
The Impact
Audiovisual cues with medium intensity influence self-reported immersion, supporting the notion that optimal audiovisual features as an engineered product aspect 1. Gender interacted with this effect. General psychological distress also predicted self-reported immersion. Personal risk factors can influence the ability of sensory features to lead to immersion during play.
Spin Initiation Latencies are the shortest in the condition with the highest intensity of audiovisual cues2, 3. These latencies are longest following wins, when compared to two other game outcome types (losses and losses-disguised-as-wins). This effect is called the post-reinforcement pause.
Basically, environmental, sensory cues are filtered through individual cognitive-affective and person-level to shape immersive experiences.
Project deliverables
Primary Research Manuscript (First Author)1
PhD Disseration2, 3
Preprint3