WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNICATION STUDIES ONE SHINING (VIRTUAL) MOMENT: THE SOCIAL FACILITATION HYPOTHESIS EXTENDED TO VIDEO GAME PERFORMANCE Bowman, N.D. 26 Oct 2013 Media and Interaction Lab
One shining (virtual) moment: The social facilitation hypothesis extended to video game performance
Jan 27, 2015
From the first public arcade machines to the massive online worlds and professional gaming contests of today, a central part of the history of video games has been that of performance: a demonstration – often public – of mastery over a digital challenge. When we consider the notion of public performance, something often overlooked in video game research, we might also suggest the audience to play an important part of the gaming experience. Just as athletes might shine or choke when playing in front of a crowd, eSports feature gamers succeeding or failing in front of gathered crowds. Emerging research suggests the drive theory of social facilitation to provide a robust explanation of how the mere presence of an audience an affect one’s performance at a video game, and the following paper suggests how this research can be extended to better understand the interaction between gamer and audience in the eSports arena.
Citation: Bowman, N. D. (2013, October). One shining (virtual) moment: The social facilitation hypothesis extended to video game performance. Paper presented at Association of Internet Researchers 14, Denver October 24-27.
Citation: Bowman, N. D. (2013, October). One shining (virtual) moment: The social facilitation hypothesis extended to video game performance. Paper presented at Association of Internet Researchers 14, Denver October 24-27.
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- 1. ONE SHINING (VIRTUAL) MOMENT: THE SOCIAL FACILITATION HYPOTHESIS EXTENDED TO VIDEO GAME PERFORMANCEBowman, N.D. 26 Oct 2013 Media and Interaction Lab
2. GAMING AS A SOCIAL PURSUIT For all of our work on player psychology, much of this is done in laboratory settings PRO: content effects CON: low ecological validity; wheres the crowd in all of this? 3. GAMING AS A PERFORMANCE 4. GAMING AS A PERFORMANCE League of Legends: Season Finals 5. GAMING AS A PERFORMANCE eSports represent mass performance twitch.tv pulls in 20M monthly viewers In July 13, MLG saw 21K in-person attendance 6. FACILITATING GAME PLAY Recent work has used social facilitation theory to explain audience effects on gaming Bowman, N. D., Weber, R., Tamborini, R., & Sherry, J. L. (2013). Facilitating game play: How others affect performance at and enjoyment of video games. Media Psychology, 16(1), 39-64. doi: 10.1080/15213269.2012.742360 7. FACILITATING GAME PLAYDie schlechteste Triplett (1898) found that cyclists were faster around others (~30s) Zajonc (1960) found that audience stimulate arousal in many organisms (Blatta orientalis)Die beste! SFT is a behavioral approach linking arousal to performance 8. FACILITATING GAME PLAYDrive theory specifies the relationship between drive and response in predicting performance:E = f (H x D) 9. FACILITATING GAME PLAY Audience sparks drive, increasing our habits/skill response but, what do these look like in a video game environment? 10. FACILITATING GAME PLAY Rotation HETA We measured: Fine motor skill Gross motor skill 3D rotation ability 2D rotation ability Fixed targeting ability Moving targeting ability Eye-hard coordination Audience presence gave 8% boost in performance in easier games 11. How do eAthletes handle the drive process? What are the different cognitive skills that drive game performance? Will larger crowds impact drive differently? Are some games better-suited for audience influences than others? Is there a difference in the driveinducing capacity of a virtual (21M) or actual (21K) crowd?Game DriveFACILITATING ESPORTS?Habitual Response (Cognitive Skill) 12. FOR MORE INFORMATION Nick Bowman, Ph.D. [CV] Twitter (@bowmanspartan) Skype (nicholasdbowman) [email protected] and Interaction Lab
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