How Color Properties Can Be Used to Elicit Emotions in Video Games

Hindawi Publishing Corporation International Journal of Computer Games Technology Volume 2016, Article ID 5182768, 9 pages http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2016/5182768 Research Article How Color Properties Can Be Used to Elicit Emotions in Video Games Erik Geslin,1,2 Laurent Jégou,3 and Danny Beaudoin4 1 UCO Laval 3Di, LICIA, 25 rue du Mans, 53000 Laval, France Arts et Métiers ParisTech, LAMPA, 2 Boulevard du Ronceray, 49000 Angers, France 3 Maı̂tre de Conférences, Department of Geography and UMR LISST, Toulouse Jean-Jaurès University, 5 allée Antonio Machado, 31058 Toulouse Cedex 9, France 4 Psychology Department, Faculty of Social Sciences, Université Laval, Pavillon Félix-Antoine-Savard, 2325 rue des Bibliothèques, Quebec City, QC, Canada G1V 0A6 2 Correspondence should be addressed to Erik Geslin; Received 2 September 2015; Revised 8 December 2015; Accepted 14 December 2015 Academic Editor: Manuel M. Oliveira Copyright © 2016 Erik Geslin et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Classifying the many types of video games is difficult, as their genres and supports are different, but they all have in common that they seek the commitment of the player through exciting emotions and challenges. Since the income of the video game industry exceeds that of the film industry, the field of inducting emotions through video games and virtual environments is attracting more attention. Our theory, widely supported by substantial literature, is that the chromatic stimuli intensity, brightness, and saturation of a video game environment produce an emotional effect on players. We have observed a correlation between the RGB additives color spaces, HSV, HSL, and HSI components of video game images, presented to 𝑛 = 85 participants, and the emotional statements expressed in terms of arousal and valence, recovered in a subjective semantic questionnaire. Our results show a significant correlation between luminance, saturation, lightness, and the emotions of joy, sadness, fear, and serenity experienced by participants viewing 24 video game images. We also show strong correlations between the colorimetric diversity, saliency volume, and stimuli conspicuity and the emotions expressed by the players. These results allow us to propose video game environment development methods in the form of a circumplex model. It is aimed at game designers for developing emotional color scripting. 1. Introduction It is widely accepted today that emotions are a key element in the success of video games. They can create a variety of experiences that players will encounter, and these can usually be described using a formal taxonomy, such as flow [1], presence [2], immersion [3], and fun [4]. Producing emotions through environments or narration is a key challenge in this industry. Human emotions have been studied in literature since antiquity, and they were initially opposed to reason [5]. Scientific research on emotions, in the fields of neuroscience and psychology, has recently shown that if their role is primarily to take part in the survival of the species, contributing to preservation and reproduction, they are not provided exclusively as reflexes and relayed only to limbic brain but are also cognitive [6]. Many phenomena and contextual stimuli result in the production of complex emotions, which can be classified into categories with 5 basic emotions [7] and 21 known combinatorial emotions [8], or with a dimensional space based on their valence and activation level [9]. The literature has shown for several years strong links between visual stimuli and emotions [10]. Effects of colors on emotions were studied several times and although there are diverging results about which colors promote a positive or negative mood, these works show a strong correlation between colors, hue, saturation, and brightness with emotional arousal, valence, and dominance [11]. Several studies show that the human brain (or the macaque’s, as reference) is much more active in environments of colors like red compared to yellow [12]. A 23-culture semantic differential study of affective 2 International Journal of Computer Games Technology Circumplex model for emotions induction in video games and virtual environments Stress High arousal emotions Excitation Fear Joy Rapid movements Wide open spaces Wide shots Social communication Action Strong colors Lights Positive valence Interactions Sharing Creation Earnings Serenity/Zen Desaturation Darkness Negative valence Dirt No trade Sadness Loss Shyness Slow movements Enclosed spaces Low arousal emotions Negative quiet Close-ups No communication Obedience/Docility Positive quiet Rapid movements Slow movements © Erik Geslin Ph.D. 2012-2013 Figure 1: Circumplex model of induction of emotions in video games [15]. meanings also reveals cross-cultural similarities in emotional color perception [13]. We will not discuss the case of each color in a virtual environment, but we will instead focus on the general effects of hue, saturation, and lightness on the emotions of players. We present a study involving 𝑛 = 85 participants on the correlations between the RGB hue, saturation, and value components of 24 frames of video game environments and the emotional effects collected in a semantic subjective questionnaire, which was based on the IAPS survey [14]. This method is based on a schematic circumplex dimensional model of emotions in a virtual reality context [15]. This model is included in an evolutionary perspective of cognitive overgeneralization; it does not take into account the personal experiences of players which inevitably lead to an idiosyncratic positioning. We do not question the strength of these environmental aspects but we seek to define a more general methodology. This method allows game designers to create emotional environments in accordance with the curves of interest (script pacing) to keep players in an optimal state of flow, depending on the ratios of challenge, boredom, and engagement [16]. Since the flow experience in games is accepted as being related to the emotional involvement of the player [17–19], emotions are therefore seen as an essential part of the production of a video game. These emotions are the result of both gameplay and narrative but can also be produced by games with active environments. This is the kind of emotional environment that we offer to help build with color scripting via our circumplex model of emotion induction (Figure 1). 2. Methods 2.1. Image Analysis. There has been many studies on emotional colors (term defined below), both isolated or combined in pairs [20–22], and they have been in use for a long time in areas such as advertisement design. However, studies on the emotional impact of complex images are more rare. Both the difficulties of the cho (...truncated)