Psychophysiological Assessment of Children Playing a Videogame with Differing Reward Types

The project seeks to understand how rewards in videogames impact children’s psychophysiological responses to help understand the appeal of playing videogames and the mechanisms for maintaining interest. Children aged 7 and 8 years will be asked to play a videogame with the in-game rewards manipulated, and their psychophysiological responses will be analysed.

Project aims

• Explore children’s psychophysiological responses to common reward types in videogames.
• Identify if there are any relationships between psychophysiological responses to reward types and the desire to keep playing
• Centre children’s voices by asking them to help interpret their own psychophysiological responses to rewards in video games.

Project design

Psychophysiological data will be collected during the gameplay session to explore the impact of these rewards on player experience. This will be supplemented with a pre-gameplay demographic and videogame experience survey, and a post-gameplay interview that asks children to help interpret their psychophysiological responses during gameplay. The study will take place at the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child Children’s Technology Centre, at QUT Kelvin Grove, and will take 90 minutes.