Emotion in video game audio : Can sound effects be perceived to contain positive emotional content?

Abstract: Sound is an important part of almost all media. In games, sounds are used to evoke intense emotions in players. Studies has showed that music on its own can induce emotions. Soundeffects is another type of sounds that appear in games. However, do they contribute to the emotional experience? Understanding this will help sound designers enhance scenes in future video games. In this study, 23 participants were asked to conduct a test divided into two part. In the first part they were tasked to listen to four sound effects of fire and choose attributes from a predetermined list that they thought suited. Among these physical attributes were two emotional attributes. In the second part, the subjects were tasked with choosing one of the fours sound effects for a scenario with a positive emotion and motivate their choice. The results show that no sound had neither positive nor negative as an emotional attribute. Of the four sounds, two showed significance that emotion alone was an attribute for the sound. The results from the second part showed that the subjects were divided in what motivated them to choose a sound. More than a third of the subjects based their choice only on if the sound matched the emotion of the scenario presented while slightly less than a third based it only on to fit the location. The last third based it on both emotion and location.