Analyzing the Impact of Tempo-changing Music for user Performance and Risk-taking Behavior in Video Games

Abstract:  Background. In real life humans have been proven to be affected in different ways by music. In sports, music can be shown to be useful for better performance. Taking this into thought while playing video games could help players perform better as well as in real life. Objectives. This thesis aims to investigate whether music with varying tempos can influence individuals to take more risks during video game play, with the objective of improving their overall performance. Methods. Methods used were implementation, a game test, and also a questionnaire. The game engine Unity was used to create the game "Tempo Runner" where performance and risk-taking behavior were being tracked. The questionnaire was focused on questions about risk-taking behavior. Results. Even though the results were not pointing to successful research, they did reveal a promising result for improving performance through the use of music in some ways. Taking a closer look at this topic would be beneficial for future research. On the other hand, making people take more risks through music did not show any success at all. Conclusions. Additional research is essential to definitively establish the positive effects of incorporating changing music tempos into games for performance enhancement. A critical aspect of future investigations should involve recruiting a larger and more diverse pool of participants compared to the current study. This study involved a limited sample size of 19 participants. A larger sample, ideally around 100 individuals, would provide a more robust basis for determining the impact of changing music tempos on both performance and risk-taking.