Paper Reading #5: Understanding User Experience in Stereoscopic 3D Games

Understanding User Experience in Stereoscopic 3D Games is a paper that was presented in CHI 2012 and aims to explore how the user really reacts to a game played in stereoscopic 3D games via a psycho-physiological and subjective feedback metrics.

The authors of the work are the following:

• Jonas Schild: Researcher in the Entertainment Computing Group in the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany. Has many many previous studies gauging player experience related to gaming.
• Joseph J. LaViola Jr.: An  Associate Professor of EECS, University of Central Florida, has made several studies regarding human interaction with different interfaces aside from gaming as well as several studies regarding computer graphics.
• Maic Masuch: Like with Jonas Schild, Masuch is associated with the Entertainment Computing Group at the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany. His studies focus on perspectives in gaming as well as computer graphics.

Summary

This study was focused with the gauging of experience regarding stereoscopic 3D. Users were provided stereoscopic 3D shutter glasses and PC titles on a standard high-definition television.

In terms of the experiment itself, the procedure and gathering of data was relatively straightforward, with most of the paper's focus being on the interpretation of said data. Users of all demographics, both experienced in gaming and inexperienced, were asked to describe their experience in the game for both 3D and non-3D through professional metrics such as the Game Experience Questionnaire, which measured Immersion, Flow, and Competence among other metrics. Psychophysiological data was measured using a headset named the NeuroSky MindSet that measured levels of attention and stress. The data that was acquired was then heavily analyzed using a variety of mathematical models and organized in a way to identify any possible patterns.

Related Work

Related papers in the field of player experience from 3D games were found to be the following:

1. Designing for user experience: what to expect from mobile 3d tv and video?
2. Navigation in 3D virtual environments: Effects of userexperience and location-pointing navigation aids
3. Bringing VR and Spatial 3D Interaction to the Masses through Video Games
4. Simulator sickness in virtual display gaming: a comparison of stereoscopic and non-stereoscopic situations
5. Evaluating the Usability of an Auto-stereoscopic Display
6. Virtual Reality: How Much Immersion Is Enough?
7. Measuring Experiences in Gaming and TV Applications Investigating the Added Value of a Multi-View Auto-Stereoscopic 3D Display
8. Visual Discomfort in Stereoscopic Displays: A Review
9. Stereoscopic 3D film and animation: getting it right
10. A study of visual fatigue and visual comfort for 3D HDTV/HDTV images

Some of the related papers were focused on presenting technologies of their own, rather than simply gauge the user experience of stereoscopic 3D. However, they also conducted studies that pertain to the study in this paper. Overall, it is clear that this new technology is being analyzed by these different studies as we begin to see a heightened inclusion of stereoscopic 3D in different media, particularly with video and gaming.

Evaluation

The data that was acquired from the experiment came from two different sources, the questionnaire provided to the testers and the data from the NeuroSky MindSet. The information acquired from one of the questionnaires is as follows:

From this data and its interpretation, the researchers were able to conclude that their findings pointed toward a higher level of motion sickness as well as increased spatial presence within the game itself. The researchers had previously hypothesized that the game itself was not going to have any significant effect, but the researchers found that the results showed the games did significantly alter these results.

The MindSet data was shown to be the following:

According to the researchers findings, they reported that the data pointed to lower mean Attention during  the gameplay, but this effect is not entirely clear on how it changed their conclusion because they mentioned there was no correlation between Attention and any metric in their experiment.

Discussion

Generally, I found this test to be interesting given the fact that stereoscopic 3D is poised to have a pervasive effect in home video over the next few years. Studies like these make are of great importance as people are gauged how well they react to these radically new methods of video output, especially in gaming where concentration and interpretation of video feedback is vital for a game's enjoyment. A large portion of the paper was devoted to the mathematical formats they followed to interpret this data, which I found nto to make a large difference in terms of informing the technology enthusiast, but for future works in this field other scientists could very well find it useful.