Examining empirically the immersive effects of dynamic music for the first time, a study was conducted to explore imaginary and sensory immersion, suspension of disbelief, flow, spatial presence, possible actions, emotional valence/arousal and performance in a 3rd person action-adventure video game. 60 subjects answered self-report questionnaires each time after playing the game in one of three conditions accounting for [1] dynamic music, [2] non-dynamic music/low arousal potential and [3] non-dynamic music/high arousal potential, in this way manipulating affective arousal, structural-temporal alignment and emotional congruency of nondiegetic music separately.
Hans-Peter Gasselseder (Mag. rer. nat., Dipl.-Psy.) has studied Psychology, Communication Science, and Musicology/Dance Science as majors at the University of Salzburg, Austria. Also working as a tutor and research assistant in Salzburg and Aalborg, he has conducted several studies on immersive experience, situational context as well as the application of music and sound-fx in different media with a special emphasis on film music and video games. Further research topics include sound perception, forewarning-fear and coping, personality and situational trait models as well as eye movements in reading. Also being active as a composer and virtual orchestrator for the media, he has worked professionally as a producer in advertising as well as a assistant director and stage designer of Europe's first multi-media opera. Currently he works as a research assistant and is preparing his PhD thesis at Aalborg University, Denmark.
University of Nottingham School of Computer Science Nottingham, NG8 1BB
email: mrl@cs.nott.ac.uk