On the morning of December 3, 2018, Professor Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard, Department of Communication and Psychology and Department of Music, Aalborg University, visited the “Philosopher's Table”, bringing us a wonderful and attractive academic report “Sound and Biofeedback in Computer Games” at the five-storey senior conference center of School of Humanities, Liberal Arts Building, Jiulonghu Campus. The lecture was chaired by Dr. Huang Ting of the Department of Philosophy and Science. Professor Xia Baohua, Dr. Wang Yongzhong, Dr. Liu Min, Dr. Wu Xiaoxi and some postgraduates of the Department of Philosophy and Science attended the lecture.
The lecture is divided into two parts. In the first part, Professor Mark briefly introduced and reviewed the history of sound development in computer games through video and audio of several classic computer games. In fact, the research on the sound of computer games drew on previous theories and terms: media research (such as movies), sound research, on-the-spot and cognitive psychology. For example, first, in traditional movies, sound can be classified as “plot” or “non-plot”, which means that characters in movies usually do not hear background music or narration (or are unaffected), while audiences can. But sometimes this distinction is invalid for the voice of a computer game, because the uniqueness of the player's identity allows him to hear both voices at the same time. Secondly, “acoustic” sound refers to those voices whose source cannot be seen temporarily but they constitute an important part of the whole sound space and environment. Thirdly, the theory of sound ecology studies how human beings or other organisms in an environment or space interact with the environment and other organisms through sound. Fourthly, the concept of “audibility” illustrates how sound influences and changes human behavior and presence. Fifthly, the concept of “auditory symbols” shows how people reconstruct and rewrite the real voice and make the new voice become a cultural symbol (that is, when people hear the voice they can identify its source and characteristics). Sixth, emotional and psychological psychology try to explore how voice causes and stimulates people's certain emotions. These theories and terms have important guiding significance for the follow-up study of sound or music in computer games and the design of computer games.
In the second part, Professor Mark introduced the biofeedback in computer games (its connotation, related technology, equipment and application status). Biofeedback refers to the interaction between players and game engines (software) through relevant game devices (focusing on sound technology and equipment) and their effects. The game engine monitors the player's behavior or emotions and thus changes the game status accordingly, while the player's perceptual organ system detects these changes and makes corresponding actions or emotions accordingly (for example, different voice types can arouse different emotions). These two aspects of the interactive process of biofeedback are complementary and inseparable. According to this mechanism or principle, computer game designers can monitor players' psychological and physiological reactions in real time (physical muscle tension or reaction can be considered to be in a certain mood or can directly detect surface brain waves through EEG technology and equipment), and adjust their design to improve or reduce players' emotions in real time. In this sense, computer game design is a kind of “sound-emotion engineering”. Real-time design or adjust the sound or music of the game so as to create and stimulate some kind of emotion that the designer hopes to achieve, so as to better immerse the player in the game world.
