Media entertainment: the phychology of its appeal
Dolf zillmann and peter vorderer
2000
published by - lawrence erlbaum associates, Inc
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pages 200-201

Emotions in real life, on film and in videogames.

in order to provide a framework for understanding possible differences betweensthe emotional impact of film
and interactive videogames I recapitulate some fundamentals in emotional theory (cf Grodal, 1997)
and relate these to film and games. A precondition for eliciting strong emotions is to present some stimuli
that are central concerns of living beings, for instance a threat on life or health.

Such stimuli will elicit physical arousal. arousal is a very general physiological process, and,
as argued by cognitive labelling theorists of human emotions, in order to create emotions out of arousal you
need cognitive analysis of the situation, resulting in a cognitive labelling of the arousal.

pages 201-202
A simple example: if you suddenly meet a lion on a savannah it would create arousal. the context will
determine how the arousal is moulded into an emotion. if you are armed you may feel aggression and shoot the
lion, but if unarmed you might feel fright and lookfor escape, you might feel that you are
unable to cope with the situation and look for escape and feel dispair. if you are safely placed in a
photo safari jeep, the arousal is transformed into delight.

the emotional expierience of a given situation will consequently be differentaccordint to whether it is cued
by a film or a game.
When veiwing a film the labelling of the emotions felt is determined by the veiwers passive
appreciation of the film characters coping potential,
but when in a game the coping potential is that of the player which in turn determines the emotional
expeirience. the unskilled player may feel dispair when encountering the lion but a more skilled player
will fuel the arousal into a series of couragous actions. Videogames therefore simulate emotions in a form
that is closer to typical real life expeiriences than film: emotions are motivators for actions and are
labelled according to the players coping potentials.

page 202

compared to cinema and tv, games have a less salient input, although sound and graphics have improved
significantly. but games make up for this by providing more sophisticated devices for processing the input
in relation to output. a game provides an interactive interface, which enables the playerto control actions
and also often perceptions by an abillity to control thepoint of veiw, that is,
to control the point from which, and the direction by which, the game world is represented.
this leads to several dramatic changes compared to veiwing a film.

- the player needs to use attention in order to control perception, including the point of view

- the player needs to make mental maps of the gamespace as if it were a real three-dimentional world
he needs to notice landmarks, significant casual relations and so on.

- the player needs toactivly coordinatevisual attention and motor actions(by mouse, joystick, controller)
the feedbackfrom the activation of these procedural schemata will create additional arousal
the activation and coordination of the different mental functions and representations will
compete with limited capacity in working memory and possibly cause mental overload.