1. ONE SHINING (VIRTUAL) MOMENT: THE SOCIAL FACILITATION HYPOTHESIS EXTENDED TO VIDEO GAME PERFORMANCEBowman, N.D. 26 Oct 2013 Media and Interaction Lab

2. GAMING AS A SOCIAL PURSUIT For all of our work on player psychology, much of this is done in laboratory settings PRO: content effects CON: low ecological validity; wheres the crowd in all of this? 3. GAMING AS A PERFORMANCE 4. GAMING AS A PERFORMANCE League of Legends: Season Finals 5. GAMING AS A PERFORMANCE eSports represent mass performance twitch.tv pulls in 20M monthly viewers In July 13, MLG saw 21K in-person attendance 6. FACILITATING GAME PLAY Recent work has used social facilitation theory to explain audience effects on gaming Bowman, N. D., Weber, R., Tamborini, R., & Sherry, J. L. (2013). Facilitating game play: How others affect performance at and enjoyment of video games. Media Psychology, 16(1), 39-64. doi: 10.1080/15213269.2012.742360 7. FACILITATING GAME PLAYDie schlechteste Triplett (1898) found that cyclists were faster around others (~30s) Zajonc (1960) found that audience stimulate arousal in many organisms (Blatta orientalis)Die beste! SFT is a behavioral approach linking arousal to performance 8. FACILITATING GAME PLAYDrive theory specifies the relationship between drive and response in predicting performance:E = f (H x D) 9. FACILITATING GAME PLAY Audience sparks drive, increasing our habits/skill response but, what do these look like in a video game environment? 10. FACILITATING GAME PLAY Rotation HETA We measured: Fine motor skill Gross motor skill 3D rotation ability 2D rotation ability Fixed targeting ability Moving targeting ability Eye-hard coordination Audience presence gave 8% boost in performance in easier games 11. How do eAthletes handle the drive process? What are the different cognitive skills that drive game performance? Will larger crowds impact drive differently? Are some games better-suited for audience influences than others? Is there a difference in the driveinducing capacity of a virtual (21M) or actual (21K) crowd?Game DriveFACILITATING ESPORTS?Habitual Response (Cognitive Skill) 12. FOR MORE INFORMATION Nick Bowman, Ph.D. [CV] Twitter (@bowmanspartan) Skype (nicholasdbowman) nicholas.bowman@mail.wvu.eduMedia and Interaction Lab