Effects of Built-in Audio versus Unrelated Background Music on Performance In an Adventure Role-Playing Game

This article presents an empirical study of the role of video game audio on performance. Twenty participants played The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess on the Wii console for a 45-minute session on five consecutive days. Employing a repeated measures design, the authors exposed players to one orientation session and four sound conditions, i.e., silence, remote control sounds, remote control and screen sounds, and unrelated music played on a boom-box, in a counterbalanced order. Performance was weakest when playing without sound, increasingly stronger with audio emitted by remote control only, and by remote-and-screen respectively. Surprisingly, the highest scores were earned when playing with music that was unrelated to players’ actions or events unfolding on screen. These findings point to the challenges of processing multisensory cues during the initial stages of an elaborate role-playing game, and suggest that the most effective players swiftly develop strategies incorporating task-relevant information conveyed by both sound and images. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-0029-4.ch010