Gaming Advances from the Human Psychophysiological Perspective: Theoretical and Computational Models

Dear Colleagues,

In recent decades, in the video game industry, a vital sector where technological advances and the need for entertainment convergence have emerged, rapid growth has been observed by a global audience. This rapid growth has raised several bioengineering questions open to technical and psychophysiological challenges; addressing these challenges will create new insights for technological developments and research scenarios. Unfortunately, although the number of studies in the literature is increasing, there is still a significant gap in our understanding of the dynamics of biological processes behind human engagement and how engineering tools could be developed to improve the quality of games and safety for human beings. It is worth noting that games could be employed as both entertainment and therapeutic tools in many pathologies, such as those used to augment the aging population's quality of life. Moreover, it is fascinating to investigate the role that Artificial Intelligence could play in the game world from several perspectives. 

 For this reason, the demand for increasing knowledge regarding gaming and gamification has escalated, emphasizing the interdisciplinary nature of this field of research. Games encompass a broad domain, influencing physiological and psychological facets. Consequently, the world of games and the gamification approach offer significant potential to host intellectually stimulating content and foster convergence among different research academic backgrounds. 

This Special Issue aims to consolidate recent findings on video games' physiological and psychological variable relationships and foster new insight, including engineering, computational, and theoretical aspects. Among many others, the following application scenarios could be interesting to research:

Games and Mental Health Interventions: Gamified approaches can engage and motivate individuals, making therapeutic experiences more enjoyable and effective (e.g., treating ADHD). Specific games have recently been designed to address anxiety and stress. They could integrate relaxation techniques, cognitive restructuring exercises, or mindfulness practices, where game players can learn and practice coping skills more engagingly and interactively. 

Bio- and Neurofeedback: Integrating haptic and other biofeedback and neurofeedback methodologies into gaming enables players to monitor and regulate their physiological and cognitive states. These systems can measure psychophysiological signals such as heart rate, brainwaves, and skin conductance. Moreover, by providing real-time feedback, players can learn how to modulate their physiological responses, promoting relaxation, focus, or other desired states. Integrating psychophysiological feedback can potentially enhance players' self-awareness and self-regulation skills. 

Virtual Reality (VR) Gaming: Gaming VR immersion enables a more realistic and engaging experience. It is worth noting the technological advancements in VR, their integration with wearable systems, and their integration with IoMT can be used to mediate psychophysiological responses.

Addiction/Compulsion: Actions aiming to help alleviate addictive behaviors, compulsive gaming, and potential negative impacts on mental health could benefit significantly from new perspectives offered by the gamification approach to treatments.

Social Dynamics: Promoting participation, engagement, motivation, and active interest via gamification could enable the modification of attitudes and behaviors of users targeted by prevention interventions, such as climate change, team effectiveness and coping flexibility, physical activities, learning and educational behaviors and motivation, violence such as bullying or gender-based violence, rheumatoid arthritis or diabetes, internet and gaming disorders, and dyslexia.               

Finally, this Special Issue will augment our knowledge of how these concepts manifest physiologically and how biomedical engineering contributes to our understanding of them.

This Special Issue welcomes experiential and experimental contributions. Moreover, relevant topics may include, but are not limited to, the following:

Gamification; 

Behavioral game theory; 

Emotion analysis; 

Biosignal processing; 

Human body sensing; 

Virtual reality; 

Machine learning; 

Reinforcement learning; 

Gaming disorder. 

Dr. Antonio Lanata
Dr. Andrea Guazzini
Prof. Dr. Kyoungju Park
Guest Editors

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• gamification
• behavioral game theory
• emotion analysis
• biosignal processing