Investigating the Effects of Individual Cognitive Styles on Collaborative Gameplay

Investigating the Effects of Individual Cognitive Styles on Collaborative Gameplay

Investigating the Effects of Individual Cognitive Styles on Collaborative Gameplay

Sultan A. Alharthi, George E. Raptis, Christina Katsini, Igor Dolgov, Lennart E. Nacke, Z.O. Toups

Abstract

In multiplayer collaborative games, players need to coordinate their actions and synchronize their efforts effectively to succeed as a team; thus, individual differences can impact teamwork and gameplay. This article investigates the effects of cognitive styles on teams engaged in collaborative gaming activities. Fifty-four individuals took part in a mixed-methods user study; they were classified as field-dependent (FD) or independent (FI) based on a field-dependent–independent (FD-I) cognitive-style-elicitation instrument. Three groups of teams were formed, based on the cognitive style of each team member: FD-FD, FD-FI, and FI-FI. We examined collaborative gameplay in terms of team performance, cognitive load, communication, and player experience. The analysis revealed that FD-I cognitive style affected the performance and mental load of teams. We expect the findings to provide useful insights on understanding how cognitive styles influence collaborative gameplay.

Reference

Alharthi, S. A., Raptis, G. E., Katsini, C., Dolgov, I., Nacke, L. E., & Toups, Z. O. (2021). Investigating the effects of individual cognitive styles on collaborative gameplay. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI), 28(4), 1-49. https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3445792

Keywords

computer games, games, social gaming, online games