Correlation Between Sensorimotor Performance and Emotions in e-Sports

Correlation Between Sensorimotor Performance and Emotions in e-Sports Correlation Between Sensorimotor Performance and Emotions in e-Sports Despite the rapid growth in popularity of e-sports (e.g., viewership, number of players, prizes), they have received significantly less attention than traditional sports from mainstream laboratory research e.g., psychology, human factors, cognitive and motor neuroscience. This is a major gap and timely opportunity to (a) study the key cognitive and sensorimotor traits of e-sport players, (b) capitalize on this new knowledge to improve their experience, and (c) attract new users by tapping on user-specific goals, personality traits, and preferences. To address these gaps, we propose to perform a study consisting of two phases, both of which will systematically investigate the extent to which emotional, cognitive, and physiological responses correlate with esport performance (motor execution). In Phase 1, we will quantify the correlation between emotions and performance in esports. In the first part of Phase 1, we will extract and analyze facial expressions, a proxy for emotional responses, in pre-recorded games and official results to determine the strength of the correlation between these two variables. In the second part of Phase 1, we will record facial expression, together with physiological data and related biometrics in a laboratory setting or controlled competition recordings. The set of variables we will extract include motor responses (execution success: ratio of successful-to-failed attempts at scoring points), cognitive responses (reaction time: time between the stimulus and motor response), and physiological responses (heart rate, heart rate variability).