A couple of weeks ago we published a paper about the influence of challenge and threat appraisal on performance of gamers (Counter-Strike: Global Offensive). One important thing that we found was that the best players are more self-confident and achieve higher scores because they are able to achieve high physiological arousal compared to weaker players.

We feel so fortunate to receive enormous positive feedback from the gaming community, media, and other researchers. We seriously think that there is a need for League of Esports & Gaming Scientists (LEGS) that would unite the efforts of scholars who believe that a wide range of research on gaming is needed that goes beyond the typical problems of addiction and aggression related to gaming. We would be very happy to get in touch with everyone who has a similarly open-minded approach towards esports and gaming. We believe that such an initiative has LEGS ;)

Please find below a short summary from Polish Press Agency that covers our research.

"A lot of negative stereotypes have grown up about e-sports and gamers, which obscure positive aspects of gaming such as teamwork. Research on e-sports has been conducted by scientists from the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, who will study the influence of emotions on gamers and the effectiveness of their performance.

Research on esports with the participation of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and football video game FIFA players, in the Health Psychophysiology Laboratory has been conducted by Maciej Behnke, a graduate of the Academy of Physical Education, and his PhD supervisor interested in the psychophysiology of emotions, Prof. Lukasz Kaczmarek, privately - a fan of video games. The research is financed from the funds of the Department of Psychology and Cognitive Science of Adam Mickiewicz University and a grant from the National Science Centre.

For research on esports, scientists use a complex methodology of psychophysiological laboratory experiments. Apart from the game results (e.g., number of goals scored), physiological signals (e.g., heart rate or blood flow), facial expression or motor activity of the body are recorded.

Behnke and Kaczmarek believe that universities should play a much greater role in the developing world of esports. As they emphasize, stereotypical thinking about gamers dominates. These stereotypes concern addiction and aggression that are related to gaming. Such stereotypes obscure obvious positive effects of playing games, such as building new social relations, learning teamwork, setting long-term goals, or simply enjoyable and relaxing leisure time.

As psychologists argue, video games are becoming more and more popular as a form of entertainment and cultural phenomenon, and scientists must study their possible negative and positive consequences. "The gaming situation creates excellent, controllable conditions for testing many general psychological problems. Research on gamers allows us to show general mechanisms that influence human behavior, such as the influence of emotions on the effectiveness of action. Scientific research should inform how to make the best use of games in the future, e.g. for shaping effective methods of regulating emotions – suggest researchers from Poznań."
 
(PAP - Science in Poland), translated automatically with DeepL

You can record a macro in LabChart for repeated parts of the data analysis. It is a great way to reduce your time for analyses. In fact, it is the only way to process physiological data without losing your mind if you have more than, say, 10 cases to analyze.

However... If you want to push the limit even further, you can use a simple subroutine that I wrote. Just copy the Sub DoBlock into your macro, and then used this command:

DoBlock "a", 20, "Forwards", 10

For the first parameter (here: a), enter the comment that you want to find.
For the second parameter (here: 20), enter how long selection you need.
For the third parameter, enter forwards (or just f), if you want the selection to be marked forward relative to the comment.
For the fourth parameter, enter how long chunks you want to transfer to data pad.

In the above example, LabChart will search for the comment "a," select 20 seconds after this comment, and transfer two blocks 10-sec long into Data Pada.

I found using such subroutine extremely useful to keep the macro clean when you need to process several parts of the signal.


Copy this to your macro:

Sub DoBlock(name, seconds, selectionDirection, chuncks)

    'go to the beginning
    ' Begin Find
    ChannelIndex = 3
    SetAction = kSetPeriod
    SelectMode = kSelectAfter
    SelectTime = 0
    DataDisplayMode = kViewDataVisible
    SelectAll = True
    Direction = kSearchForward
    FindType = "Start of file"
    FindData = ""
    Call Doc.Find (ChannelIndex, SetAction, SelectMode, SelectTime, DataDisplayMode, SelectAll, Direction, FindType, FindData)
    ' End Find

    If selectionDirection = "forward"_
    OR selectionDirection = "forwards"_
    OR selectionDirection = "Forward"_
    OR selectionDirection = "Forwards"_
    OR selectionDirection = "f"_
    OR selectionDirection = "F" Then
        SelectMode = 0
    ElseIf selectionDirection = "backward"_
    OR selectionDirection = "backwards"_
    OR selectionDirection = "back"_
    OR selectionDirection = "Back"_
    OR selectionDirection = "Backward"_
    OR selectionDirection = "Backwards"_
    OR selectionDirection = "b"_
    OR selectionDirection = "B" Then
        SelectMode = 2
    ElseIf selectionDirection = "around"_
    OR selectionDirection = "Around"_
    OR selectionDirection = "a"_
    OR selectionDirection = "A" Then
        SelectMode = 1
    End if
    
    'select
    ' Begin Find
    ChannelIndex = 3
    SetAction = kSetPeriod
    'SelectMode = selectionDirection '
    SelectTime = seconds
    DataDisplayMode = kViewDataVisible
    SelectAll = True
    Direction = kSearchForward
    FindType = "Search for comment"
    FindData = "JustThisChannel=0;WhatToLookFor="+name+";"
    Call Doc.Find (ChannelIndex, SetAction, SelectMode, SelectTime, DataDisplayMode, SelectAll, Direction, FindType, FindData)
    ' End Find

    'add to datapad
    ' Begin MultipleAddToDataPad_Time
    TimeSecs = chuncks
    EveryChecked = True
    EverySecs = chuncks
    IntegralSelection = True
    SelectScope = kWithinSelection
    Call Doc.MultipleAddToDataPad_Time (TimeSecs, EveryChecked, EverySecs, IntegralSelection, SelectScope)
    ' End MultipleAddToDataPad_Time
End Sub


DISCLAIMER: Before you start processing your data with this macro, please make sure that it is doing what it is supposed to do with your data. You can compare the results with manual processing of a couple of files.

   I was very happy to attend the Spring School of Evolutionary Psychology, It was an educational event for young scholars where I was invited to teach psychophysiological and observational methods. It was organized on May 4-6, 2018 in Poland by the Polish Society for Human and Evolution Studies and the Institue of Psychology at the University of Wroclaw. Piotr Sorokowski and Agnieszka Sorokowska were the primary facilitators.
   I presented a practical introduction to well-established and some new methods for the measurement of emotions via peripheral and behavioral responses. My impression was that the audience was the most responsive to the facial expression analysis via computer software (namely, Xpress Engine that we have used in our laboratory successfully). Many people were interested in facial expression analysis. I was very happy to hear it because I have a very strong impression that facial expression analysis has been a greatly undervalued and overlooked method.
  I much enjoyed this meeting despite the fact that I do not consider myself an evolutionary psychologist. In fact, I do not consider myself any type of a psychologist. I find myself just a psychologist - a scientist that is eager to integrate various subdisciplines in psychology that are often studied separately. I think that it is important to start integrating after decades of differentiation among psychologists. However, what is always important to me is using objective methods to study subjective phenomena. This is very much in line with W. Wundt's view; an approach that resulted in the emerge of psychology as a discipline aspiring to be a part of the natural science rather than the product of solely philosophical reasoning.