Distinction of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Stress in an Exercise Game by Combining Multiple Physiological Indices

In a serious game, agent characters that interact with players often appear on the game scene. These characters are usually not regarded as expert teachers or familiar friends. To develop a reliable expert teacher agent, students´ inner states can be estimated for providing efficient training individually. As a first step, the present study investigated clues to distinguish whether the cause of changes in a human´s activities are intrinsic factors or extrinsic stimuli based on physiological indices and game context. We conducted an experiment using an exercise game in which participants either provided spontaneous strategic behavior or followed a communication partner´s advice as a result of continuous interaction. We measured physiological indices and compared the responses. As a result, significant differences were found in the responses of the physiological indices. We can suggest that it is possible to distinguish intrinsic and extrinsic stress based on the physiological responses and game context.