Link is thrust into his destiny of having to defeat evil by collecting items and tools throughout Hyrule, proving himself a hero and eventually leading to a showdown with a villain. However, his journey is not as simple as defeating evil... more
Link is thrust into his destiny of having to defeat evil by collecting items and tools throughout Hyrule, proving himself a hero and eventually leading to a showdown with a villain. However, his journey is not as simple as defeating evil and saving the princess. There are multiple and significant psychological concepts at play throughout the different games in this series. This panel will link the psychological concepts found in each game for discussion and questions from the audience.
The general public’s first exposure to the Legend of Zelda series came from the original Legend of Zelda (1987)—specifically, its opening credits. Before a video gamer even started playing, the Title Screen music set the tone of the game.... more
The general public’s first exposure to the Legend of Zelda series came from the original Legend of Zelda (1987)—specifically, its opening credits. Before a video gamer even started playing, the Title Screen music set the tone of the game. The driving rhythms and grandioso melodies allow the player know they’re about to be thrown into an epic journey. The Legend of Zelda series set the tempo in the series with the music from the original game. To this day, the music from the original game is still special. Players hear the songs from the original game and feel those original emotions they had during their first plays of the games. This emotional draw comes from a place bigger than the game itself. As this original Zelda game was the first to introduce the game-playing world to the kingdom and mythology of Hyrule, its music played a crucial role in engaging a player enough to press “start” (Consalvo, 2003).
The music that a player hears during the first exposure of the Legend of Series aids a player in making the decision if they would like to start playing. Every note, beat, and rest weaves together a musical narrative that expands the audience’s understanding of what their expectation should be playing that game. This initial interaction is vital. A player will only spend a limited amount of time determining if a game is worth their time and most of it is spent in the beginning stages including the title screen. The music the player hears during the Title Screen helps the player maintain their interest in the game and communicate to the player what to expect when playing the Legend of Zelda (Livingstone & Brown, 2005).
Music affects and sticks with us for many reasons, but there are several psychological theories that best explain why the Legend of Zelda’s music does so in particular: the mere-exposure effect, the lizard (lizalfos) brain, and aesthetics of music. To fully understand the impact of the music in The Legend of Zelda and the reason it remains an iconic part of the game—and, in turn, our popular culture—it is crucial to contemplate and examine the psychological components that provide the music with so much meaning.
Recent exposure to people or objects increases liking ratings, the “mere exposure effect” (Zajonc, 1968), and an increase in processing fluency has been identified as a potential mechanism for producing this effect. This fluency... more
Recent exposure to people or objects increases liking ratings, the “mere exposure effect” (Zajonc, 1968), and an increase in processing fluency has been identified as a potential mechanism for producing this effect. This fluency hypothesis was directly tested by altering the trial-by-trial image clarity (i.e., fluency) while Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) were recorded. In Experiment 1, clarity was altered across two trial blocks that each had homogenous trial-by-trial clarity, whereas clarity varied randomly across trials in Experiment 2. Blocking or randomizing image clarity across trials was expected to produce different levels of relative fluency and alter mere exposure effects. The mere exposure effect (i.e., old products liked more than new products) was observed when stimulus clarity remained constant across trials, and clear image ERPs were more positive than blurry image ERPs. Importantly, these patterns were reversed when clarity varied randomly across test trials, such that participants liked clear images more than blurry (i.e., no mere exposure effect) and clear image ERPs were more negative than blurry image ERPs. The findings provide direct experimental support from both behavioral and electrophysiological measures that, in some contexts, mere exposure is the product of top-down interpretations of fluency.
Abstract Mentally rehearsing unfamiliar first names for the purpose of categorizing them into a group produces both preference for and, more surprisingly, identification with the group of names (ie, association of the names with self;... more
Abstract Mentally rehearsing unfamiliar first names for the purpose of categorizing them into a group produces both preference for and, more surprisingly, identification with the group of names (ie, association of the names with self; Greenwald, Pickrell, & Farnham, 2002). The present research started as an effort to determine how these 'implicit partisanship'effects of stimulus exposures differed from the well-known mere exposure effect and whether mental rehearsal might play a role in both phenomena. Four experiments found that parallel ...
