A new study has found that poker machine noises are very influential in the player’s experience. In addition to enhancing the environment, they also tend to mislead players about their progress in the game. The study was conducted at the University of Waterloo in Ontario. The lead scientist was behavioral neuroscientist Michael J. Dixon, who wanted to determine the ways in which poker machine design influenced players.
He and his research team found that the noises that each machine makes can fool players into thinking that they have won more than they actually have. Dixon and his team noted the way in which poker machine sounds worked. Whenever a player won a portion of their wager back, the game would play the same sounds that were triggered when a player won a multiple of their wager.
So, regardless of whether you win $0.25 on a $1 bet or $5 on a $1 bet, the machine will make the same sound. The research team wanted to know what effect this would have on players. The study involved 96 players. For the first half of the experiment, they were seated at pokie simulations that made all of the typical gaming noises. Next, they played games that did not make any noise.
After the both experiences, they were asked a number of questions, including how many times they thought they had won during each session. All players overestimated their wins, regardless of the noises. However, when they played the games with noises, the number of perceived wins was much higher.
"Although sounds may have contributed to players' enjoyment of the game, sound may also lead to an overestimation of winning,” writes Dixon. “Both of these effects may contribute to gambling problems, such as misbeliefs about the true chances of winning, and persistence that some players experience when playing slot machines."
This is quite an interesting revelation in the gambling market. It may lead to a change in the way that manufacturers design their games.
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