Practicing emotion-regulation through biofeedback on the decision-making performance in the context of serious games: A systematic review

Evidence shows that emotions critically influence human decision-making. Therefore, emotion-regulation using biofeedback has been extensively investigated. Nevertheless, serious games have emerged as a valuable tool for such investigations set in the decision-making context. This review sets out to investigate the scientific evidence regarding the effects of practicing emotion-regulation through biofeedback on the decision-making performance in the context of serious games. A systematic search of five electronic databases (Scopus, Web of Science, IEEE, PubMed Central, Science Direct), followed by the author and snowballing investigation, was conducted from a publication’s year of inception to October 2018. The search identified 16 randomized controlled experiment/quasi-experiment studies that quantitatively assessed the performance on decision-making tasks in serious games, involving students, military, and brain-injured participants. It was found that the participants who raised awareness of emotions and increased the skill of emotion-regulation were able to successfully regulate their arousal, which resulted in better decision performance, reaction time, and attention scores on the decision-making tasks. It is suggested that serious games provide an effective platform validated through the evaluative and playtesting studies, that supports the acquisition of the emotion-regulation skill through the direct (visual) and indirect (gameplay) biofeedback presentation on decision-making tasks.