The Influence of the Labeling Effect on the Perception of Command Execution Delay in Gaming

Gaming is one of the largest industries of digital entertainment. Modern gaming software may be susceptible to command execution delay, which may be caused by various factors, such as insufficient rendering capabilities or limited network resources. At the time of writing this paper, the utilized ad...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Duy H. Nguyen, Peter A. Kara
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2025-05-01
Series:Multimodal Technologies and Interaction
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2414-4088/9/5/47
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1849326970628734976
author Duy H. Nguyen
Peter A. Kara
author_facet Duy H. Nguyen
Peter A. Kara
author_sort Duy H. Nguyen
collection DOAJ
description Gaming is one of the largest industries of digital entertainment. Modern gaming software may be susceptible to command execution delay, which may be caused by various factors, such as insufficient rendering capabilities or limited network resources. At the time of writing this paper, the utilized advances in gaming are often accompanied by brief descriptions when communicated to the users. While such descriptions may be compressed into a couple of words, even a single word may impact user experience. Due to the cognitive bias induced by the labeling effect, the impact of such a word may actually be more significant than what the user genuinely perceives. In this paper, we investigate the influence of the labeling effect on the perception of command execution delay in gaming. We carried out a series of subjective tests to measure how the word “optimized” affects gaming experience. The test variables of our experiment were the added delay between command and execution, the speed of the game, and the label that was assigned to gaming sequences. The test participants were tasked to directly compare gaming sequences with the different labels assigned: “optimized” and “not optimized”. In every comparison, both sequences had the same objective characteristics; only the label differed. The experiment was conducted on single-input and continuous-input computer games that we developed for this research. The obtained results indicate that for both of these input types, the labeling effect has a statistically significant impact on perceived delay. Overall, more than 70% of the subjective ratings were affected by the assigned labels. Moreover, there is a strong correlation between the amount of delay and the effect of cognitive bias. The speed of the game also affected the obtained results, yet statistically significant differences were only measured between the slowest and the fastest gameplay.
format Article
id doaj-art-dda9f71d4ba64f4baddf7e4f81fa7277
institution Kabale University
issn 2414-4088
language English
publishDate 2025-05-01
publisher MDPI AG
record_format Article
series Multimodal Technologies and Interaction
spelling doaj-art-dda9f71d4ba64f4baddf7e4f81fa72772025-08-20T03:48:01ZengMDPI AGMultimodal Technologies and Interaction2414-40882025-05-01954710.3390/mti9050047The Influence of the Labeling Effect on the Perception of Command Execution Delay in GamingDuy H. Nguyen0Peter A. Kara1Department of Networked Systems and Services, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Informatics, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Műegyetem rkp. 3, 1111 Budapest, HungaryDepartment of Networked Systems and Services, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Informatics, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Műegyetem rkp. 3, 1111 Budapest, HungaryGaming is one of the largest industries of digital entertainment. Modern gaming software may be susceptible to command execution delay, which may be caused by various factors, such as insufficient rendering capabilities or limited network resources. At the time of writing this paper, the utilized advances in gaming are often accompanied by brief descriptions when communicated to the users. While such descriptions may be compressed into a couple of words, even a single word may impact user experience. Due to the cognitive bias induced by the labeling effect, the impact of such a word may actually be more significant than what the user genuinely perceives. In this paper, we investigate the influence of the labeling effect on the perception of command execution delay in gaming. We carried out a series of subjective tests to measure how the word “optimized” affects gaming experience. The test variables of our experiment were the added delay between command and execution, the speed of the game, and the label that was assigned to gaming sequences. The test participants were tasked to directly compare gaming sequences with the different labels assigned: “optimized” and “not optimized”. In every comparison, both sequences had the same objective characteristics; only the label differed. The experiment was conducted on single-input and continuous-input computer games that we developed for this research. The obtained results indicate that for both of these input types, the labeling effect has a statistically significant impact on perceived delay. Overall, more than 70% of the subjective ratings were affected by the assigned labels. Moreover, there is a strong correlation between the amount of delay and the effect of cognitive bias. The speed of the game also affected the obtained results, yet statistically significant differences were only measured between the slowest and the fastest gameplay.https://www.mdpi.com/2414-4088/9/5/47gamingcommand execution delaycognitive biassubjective study
spellingShingle Duy H. Nguyen
Peter A. Kara
The Influence of the Labeling Effect on the Perception of Command Execution Delay in Gaming
Multimodal Technologies and Interaction
gaming
command execution delay
cognitive bias
subjective study
title The Influence of the Labeling Effect on the Perception of Command Execution Delay in Gaming
title_full The Influence of the Labeling Effect on the Perception of Command Execution Delay in Gaming
title_fullStr The Influence of the Labeling Effect on the Perception of Command Execution Delay in Gaming
title_full_unstemmed The Influence of the Labeling Effect on the Perception of Command Execution Delay in Gaming
title_short The Influence of the Labeling Effect on the Perception of Command Execution Delay in Gaming
title_sort influence of the labeling effect on the perception of command execution delay in gaming
topic gaming
command execution delay
cognitive bias
subjective study
url https://www.mdpi.com/2414-4088/9/5/47
work_keys_str_mv AT duyhnguyen theinfluenceofthelabelingeffectontheperceptionofcommandexecutiondelayingaming
AT peterakara theinfluenceofthelabelingeffectontheperceptionofcommandexecutiondelayingaming
AT duyhnguyen influenceofthelabelingeffectontheperceptionofcommandexecutiondelayingaming
AT peterakara influenceofthelabelingeffectontheperceptionofcommandexecutiondelayingaming