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ABSTRACT
Despite the popularity of multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) games, academic research on MOBA is still very limited. The current study aimed to fill this gap by exploring the behavioral and neural correlates of expertise for the most popular MOBA game, League of Legends (LOL). Three groups of LOL players with different expertise levels were recruited, including professional players, background-matched trainees, and age-matched students with no systematic LOL trainings. A series of behavioral tests and questionnaires was used to evaluate their general cognitive skills and their LOL-specific abilities were extracted from the neural activities (Electroencephalographs (EEG)s and Electrocardiographs (ECG)s) recorded during LOL matches. Using the behavioral features, both the students and the trainees could be significantly separated from the professional players (trainees vs. professional players, 61.11%; students vs. professional players, 66.67%), whereas the students and the trainees cannot be distinguished. Using the neural features, all three groups could be well separated with higher classification accuracies (students vs. trainees: 88.24%; trainees vs. professional players, 93.33%; students vs. professional players, 93.75%). The most contributing behavioral and neural indices were revealed as well, including multiple-object tracking capability, mental concentration, visuospatial attention ability, etc. The authors’ results for the first time showed the possibility of recognizing MOBA expertise using both behavioral and neural measurements and provided a framework for evaluation, selection, and training of professional MOBA players.
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Notes on contributors
Yue Ding
Yue Ding is a Ph.D. candidate in School of Medicine, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. She received a B.E. degree in Biomedical Engineering in 2010 from Dalian University of Technology and Science. Her research interests include neuroeconomics and the neural mechanism of auditory emotion and memory.
Xin Hu
Xin Hu is a Master student in Department of Psychology, Tsinghua University. She received an LL.B. degree in International Politics in 2014 from University of International Relations. Her research interests include the neural mechanism of emotion and neuromarketing.
Jiawei Li
Jiawei Li is a Master degree candidate in Department of Psychology, Tsinghua University. She received a B.S. degree in psychology in 2015 from Tsinghua University. Her research interests include the neural mechanism of interpersonal communication.
Jingbo Ye
Jingbo Ye is the chief eSports coach in both Tobegin Inc. and Keahoral Inc. He is specialized at training professional eSports athletes, including LOL.
Fei Wang
Fei Wang is a postdoc fellow at Tsinghua University. He holds a Ph.D. degree in Social Psychology from Tsinghua University and a Master’s degree in Personality and Social Psychology from Peking University. He is interested in using brain imaging techniques such as fMRI and EEG to study social behaviors.
Dan Zhang
Dan Zhang is an associate professor at Department of Psychology, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. He received a B.E. degree in automation in 2005 and a Ph.D. degree in biomedical engineering in 2011, both from Tsinghua University. He was a postdoctoral fellow in School of Medicine, Tsinghua University from 2011 to 2013. His research interests include social neuroscience, engineering psychology, and brain–computer interfaces.