Mapping User Engagement to States of Affect via an Unobtrusive Biofeedback Device - A Dynamic Visualization of Real-time Assessment

Anthony Psaltis, Charalampos Rizopoulos, Constantinos Mourlas

2014

Abstract

The elicitation of affect can be regarded as an influencing factor upon a person’s cognition, emotional state, mood, attention and motivation. It is also recognizable as an inhibited physiological process expressed by the human brain as induced or suppressed hormonal and neural stimulation that subsequently instigates a physical and mental level of attentiveness attractiveness or aversiveness. Physical reactions to emotion causing events and stimuli in affective computing are classified by direct mapping of facial and postural expressions to corresponding patterns, by using visual and postural observation methods. Despite the fact that physiological assessment is generally more reliable and less error-prone, a higher amount of research has been devoted to visual and postural methods due to the greater complexity and specific knowledge requirements of the former. Concentrating more on the physiological aspect of assessing affect, we have developed a biofeedback device, sensing reactions instigated by emotion-causing events and results have been assessed in real-time using suitable visualization methods. In previous attempts to acquire this type of measurements, human subjects were physically and psychologically impaired by the electrodes and wiring attachments used for the acquisition of signals and therefore validity of data was to some extent in question. In order to achieve an uncompromising assessment environment we designed a system that acquires heart rate and stress measurements via an ordinarily looking computer mouse. Certain combinations of heart rate precipitation and tonic level / phasic response of stress levels were investigated as reactions to emotion-inducing events. Corresponding patterns of physiological measurements to a real time affect allocation model have reached interesting correlations of events with respective states of engagement to an impressive degree of coincidence.

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Paper Citation


in Harvard Style

Psaltis A., Rizopoulos C. and Mourlas C. (2014). Mapping User Engagement to States of Affect via an Unobtrusive Biofeedback Device - A Dynamic Visualization of Real-time Assessment . In Proceedings of the International Conference on Physiological Computing Systems - Volume 1: PhyCS, ISBN 978-989-758-006-2, pages 307-314. DOI: 10.5220/0004726303070314


in Bibtex Style

@conference{phycs14,
author={Anthony Psaltis and Charalampos Rizopoulos and Constantinos Mourlas},
title={Mapping User Engagement to States of Affect via an Unobtrusive Biofeedback Device - A Dynamic Visualization of Real-time Assessment},
booktitle={Proceedings of the International Conference on Physiological Computing Systems - Volume 1: PhyCS,},
year={2014},
pages={307-314},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0004726303070314},
isbn={978-989-758-006-2},
}


in EndNote Style

TY - CONF
JO - Proceedings of the International Conference on Physiological Computing Systems - Volume 1: PhyCS,
TI - Mapping User Engagement to States of Affect via an Unobtrusive Biofeedback Device - A Dynamic Visualization of Real-time Assessment
SN - 978-989-758-006-2
AU - Psaltis A.
AU - Rizopoulos C.
AU - Mourlas C.
PY - 2014
SP - 307
EP - 314
DO - 10.5220/0004726303070314