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Does bouncy equal happy? Comparing user's interpretations of emotions conveyed by one designed moving object based on the soma-semiotic framework
Abstract
When designing objects, designers attempt to communicate the purpose and meaning of that object to users using various factors such as visual appearance (aesthetic), practical interaction elements (product semantics) and meanings beyond the practical product interaction (semiotics). This study sought to confirm the previous deductively-developed soma-semiotic framework, whose purpose was to understand and ultimately predict the emotional impact of different design elements on users, using one specifically designed object, Fruit Bowl (FB). The purpose of the study reported in this paper was to compare the theoretically derived emotional responses to FB from the soma-semiotic framework with empirically derived data from users in order to improve the framework. Sixty participants evaluated the meaning and emotion conveyed by FB as well as self-reported their own experienced emotions under two scenarios. The framework predicted that FB would convey joy in a first scenario, and amusement in a second scenario based on different movements. Using a weighted vector analysis based on Russell's two-dimensional Circumplex of emotions, users identified that the overall emotion of the first scenario to be similar to the predicted emotion. This was attributed mostly to the bouncy movement of the bowl and its visual aesthetic. However, in the second scenario the overall rating was calm/impressed; rather than humour. The abstract design did not favour users making the same associations as the designer. We recommend that the soma-semiotic framework be revised to include aesthetic, in addition to semiotic and semantic, elements as determinants of user interpretations and reactions to designed objects.
... Russell's (1980) circumplex model is a useful tool to measure people's emotions (Russell 1980;Scherer 2005;Desmet et al. 2008), and has been applied to measure emotions evoked by products (e.g. Samuel et al. 2019;Lee 2020;Fels et al. 2021). In this two-dimensional model, the vertical axis represents arousal from sleepy (down) to aroused (up) while the horizontal axis represents valence from negative (left) to positive (right). ...
In this paper, the concept of relationship-based product personalities was applied to develop a model which gives a better understanding of emotional relationships between people and products. This paper presents extant literature on models suggested for the design of emotional experiences. Emerging from the literature, the Ego State Product-Person Relationship model was developed. The model shows that when a person interacts with an object, the product evokes emotions and creates emotional experiences and the user attributes a particular personality to the product depending on the emotions evoked by it. To validate the usefulness of the model, 15 co-discovery sessions were conducted. Participants were prompted by a list of product categories and five lists of personality categories, and assigned personalities to products, explaining their experiences of those products. Applying this model to analyse five types of products, as examples, shows that the suggested model could assist designers to further understand and design towards preferred emotional experiences.KeywordsProduct personalityEmotional design modelsEmotional experienceTransactional Analysis
To show the unique charm of Jiangxi’s traditional culture, it is of great importance to apply Jiangxi’s unique red culture to products’ creative designs. This paper aims to apply Kansei Engineering (KE) and interactive genetic algorithm (IGA) to extract the apparent symbol elements of Jiangxi red culture and then transform them into the creative watch design with modern culture. First of all, KE is used to extract customers’ emotional resonance to red culture, and 16 pairs of Kansei image vocabulary pairs are preliminarily collected. The theory of semiotics is used to extract symbols such as shapes, colors, and patterns from the perspective of Jiangxi’s red architecture. Secondly, through the designers’ subjective aesthetic thinking, these cultural symbols are broken up and reconstructed, thus forming the morphological deconstruction table combined with the case of the watch. Finally, IGA is implemented to code and decode the cultural symbols, thus building a product form’s evolutionary design system. Through biological genetic manipulation, cultural symbols of refinement, particularity, and regionality are retained. Then these superior cultural genes are integrated into the innovation of the watch to get creative products with the characteristics of Jiangxi red culture. The model proposed in this paper optimizes the decision-making process of cultural creative product design, and also explores a sustainable development path of culture.
This study was designed to investigate the relations between emotional expression and the movement characteristics. For this purpose, we used kinematic data related to three factors of the movement characteristics: Speed, Force, and Directness. In Exp. 1, we examined how the dancers expressed emotions when they used a certain body action and body part, and how they altered the movement characteristics. In Exp. 1, 10 female dancers were instructed to express three emotions, joy, sadness, and anger, by altering arm-movement characteristics. Analysis of variance indicated that the three exhibited emotional expressions had different movement characteristics. Discriminant analysis indicated that kinematic data for evaluation of movement characteristics are useful for discrimination of the three emotional expressions in dance. In Exp. 2, we investigated how naive observers perceived the type of emotion from the arm-movement characteristics. Analysis of variance showed that 22 observers accurately perceived each emotion distinguished from other emotions. Multiple regression analysis showed that specific movement characteristics influenced the perception of particular emotion.
Although functional objectives have concerned designers for many years, and psychologists have published research on issues related to graphic design, fruitful cooperation between the two specialisms has only rarely been achieved. In this paper it is suggested that the traditional objectives and methods of neither group are sufficiently oriented towards the communication o f information in a complex society, and that it would be unrealistic to expect the design and evaluation of information to lead to opportunities for either personal expression or the discovery of permanent truths. A user-centred approach is urged, drawing from both the intuitive problem-solving skills of designers and the methodologies of psychologists.
Design and aesthetics are two intrinsic words that naturally interrelate when a tangible object with formal qualities is developed by taking into account visible parameters. In this research, we describe how an aesthetic analysis of tangible objects could be a valuable and rich pedagogic medium for design research in a design innovation and interdisciplinary design research environment. By comparing the results gained from the application of this method delivered through a series of postgraduate student workshops we describe how "designing aesthetic miscommunication" facilitates learning across disciplines for supporting self-criticality and reflection. This results from the different associated meanings each discipline assigns through perception of objective and subjective aesthetic readings. Our method included combining physical artefacts with a diagrammatical aesthetic mapping framework designed to build mental models of aesthetic analysis, but also to introduce issues and conjectures. Even though various approaches have been applied to the Product Design discipline including affordances and semantic theory, this method explores a different kind of approach when applied to a more diverse audience. Under this lens visual design analysis facilitates discussion across disciplines and creates a common ground through the perceived visual truths that emerge in the workshops. Our findings have shown that students are capable of maintaining the original meaning shaped by their discipline while sharing observations with a wider audience about how such meanings shifts. The results illustrate how the students' experience and their learning approach to design practice evolved through the introduction of tangible aesthetics.
This paper introduces a new model of form, emotion, and semantics through a
process of form abstraction utilizing lines. Understanding the emotional and semantic
value of form is a complex task, and many theories have been developed. Analyzing the
visual arts through line relationships and interactions is a conceptually novel approach
and offers new avenues for advancing studies in form theory, theories of emotion and
perception, and design generally. By examining literature in visual perception, form
theory, and emotion, and by historically analyzing changes in form through the aesthetic
arts and then reducing these aesthetic elements into basic linear foundations, we
developed the line model of form and emotion. This preliminary model presents form at
its structurally most abstract, simplifying three dimensionally defined shapes into line relationships, and portrays their emotive and semantic associations for human
observers. The model also visualizes the historical changes in form and emotional and
semantic meaning across time, from the 18th century to the present day.
In the last 20 years, the debate on the role of emotions in the field of industrial design has grown exponentially. Emotional Design emerged as the effort to promote positive emotions or pleasure in users by means of design properties of products and services. Design based on emotions can affect overall user experience deeply, since emotions influence
decision making, affect attention, memory, and generate meaning. It is possible to identify two main approaches to applied emotional design. The first is based on the modification of object’s aesthetic appearance or interface, the latter focuses on promoting fluent and engaging interactions.
The objective of the present contribution is to extend the discourse on emotional design,
highlighting that technology designers can rely on other components beyond the above-mentioned aesthetic and engagement ones, in order to create innovative and effective devices. Indeed, emotions have further aspects that could be exploited by emotional designers. According to this perspective, new technologies can be considered and treated as opportunities to manipulate, enhance and trigger different discrete, and even complex emotional states. Moreover, emotions can “participate” to interaction (instead of being a mere byproduct of it), by providing inputs to digital technologies to modify or influence final outputs. This contribution explores opportunities provided by conceiving emotions as cognitive processes and active agents of interactions, in the field of emotional design.
In this preliminary study, we developed a set of humanoid robot body movements which are used to express four basic emotional concepts and a set of learning activities. The goal of this study is to collect feedback from subject matter experts and validate our design. We will integrate them to improve the designs and guide autistic children to learn emotional concepts. To validate our designs, we conducted an online survey among general public people and four in-person interviews among subject matter experts. Results show that the body movement Happiness and Sadness could express emotions accurately, while the Anger and Fear movements need more improvements. According to the subject matter experts, this robot mediate instruction is engaging and appropriate. To better match autistic children, the instructional content should be tailored for individual learners.
Virtual sport coaches guide users through their physical activity and provide motivational support. Users’ motivation can rapidly decay if the movements of the virtual coach are too stereotyped. Kinematics patterns generated while performing a predefined fitness movement can elicit and help to prolong users’ interaction and interest in training. Human body kinematics has been shown to convey various social attributes such as gender, identity and acted emotions. To date, no study provides information regarding how spontaneous emotions and personality traits together are perceived from full-body movements. In this paper, we study how people make reliable inferences regarding spontaneous emotional dimensions and personality traits of human coaches from kinematic patterns they produced when performing a fitness sequence. Movements were presented to participants via a virtual mannequin to isolate the influence of kinematics on perception. Kinematic patterns of biological movement were analyzed in terms of movement qualities according to the effort-shape [Dell 1977] notation proposed by [Laban 1950]. Three studies were performed to provide an analysis of the process leading to perception: from coaches’ states and traits through bodily movements
to observers’ social perception. Thirty-two participants (i.e., observers) were asked to rate the movements of the virtual mannequin in terms of conveyed emotion dimensions, personality traits (five-factor model of personality) and perceived movement qualities (effort-shape) from 56 fitness movement sequences. The results showed high reliability for most of the evaluated dimensions, confirming inter-observer agreement from kinematics at zero acquaintance. A large expressive halo merging emotional (e.g., perceived intensity) and personality aspects (e.g., extraversion) was found, driven by perceived kinematic impulsivity and energy. Observers’ perceptions were partially accurate for emotion dimensions and were not accurate for personality traits. Together, these results contribute to both the understanding of dimensions of social perception through
movement, but also to the design of expressive virtual sport coaches.
What is the relationship between attribute tradeoff decisions at the time of purchase and emotional content of the consumption experience? This article offers a comprehensive overview and an enhanced model of the possible forms of this relationship. It sets forth new insights into negative post-consumption emotions in an integrated manner with prior work on attribute tradeoffs and positive emotions. The primary insights this research provides are as follows: (1) a negative experience with the choice of a product with superior utilitarian and inferior hedonic benefits (e.g., a highly functional cell phone with poor attractiveness) over a product with superior hedonic and inferior utilitarian benefits evokes feelings of sadness, disappointment, and anger, (2) a negative experience with the choice of a product with superior hedonic and inferior utilitarian benefits (e.g., a highly attractive cell phone with poor functionality) over a product with superior utilitarian and inferior hedonic benefits evokes feelings of guilt and anxiety. Further, an enhanced model is presented that integrates the results for four new negative post-consumption emotions with the results from replication of prior work on positive emotions and consumer behavior. Finally, the research shows that positive and negative emotions impact customer loyalty. The article discusses the theoretical contribution and strategic insights the research provides for product designers and marketers.
Even though considerable attention has been given to the polarity of words
(positive and negative) and the creation of large polarity lexicons, research
in emotion analysis has had to rely on limited and small emotion lexicons. In
this paper we show how the combined strength and wisdom of the crowds can be
used to generate a large, high-quality, word-emotion and word-polarity
association lexicon quickly and inexpensively. We enumerate the challenges in
emotion annotation in a crowdsourcing scenario and propose solutions to address
them. Most notably, in addition to questions about emotions associated with
terms, we show how the inclusion of a word choice question can discourage
malicious data entry, help identify instances where the annotator may not be
familiar with the target term (allowing us to reject such annotations), and
help obtain annotations at sense level (rather than at word level). We
conducted experiments on how to formulate the emotion-annotation questions, and
show that asking if a term is associated with an emotion leads to markedly
higher inter-annotator agreement than that obtained by asking if a term evokes
an emotion.
This article offers a new method to describe the relationship between two circumplexes, illustrated empirically with Wiggins' (1995) Interpersonal Adjective Scales (IAS) and Yik, Russell, and Steiger's (2004) 12-Point Affect Circumplex Scales (12-PACS). Michael Browne's CIRCUM-extension procedure was used to place each circumplex within the other. Simulations showed this procedure can reveal the number of dimensions of overlap between the two and can estimate the magnitude and location of the overlap. The IAS space overlaps the 12-PACS space on one axis, which falls at 35 degrees within the 12-PACS space (pleasant activated versus unpleasant deactivated) and at 71 degrees within the IAS space, which is close to where Extraversion (Factor I of the Five Factor Model) also lies.
The aim of this study was to examine the effect of two basic emotions, happiness and sadness, on dance movement. A total of 32 adult participants were induced to feel emotional states of either happiness or sadness and then danced intuitively to an emotionally ‘neutral’ piece of music, composed specifically for the experiment. Based on an Effort-Shape analysis of body movement, full body movement was captured and seven different movement cues were examined, in order to explore whether differences in corporeal articulations between the happy and sad condition existed. Results revealed that in the happy condition, participants moved faster, with more acceleration, and made more expanded and more impulsive movements than in the sad condition. Results are discussed with respect to possible consequences for future research on human movement.
This paper discusses the role of designing in the research process in the sector of Art and Design, sometimes referred to as practice-based research, with particular focus on the imperatives of PhD studies. It points to the vagueness of terms used, and defines its key terms including 'investigative designing' which is taken to be an act of systematic designing set within a research study, intended to generate reliable new knowledge, and where methods and outcomes are open to scrutiny. To set the topic in context, reference is made to previous debates, and descriptions are given of a range of designing and researching activities. These form the basis for a description of several identified categories of investigative designing, illuminated by examples of such work. Thus the paper maps out where designing may be helpful and valid in a research study dependent on how it is set in a research context.
In this paper, we introduce a general framework for product experience that applies to all affective responses that can be experienced in human-product interaction. Three distinct components or levels of product experiences are discussed: aesthetic experience, experience of meaning, and emotional experience. All three components are distinguished in having their own lawful underlying process. The aesthetic level involves a product’s capacity to delight one or more of our sensory modalities. The meaning level involves our ability to assign personality or other expressive characteristics and to assess the personal or symbolic significance of products. The emotional level involves those experiences that are typically considered in emotion psychology and in everyday language about emotions, such as love and anger, which are elicited by the appraised relational meaning of products. The framework indicates patterns for the processes that underlie the different types of affective product experiences, which are used to explain the personal and layered nature of product experience
An emotion reveals itself with dynamic bodily expressions. These expressions are not only manifestations of the emotion but also influence the emotional experience: a feeling can be an experienced emotional expression. This paper discusses the case study Learning to Talk with Your Body, which was designed to explore the possibility of using expressive movement for creating products that elicit predefined emotional responses. Six objects were designed, each expressing a distinct emotion: anger, fear, sadness, joy, pleasant surprise or attraction. The aim was to develop an educational product that can be used to teach children, aged between four and six, how to emotionally express themselves with their bodies. The objects were designed to express the given emotions in their static appearances and (interactive) dynamic movements. An evaluation study with prototypes of the objects confirmed that the quality or character of a movement that is required to interact with a product influences the user's emotional responses to the product. This paper reports the design and evaluation of the objects, and discusses the implications of the concept of 'design for movement' for designing products that have an intended emotional impact.
The meaning that persons attribute to environments is divided into perceptual cognitive meaning and affective meaning. Affective meaning is then conceptualized as a 2-dimensional bipolar space that can be defined by 8 variables falling in the following circular order around the perimeter: pleasant (arbitrarily set at 0°), exciting (45°), arousing (90°), distressing (135°), unpleasant (180°), gloomy (225°), sleepy (270°), and relaxing (315°, which is thus 45° from pleasant). Alternatively, the same space can be defined by 2 orthogonal bipolar dimensions of pleasant-unpleasant and arousing-sleepy, or equally well by exciting-gloomy and distressing-relaxing. Reliable verbal scales (based on data from 241 Ss) for these 8 variables were developed and shown to approximate the proposed theoretical structure. (28 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This paper presents a novel concept: a graphical representation of human emotion extracted from text sentences. The major
contributions of this paper are the following. First, we present a pipeline that extracts, processes, and renders emotion
of 3D virtual human (VH). The extraction of emotion is based on data mining statistic of large cyberspace databases. Second,
we propose methods to optimize this computational pipeline so that real-time virtual reality rendering can be achieved on
common PCs. Third, we use the Poisson distribution to transfer database extracted lexical and language parameters into coherent
intensities of valence and arousal—parameters of Russell’s circumplex model of emotion. The last contribution is a practical
color interpretation of emotion that influences the emotional aspect of rendered VHs. To test our method’s efficiency, computational
statistics related to classical or untypical cases of emotion are provided. In order to evaluate our approach, we applied
our method to diverse areas such as cyberspace forums, comics, and theater dialogs.
KeywordsVirtual reality-Distribution functions-Data mining-Text analysis-Psychology and sociology-Facial animation
This paper reports on a six month longitudinal study exploring people’s personal and social emotional experience with Portable Interactive Devices (PIDs). The study is concerned with the experience design approach and based on the theoretical framework of Activity Theory. The
focus is on emotional experiences and how artefacts mediate and potentially enhance this experience. The outcomes of the study identified interesting aspects of PID interaction. Findings revealed people interact with PIDs emotionally both at a personal and a social level, supporting previous studies. Further, the social level impacts significantly on the emotional experience attained. If negative social experiences exceeded negative personal experiences the emotional experience was constant over six months. If negative personal experiences surpassed negative
social experiences the emotional experience was varied over six months. The findings are discussed in regards to their significance to the field of design, their implication for future PID design and future research directions.
This article argues that affective responses (ARs) should supplement the cognitive responses more often studied in communication research. ARs are not evaluative responses to an advertisement, but represent the moods and feelings evoked by the ad. The literature on ARs is reviewed, and a typology for such responses is presented. Three ARs are studied empirically; they appear to be antecedents of the attitude towards the ad ( A ad ) and to have a weak but significant impact on brand attitudes.
The psychological and anthropological literature on cultural variations in emotions is reviewed. The literature has been interpreted within the framework of a cognitive-process model of emotions. Both cross-cultural differences and similarities were identified in each phase of the emotion process; similarities in 1 phase do not necessarily imply similarities in other phases. Whether cross-cultural differences or similarities are found depends to an important degree on the level of description of the emotional phenomena. Cultural differences in emotions appear to be due to differences in event types or schemas, in culture-specific appraisal propensities, in behavior repertoires, or in regulation processes. Differences in taxonomies of emotion words sometimes reflect true emotion differences like those just mentioned, but they may also just result from differences in which emotion-process phase serves as the basis for categorization.
Theatre dance is an art of the theatre, and there is a common aesthetic of theatre arts. Drama, dance, opera, mime, theatrical displays, and performance arts generally share a common space, the stage, and a common destiny, presentation to an audience. The arts overlap and blend: whatever shares that space and that destiny belongs to a powerfully unifying reality, theatricality. What is specific to dance (on some interpretations, in some ideologies) is submerged in and may be overwhelmed by the unifying culture of the theatre. That is the first thing to bear in mind.
The topic of emotion in theatre arts sends us back to Plato ‘s supposed thesis in Book X of his Republic, that theatre threatens morality by putting emotion where rationality should be. But Plato was referring to the specific genre of tragedy, and the use of that genre as a medium for moral instruction, and his contention was that the conditions of presentation make the audience respond emotionally to what is before them-rather than think about the psychological and social realities involved-and portray the characters as behaving emotionally rather than dealing with the realities of their situation. The objection is not to emotion, in the sense of strong feeling about one ‘s situation, but to emotionality, in the sense of indulging one ‘s inner feelings without close relation to the situation in which one acts. If one wants to consider Plato ‘s views on emotion in theatre arts, one should not ignore the extended discussion in his Laws, where civic ceremonies involving dance movement symbolize
Recent years have shown an increase in the importance of emotions applied to the Design field—Emotional Design. In this sense, the emotional design aims to elicit (e.g., pleasure) or prevent (e.g., displeasure) determined emotions, during human product interaction. That is, the emotional design regulates the emotional interaction between the individual and the product (e.g., robot). Robot design has been a growing area whereby robots are interacting directly with humans in which emotions are essential in the interaction. Therefore, this paper aims, through a non-systematic literature review, to explore the application of emotional design, particularly on Human-Robot Interaction. Robot design features (e.g., appearance, expressing emotions and spatial distance) that affect emotional design are introduced. The chapter ends with a discussion and a conclusion.
This paper investigates how non-experts perceive digital design, and which psychological dimensions are underlying this perception of design. It thus constructs a measurement instrument to analyse user response to online displayed design and to predict design preference. Study 1 let non-experts rank the usefulness of 115 adjectives for describing good design in an online survey (n = 305). This item pool was condensed to 12 design descriptive and five emotion items. Exploratory factor analysis revealed the four underlying psychological dimensions Novelty, Energy, Simplicity and Tool. Study 2 (n = 1955) tested Study 2's model in three real-world design projects. Emotions clearly outperformed the best design descriptive dimensions (Novelty and Tool) in predicting users' design preference (Net Promoter Score) with b 5 .82. Study 3 (n = 1955) confirmed Study 2's results by several machine learning algorithms (neural networks, gradient boosting machines, random forests) with cross-validation. This measurement instrument benefits designers to implement a participatory design thinking process with users.
This chapter examines the transition in focus within the human factors engineering domain from the prevention of pain (Ergonomics) to the promotion of pleasure and the use of technology to facilitate well-being (Hedonomics). This transition is framed across technological advancements and their penetration into a wide range of social domains. Implications to human well-being are discussed. Barriers to implementing such hedonic principles are elucidated using examples of emerging areas of research.
This chapter presents an overview of emotional and affective components in human factors (HF) and human–computer interaction (HCI). First, the definitions of terminologies are clarified. After describing neural and cognitive mechanisms of affect, I provide theories of affective effects so that researchers can apply them to their research areas and develop their own theory further. Then, the chapter focuses on introducing and comparing four different approaches to Affective Sciences in HF/HCI, including Emotional Design, Hedonomics, Kansei Engineering, and Affective Computing. After delineating advantages and disadvantages of affect induction and detection methodologies, theoretical and practical issues and future works of this domain are discussed. This short review is expected to guide HF/HCI researchers and practitioners who begin to study emotions and affect, and to facilitate communication about emotions and affect within the HF/HCI community.
This research investigates the potential of structural flexibility as a functional and affective design element as well as its potential applications. Our research bridges the areas of jewellery design, emotion design and structural development in the Additive Manufacture (AM) of metals. The article offers a theoretical review of the nature of flexible structures and of current deformable AM geometries and their applications. In relation to this, we conducted a series of practical experiments, which explored AM flexible geometries to create emotional expression. Both, existing examples and the outcomes of the experiments were evaluated against the soma-semiotic framework of emotional expression developed by Niedderer. The outcome and contribution of the research is a better understanding of structural geometries of flexibility and their potential uses, as well as of its affective potential.
This research explores how elastic movement can be used as a medium for expressing emotion in silver design, using Argentium® Sterling silver and laser welding. The rationale was for technical reasons, traditionally, silver tends to be rigid and therefore uses semiotic language to create emotional expression rather than movement, which is explored in this investigation. The investigation is situated in the context of traditional silversmithing design and practice, and has the aim of expanding its conceptual and creative possibilities. Using conceptual analysis and development combined with creative exploration, the research develops a soma-semiotic framework to serve both as a design tool and as an aid for the interpretation of artifacts. The conceptual development builds on a review of silver design, on selected approaches of emotional design, and on theories from emotional psychology and soma-aesthetics to develop the framework. The creative exploration was used in parallel to understand better the complexities of embodying emotion through designing and of reading and interpreting artifacts, thus serving to refine the framework within an iterative process. The outcome and contribution of this study are firstly an enhanced understanding of the conceptual and creative possibilities of using elastic movement to create emotional expression in silver design. Secondly, the study provides a soma-semiotic framework as an aid for creating and interpreting complex emotions in design. The study highlights the complexity of emotions, stressing the need for future research to develop a broader spectrum and vocabulary of complex emotional expression.
Metaphors are not only a powerful tool in the hands of a poet; they are also powerful in the hands of a designer. In this paper we examine (1) several intentions behind metaphor conception and selection, and (2) consider various ways a product metaphor can be designed. Whereas both classifications emphasise the enormous potential metaphors have, we will also attempt to describe the risks and pitfalls associated with their use. It takes a careful hand to design a good product metaphor.
Body movement is the primary medium in which dance/movement therapists help clients to connect with implicit experience, to tolerate and express emotion, and thereby to continuously re-work, re-weave and integrate embodied experiences of self. This article explores the role of non-verbal vocalisation within the overall movement ecology of the body, and suggests ways that it can support the aforementioned processes in clinical practice. Three existing frameworks for understanding the non-verbal voice are reviewed, from within and outside the realm of psychotherapy, as are several comprehensive theoretical studies of the ‘self’ in dance/movement therapy. The author emphasises that voice is an integral part of the body's cross-modal capacity for expressive movement, and suggests that the non-verbal voice prioritises and gives form to the emotional content of other bodily movement. This article aims to provide a theoretical starting place for integrating the non-verbal voice into dance/movement therapy scholarship and practice.
Sentiment analysis is a growing field of research, driven by both commercial applications and academic interest. In this paper, we explore multiclass classification of diary-like blog posts for the sentiment dimensions of valence and arousal, where the aim of the task is to predict the level of valence and arousal of a post on a ordinal five-level scale, from very negative/low to very positive/high, respectively. We show how to map discrete affective states into ordinal scales in these two dimensions, based on the psychological model of Russell's circumplex model of affect and label a previously available corpus with multidimensional, real-valued annotations. Experimental results using regression and one-versus-all approaches of support vector machine classifiers show that although the latter approach provides better exact ordinal class prediction accuracy, regression techniques tend to make smaller scale errors.
This work aims to validate a conceptual framework which establishes the main relationships between subjective elements in human-product interaction, such as meanings, emotions, product preferences, and personal values. The study analyzes the relationships between meanings and emotions, and between these and preferences, as well as the influence of personal values on such relationships. The study was applied to ceramic tile floorings. A questionnaire with images of a neutral room with different ceramic tile floorings was designed and distributed via the web. Results from the study suggest that both meanings and emotions must be taken into account in the generation of product preferences. The meanings given to the product can cause the generation of emotions, and both types of subjective impressions give rise to product preferences. Personal reference values influence these relationships between subjective impressions and product preferences. As a consequence, not only target customers' demographic data but specifically their values and criteria must be taken into account from the beginning of the development process. The specific results of this paper can be used directly by ceramic tile designers, who can better adjust product design (and the subjective impressions elicited) to the target market. Consequently, the chance of product success is reinforced.
Emotions and their expressions by virtual characters will play a key role in future affective human–machine interfaces. Recent advances in the psychology of emotions and recent progress in computer graphics allow researchers to animate virtual characters that are capable of subtly expressing emotions. Existing virtual agent systems are nevertheless often limited in terms of underlying emotional models, visual realism, and real-time interaction capabilities. In this paper, we explain how we explored four computational models of emotions that are oriented towards interactive facial animation. The models that we implemented correspond to different approaches to emotions: a categorical approach, a dimensional approach, a cognitive approach, and a social approach. We explain how we implemented and evaluated these models in our Multimodal Affective and Reactive Character framework. MARC is designed for animating interactive expressive virtual agents with different levels of interactivity. The advantages, drawbacks and complementarity of these approaches are discussed.
when we think about the social roles of the computer we tend to think of a familiar list of administrative, financial, and governmental functions and a set of social, political, and legal problems that are raised by what computers do. In this essay we look at social roles that the computer plays, not as a direct result of what they do, but because of the relationships people form with computers: how people think about computers, how they use computers to think and to not think about other things, how deeply subjective private worlds of computation (including preferences for different styles of programming) and a medium in which people work through personal and political concerns that are far from any instrumental use of the computer. In sum, we shall be looking at the computer as a metaphor and as a projective medium, and suggesting that this subjective side of the computer presence is highly relevent to understanding issues concerning computation and public life. There is an extraordinary range of textures, tones, and emotional intensity in the way people relate to computers-from seeming computer addiction to confessed computerphobia. I have recently been conducting an ethnographic investigation of the relationships that people form with computers and with each other in the social worlds that grow up around the machines. In my interviews with people in very different computing environments, I have been impressed by the fact that when people talk about computers they are often using them to talk about other things as well. In the general public, a discourse about computers can carry feelings about public life--anxieties about not feeling safe in a society that is perceived as too complex, a sense of alienation from politics and public institutions. Ideas about computers can also express feelings about more private matters, even reflecting concerns about which the individual does not seem fully aware. When we turn from the general public to the computer experts, we find similar phenomena in more developed forms. There, too, ideas about computers carry feelings about political and personal issues. But in addition, the expert enters into relationships with computers which can give concreteness and coherence to political and private concerns far removed from the world of computation. In particular, the act of programming can be an expressive activity for working through personal issues relating to control and mastery.
The affective interaction between human and robots could be influenced by various aspects of robots, which are appearance, countenance, gesture, voice, etc. Among these, the overall shape of robot could play a key role in invoking desired emotions to the users and bestowing preferred personalities to robots. In this regard, the present study experimentally investigates the effects of overall robot shape on the emotions invoked in users and the perceived personalities of robot with an objective of deriving guidelines for the affective design of service robots.
Argues that emotion is best treated as a psychological construct, consisting of cognitive appraisal, physiological activation, motor expression, motivational tendencies, and subjective feeling states. When viewed as a process, rather than a steady state, emotion can be said to be the interface between an organism and its environment, mediating between constantly changing situations and events and the individual's behavioral responses. A variety of stimulus evaluation checks are necessary for adequately evaluating or appraising emotion producing stimuli, for example, novelty, intrinsic pleasantness, goal/plan relevance, coping potential, and norm/self concept compatibility. Moreover, the role of emotions in social interaction may be central to understanding human behavior and social organization. A joint interdisciplinary approach may yield heuristic results. (29 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The relationship between how designers intend products to be interpreted and how they are subsequently interpreted has often been represented as a process of communication. However, such representations are attacked for allegedly implying that designers' intended meanings are somehow ‘contained’ in products and that those meanings are passively received by consumers. Instead, critics argue that consumers actively construct their own meanings as they engage with products, and therefore that designers' intentions are not relevant to this process. In contrast, this article asserts the validity and utility of relating intention to interpretation by exploring the nature of that relationship in design practice and consumer response. Communicative perspectives on design are thereby defended and new avenues of empirical enquiry are proposed.
Emerging technologies offer exciting new ways of using entertainment technology to create fantastic play experiences and foster interactions between players. Evaluating entertainment technology is challenging because success isn't defined in terms of productivity and performance, but in terms of enjoyment and interaction. Current subjective methods of evaluating entertainment technology aren't sufficiently robust. This paper describes two experiments designed to test the efficacy of physiological measures as evaluators of user experience with entertainment technologies. We found evidence that there is a different physiological response in the body when playing against a computer versus playing against a friend. These physiological results are mirrored in the subjective reports provided by the participants. In addition, we provide guidelines for collecting physiological data for user experience analysis, which were informed by our empirical investigations. This research provides an initial step towards using physiological responses to objectively evaluate a user's experience with entertainment technology.
This paper illustrates our recent work on analysis and classification of expressive gesture in human full-body movement and in particular in dance performances. An experiment is presented which is the result of a joint work carried out at the DIST–InfoMus Lab, University of Genova, Italy, and at the Department of Psychology of the University of Uppsala, Sweden, in the framework of the EU-IST project MEGA (Multisensory Expressive Gesture Applications, www.megaproject.org). The experiment aims at (i) individuating which motion cues are mostly involved in conveying the dancer's expressive intentions to the audience during a dance performance, (ii) measuring and analyzing them in order to classify dance gestures in term of basic emotions, (iii) testing a collection of developed models and algorithms for analysis of such expressive content by comparing their performances with spectators’ ratings of the same dance fragments. The paper discusses the experiment in detail with reference to related conceptual issues, developed techniques, and obtained results.
Emotions are viewed as having evolved through their adaptive value in dealing with fundamental life-tasks. Each emotion has unique features: signal, physiology, and antecedent events. Each emotion also has characteristics in common with other emotions: rapid onset, short duration, unbidden occurrence, automatic appraisal, and coherence among responses. These shared and unique characteristics are the product of our evolution, and distinguish emotions from other affective phenomena.
Lack of user acceptance has long been an impediment to the success of new information systems. The present research addresses why users accept or reject information systems and how user acceptance is affected by system design features. The technology acceptance model (TAM) specifies the causal relationships between system design features, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, attitude toward using, and actual usage behavior. Attitude theory from psychology provides the rationale for hypothesized model relationships, and validated measures were used to operationalize model variables. A field study of 112 users regarding two end-user systems was conducted to test the hypothesized model. TAM fully mediated the effects of system characteristics on usage behavior, accounting for 36% of the variance in usage. Perhaps the most striking finding was that perceived usefulness was 50% more influential than ease of use in determining usage, underscoring the importance of incorporating the appropriate functional capabilities in new systems. Overall, TAM provides an informative representation of the mechanisms by which design choices influence user acceptance, and should therefore be helpful in applied contexts for forecasting and evaluating user acceptance of information technology. Implications for future research and practice are discussed. Peer Reviewed http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/30954/1/0000626.pdf
This paper presents a general statistical methodology for the analysis of multivariate categorical data arising from observer reliability studies. The procedure essentially involves the construction of functions of the observed proportions which are directed at the extent to which the observers agree among themselves and the construction of test statistics for hypotheses involving these functions. Tests for interobserver bias are presented in terms of first-order marginal homogeneity and measures of interobserver agreement are developed as generalized kappa-type statistics. These procedures are illustrated with a clinical diagnosis example from the epidemiological literature.
Design and technology in the second copernican revolution
- Buchanan