Measuring bodily responses to virtual faces with a pressure sensitive chair

ABSTRACT

The present aim was to study emotion related body movement responses using an unobtrusive measurement chair that is embedded with electromechanical film (EMFi) sensors. 30 participants viewed images of a male and a female computer agent while the magnitude and direction of body movements were measured. The facial expressions (i.e., frowning, neutral, smiling) and the size of the agents were varied. The results showed that participants leaned statistically significantly longer towards the agent when it displayed a frowning or a smiling expression as compared to a neutral expression. Also, their body movements were reduced while viewing the agents. The results suggest that the EMFi chair is a promising tool for detecting human activity related to social and emotional behaviour. In particular, the EMFi chair may support unobtrusive measurement of bodily responses in less strictly controlled contexts of human-computer interaction.

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.2 User Interfaces (D.2.2, H.1.2, I.3.6)

General Terms:
Algorithms, Experimentation, Human Factors, Measurement

Keywords:
affective computing, approach and withdrawal motivation, body movements, non-invasive sensors, virtual embodied agents