Centre for Design Research © 2008 Benedict Singleton and Dr. Kev Hilton The Emotional Spectrum Analyser

Centre for Design Research © 2008 Introduction ‘Understanding’ changes our beliefs and needs From design of effective product interfaces, to affective products. From a historical lack of interest, to perceived competitive advantage for product innovation. This developed a need to reliably quantify emotions and develop technical solutions.

Emotional Spectrum Analysis ESA16 software, using electro-encephalogram technology

Centre for Design Research © 2008 Contemporary Conceptions Emotional state is complex and difficult to articulate Often characterised as a blending or layering of core emotions Technologists looked for solutions to provide a ‘Cognitive representation’ of a ‘Physiological state’. However, emotion is led by changing context or situation and environment, a potentially ‘chaotic’ multi-factorial system of influence.

Emotional Spectrum Analysis

Centre for Design Research © 2008 Contemporary Conceptions ‘Pure’ emotions, e.g. anger or happiness, can still be used as discussion points around Emotional Space (Russell and Feldman Barratt, 1999). However, mono-dimensional models do not adequately represent the complexity of emotional evidence for effective application to design.

Centre for Design Research © 2008 Assessing Emotion Objectively ‘Objective’ observation of participant’s emotions is unreliable. Self-report of emotions has also proven unreliable (Turkkan, 2000). Post-hoc categorization of emotions is problematic. This has led to discussions around ‘universal’ words and images.

Assessing Emotion Objectively PrEmo V5 (Desmet, 2002)

Centre for Design Research © 2008 Assessing Emotion Objectively Kansei Engineering, scaling experience HappinessSadness FastSlow X X

Centre for Design Research © 2008 Assessing Emotion Objectively These approaches still require ‘reflective’ reporting. There is a need to record data in real-time. Technology might work in combination with universals to develop this field of knowledge.

Centre for Design Research © 2008 Physiological Traces of Emotion Reliable automatic means of monitoring immersive experiences. ‘Immersion’ and ‘verbalizing’ tasks distract one another. Neuroscience technologies, such as ESA may provide the physical means. Universals need to be further developed to provide reliable cross-cultural categorization. However we still face the complexity of influences on experience.

Centre for Design Research © 2008 Physiological Traces of Emotion There is no simple way to map neural activity onto emotion (Prohovnik et al, 2004). The Brain Function Laboratory’s ESA software takes an orthogonally rotated approach to mapping four independent and dissimilar forms of neural activity. Labeling them with the ‘state’ terms which were commonly used in self-report. It is of course the universality and applicability of these terms which challenge development.

Physiological Traces of Emotion

Centre for Design Research © 2008 Physiological Traces of Emotion Emotional intensity on the recording does not consistently match the experienced, ‘remembered’, intensity. BFL stated that it is not possible to compare one individual’s recordings against another individual’s, only against their own.

Physiological Traces of Emotion

Centre for Design Research © 2008 Conclusion The hope of ESA-16 providing a non-invasive emotional assessment. Products do elicit emotional responses but reflection upon these responses can distort the memory of these emotions. However, designers and technologists first need an validated model of emotion in order to progress.

Centre for Design Research © 2008 Conclusion It was therefore concluded that in the short term, this technology might be repurposed for monitoring other physiological changes, used for enquiries into immersive experiences, for example, computer gaming. The ESA-16 might be viewed as a stepping stone towards a clearer understanding of experiences. Nevertheless, a key question for further investigation that came out of this project was ‘just how reliable are our emotional responses to product?’

Centre for Design Research © 2008 Dr. Kev Hilton