Event-related potentials in psychological research

Sympathetic skin response (SSR)

The purpose of this study is to reveal indices which reflect the relationship among optimal arousal level, performance and positive mood during a working task. The arousal level based on both of performance and positive mood is evaluated. As a working task, working memory tasks of two difficulties are performed. Performance and psychophysiological states before, during and after the task are measured using task scores, biological signals, and subjective scores. The data of each index is analyzed using multiple linear regression analysis. It is shown that indices such as skin conductance, RR interval of electrocardiogram, and alpha power in the occipital area reflect arousal level which has relationships with performance or positive mood. On the other hand, more appropriate arousal level for positive mood is different between tension and physiological alertness. Thus, it is revealed that optimal arousal level influenced by tension and physiological alertness cannot be evaluated by one index. However, the prediction accuracy of each linear regression model is low. Therefore, it is led that further investigation using task difficulties in a wide range is needed.

Evaluating Optimal Arousal Level during the Task Based on Performance and Positive Mood: Extracting Indices Reflecting the Relationship among Arousal, Performance, and Mood

Studies have shown that drivers’ emotions can be assessed via changes in their physiology and facial behaviour. This study examined this approach as a means of gauging user experience (UX) in an automotive user study. 36 drivers’ responses to typical UX-style questions were compared with computational estimates of their emotional state, based on changes in their cardiac, respiratory, electrodermal and facial signals. The drivers’ arousal and valence levels were monitored in real-time as they drove a 23-mile route around Sunnyvale, CA. These estimates corresponded with two independent observers’ judgments of the drivers’ emotions. The results highlighted a disparity between the self-report and algorithmic scores—the drivers who answered the UX questions more positively experienced higher levels of stress—evidenced by higher arousal and lower valence algorithmic scores. The findings highlight the value of supplementing self-report measures with objective estimates of drivers’ emotions in automotive UX research.

Assessing the Use of Physiological Signals and Facial Behaviour to Gauge Drivers’ Emotions as a UX Metric in Automotive User Studies

The purpose of this experimental study is to elucidate how is the expression of illustrations giving a positive impression from the viewpoints of impression evaluation and psychophysiological indices. The experiment is carried out to explore the relationship between impression evaluation and psychophysiological indices obtained from biological signals. We analyze the latency and amplitude of EEG event-related potential P300 and N170 when we show the three different illustrations which are the cat having realistic eyes, the cat having simplified eyes and the cat having eyes of intermediate expression. In addition, we also analyze them when we show other three different illustrations which are the cat having a clear outline, the cat having no outline and the cat having an ambiguous outline. In both experiment, we use not only cat illustrations but also tiger illustrations. As a result, it suggests there is a correlation between part of impression evaluation and the latency and amplitude of EEG event-related potential. The expression to create a positive impression is different depending on whether cats or tigers. This study shows that differences in expression might lead a positive impression and we should need to select the expression of illustrations depending on the subject of the illustration.

Experimental Study of Impression and Psychophysiological Evaluation in the Identification of Design: Focus on the Difference in the Expression of Illustrations

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the performance based on psychophysiological states in a working task involving periodic eye movements using electrooculogram (EOG). EOG during the task were compared to electrocardiogram (ECG) and task scores during the task and subjective scores after the task. As the results, there were relationships in which the autocorrelation coefficients of time-series behaviors of EOG became larger as the task scores and the impressions of the task results became better. Furthermore, there were relationships in which the task scores and the autocorrelation coefficients of time-series behaviors of EOG became larger as RR interval and coefficients of variation of RR interval (CVRR) by ECG became smaller. Time-series behaviors of EOG became stable and sympathetic nervous activity increased according to the increase of the task scores. Thus, it was demonstrated that performance based on psychophysiological states in a working task involving periodic eye movements can be evaluated by time-series behaviors of EOG.

Evaluation of Performance Using Electrooculogram: Performance in a Working Task Involving Periodic Eye Movements

The conventional studies on mascot characters were evaluated subjectively. In this study not only subjective evaluations using the SD method but also objective ones with biomedical signals and response time were performed for the evaluations of the mascot characters. The result of tests and researches showed that there was a correlation between brain wave event related potential and response time for the character cognitions and, mascots' acceptability also played a major role to their popularities besides "cuteness" and "weirdness". Under these results, local governments' mascots were picked up respectively and a research was conducted on what kind of effects they made for attracting interest to local governments, which led to the conclusion that the local governments, featuring mascots with distinctive and understandable motives in order to explain their products and cultures, succeeded in getting more interests than the ones with undistinguished and weak characters.

Gaku Inou

Papers

Evaluating Optimal Arousal Level during the Task Based on Performance and Positive Mood: Extracting Indices Reflecting the Relationship among Arousal, Performance, and Mood

Evaluation of Performance Using Electrooculogram: Performance in a Working Task Involving Periodic Eye Movements

Experimental Study of Impression and Psychophysiological Evaluation in the Identification of Design: Focus on the Difference in the Expression of Illustrations

The Effects on the Popularities and Interests Mascot Characters' Acceptability Give to the General Public