The power of abuse, either in childhood or in adulthood, is clear in many cases. Yet certain types of abuse are harder to detect and understand. Emotional invalidation is one type of abuse that is characterized by an incongruence or minimization of another person's emotions. This experimental study explored effects of emotional invalidation and emotional validation on people's level of emotional self-efficacy. Participants (n = 230) were recruited through Quest Mindshare using a survey created through SurveyMonkey, and randomly placed into 3 groups. All participants were given a survey that asked them to choose how certain pictures made them feel. In the experimental groups, experimenter feedback was either validating or invalidating. Following the survey, a measure of emotional self-efficacy was measured through the Emotional Self-Efficacy Scale (ESES). An ANCOVA research design was used in order to determine if differences in participant's ESES scores existed between the 3 groups, while controlling for age. The results revealed that the group receiving the invalidating feedback scored significantly lower than did the control group on the ESES score. This finding supports previous research completed with emotional invalidation and involves an aspect of communication that pertains to many different settings and interpersonal relationships including, but not limited to, teachers and students, family members, and friends. This study also has positive social change implications in the mental health field by illuminating the role of invalidating feedback on emotional self-efficacy, a finding which may inform clinicians' work to bolster mental health in all individuals.

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No. of bitstreams: 1 DissRBS.pdf: 2405110 bytes, checksum: 1979b071dc8baafe4d68beff7931d852 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-01-28 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / Currently the area of HCI is experiencing the years of its third paradigm or third wave where the cultural issues and specially the human expressions such as emotions are very important. It is part of the human nature the need to express emotions, which play an important role in the development of intelligence, perception, learning and specially in communication. Given that people organize themselves in group in different situations, mainly for work purposes, the importance of communication is clear within these organizations that are mostly hierarchically organized. The communication that occurs without expression of emotions and understanding and response of the emotions expressed by other take the risk of loose sense. Thus, it is clear that emotions and emotional responsiveness are present in the communication and socialization among people. However, little is known about the "emotional world" of hierarchical organizations. This work explores the use of ICTs tools in the context of the communication in hierarchical organizations to look for emotional responsiveness and behavioral tendencies of their members. For this end, a prototype named EmotiFeed was developed and installed in a hierarchically organized mental care hospital, following the in-the-wild approach. The EmotiFeed encourages the Bottom-Up communication and allows the hospital directors to publish public notes to their employees that can express themselves emotionally about them. It was found evidences that the emotional responsiveness is promoted by the use of ICTs from both perspectives of high-level and low-level members. It was found that the high-level members are sensitive to the emotional feedback provided by the low-level members, checking and evaluating the impact of his/her publication and adjusting the content of the public notes, tending to publish public notes with emotional content above neutral and around positive. It was also found that the low- level members have sensitivity to the repost of the high-level members, reflecting on the previous and the current public note and can be expressed in order to be better understood. / Atualmente, a área da IHC vivencia anos do seu terceiro paradigma ou terceira onda, onde questões culturais e, principalmente, as expressões humanas como as emoções são de extrema importância. Faz parte da natureza humana a necessidade de expressar emoções, que desempenham um papel importante no desenvolvimento da inteligência, percepção, aprendizado e, principalmente, na comunicação. Tendo em vista que as pessoas se organizam em grupo para diversas situações e principalmente para fins de trabalho, percebe-se a importância da comunicação dentro destas organizações, que são organizadas hierarquicamente em sua maioria. A comunicação que ocorre sem a expressão de emoções e a compreensão e resposta das emoções expressadas por outros corre o risco de perder o sentido, sendo prejudicada. Assim, percebe-se que as emoções e a responsividade emocional estão presentes na comunicação e socialização entre pessoas. Todavia, pouco se sabe sobre o “mundo emocional” das organizações hierárquicas. Este trabalho explora o uso de TICs no contexto da comunicação em organizações hierárquicas a fim de verificar se há responsividade emocional por parte dos membros da organização bem como suas tendências comportamentais. Para isto, um protótipo nomeado EmotiFeed foi desenvolvido e instalado num hospital psiquiátrico organizado hierarquicamente, seguindo a abordagem de estudo in-the-wild. O EmotiFeed estimula a comunicação Bottom-Up e permite que os diretores do hospital publiquem comunicados para seus funcionários, que por sua vez podem se expressar emocionalmente sobre eles. Encontrou-se indícios de que a responsividade emocional é promovida pelo uso de TICs tanto na perspectiva dos membros executivos quanto na perspectiva dos membros da base da organização. Verificou-se que os membros de alto nível são sensíveis ao feedback emocional provindo dos funcionários, verificando e avaliando o impacto de suas publicações e ajustando o conteúdo dos comunicados, tendendo a publicar comunicados com conteúdo emocional acima de neutro e próximo de positivo. Verificou-se também que os funcionários apresentam sensibilidade à repostagem dos membros de alto nível, refletindo sobre o comunicado publicado anteriormente e o atual, podendo se expressar novamente a fim de serem melhor compreendidos.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate how images can be used to provide emotional feedback on user experience. The report describes the iterative process of developing OakMood, an image-based design evaluation method that provides designers with user generated visual feedback. OakMood enables users to provide emotional feedback on web user experience by choosing images that correspond to their experience of an interaction. The images have been rated by an online crowd according to nine emotions, hence providing emotive characteristics for each image. Results are subsequently presented as mood boards and charts to designers and stakeholders. In addition to providing emotional user feedback on design, OakMood aspires to reflect branding elements of a website. Findings in this study indicate that image-based user feedback can provide valuable insights in the design process. Furthermore, results also indicate that users find images to be an engaging and useful methodology to assess emotional response to user experience. / Syftet med denna studie är att utreda huruvida bilder kan användas för att ge emotionell feedback på användarupplevelse. I rapporten beskrivs den iterativa processen av utvecklingen av OakMood, en bildbaserad design-utvärderings-metod som förser designers med användargenererad visuell feedback. OakMood gör det möjligt för användare att förse emotionell feedback på webbaserad användarupplevelse genom att välja bilder som stämmer överens med deras upplevelse av interaktionen. Bilderna har tidigare blivit bedömda utifrån nio känslor, vilket ger varje enskild bild en unik känslomässig karakteristik. Resultaten presenteras i form av mood boards och diagram till designers och intressenter. Utöver emotionell feedback strävar OakMood efter att ge värdefull feedback på hur användarupplevelse kan spegla varumärke. Resultaten av denna studie indikerar att bildbaserad användarfeedback kan ge användbara insikter i designprocessen. Vidare indikerar resultaten att användare finner att bilder är en engagerande och lämplig metod att känslomässigt utvärdera användarupplevelse.

This thesis introduces a novel situated interactive composition system called the SMuSe (for Situated Music Server) that is grounded on principles of modern cognitive science, provides perceptual control of sound synthesis and includes emotional feedback. It illustrates both a new music composition paradigm and a synthetic psychology approach to the study of music perception, emotion and cognition. The SMuSe is composed of cognitively plausible modules implemented as a hierarchy of musical agents and relies on distributed control, parallelism, emergence and embodiment. By interacting with its environment, which provides feedback via multiple sensors, the system generates complex adaptive affective musical structures. Focusing on the micro-level of sound generation, we present two complementary techniques that give high-level perceptual control over low-level sound synthesis parameters. In a first implicit approach, a support vector machine algorithm learns to automatically map perceptual features such as loudness, pitch and brightness onto additive synthesis parameters. In a second approach, a physically-inspired synthesis model provides explicit access to perceptual and physical parameters such as pitch, loudness, brightness, attack time, inharmonicity and damping. Moving from the study of music generation and control towards the study of the musical experience itself, we then evaluate how the music generated by the SMuSe influences the listeners' emotional responses. A first psychoacoustics experiment shows the significant influence of structural (scale, register, harmony), expressive (velocity, tempo, articulation) and timbre (brightness, attack time, spectral flux) parameters on the emotional scales of valence, arousal and dominance. An additional large scale experiment involving dementia patients (an illness known to induce cognitive and affective deficits) shows that specific sound features (e.g. low loudness, low brightness) provoke specific emotional responses within the patients (e.g. low stress). Moreover, the patients' emotional responses differ from the age-matched control group, and the analysis shows an increased emotional sensitivity to sounds as the severity of the disease increases. These results suggest that sound-based therapy and diagnosis for dementia are possible. Finally, the maturity and flexibility of the SMuSe music system are demonstrated by a series of real-world applications including the sonification of a mixed-reality space, a study on physiologically-based musical interaction, a neurofeedback musical interface, a closed loop system based on reinforcement learning of emotional feedback, and a large scale multimedia performance using brain-computer interfaces. A situated, perceptive, emotive and cognitive approach to the design of musical systems paves the way for new applications for therapy but also for interactive gaming and novel physiologically-based instruments. Our approach provides a well-grounded paradigm to develop advanced synthetic aesthetics system that can inform our understanding of the psychological processes on which they rely. / Esta tesis introduce un nuevo sistema de composición situada e interactiva llamado SMuSe (por Situated Music Server). Dicho sistema está basado en principios extraídos de la ciencia cognitiva moderna, proporciona control perceptual sobre la síntesis sonora e incluye feedback emocional. Por lo tanto, ilustra tanto un paradigma nuevo para la composición musical, como un sintético enfoque psicológico al estudio de la percepción musical, las emociones y la cognición. SMuSe consta de diversos modulos, plausibles desde un punto de vista cognitivo, implementados como una jerarquía de agentes. El funcionamiento de SMuSe explota los principios de control distribuido, paralelismo, emergencia y embodiment. En función del feedback obtenido por la interacción con el entorno, el sistema genera complejas estructuras musicales afectivas. En concreto, a nivel de generación de sonido, presentamos dos técnicas complementarias que proporcionan un control perceptivo de alto nivel sobre parámetros concretos de síntesis sonora. En un primer método implícito, un algoritmo de support vector machine aprende a traducir automáticamente características perceptuales, como volumen, tono y brillo en parámetros de síntesis aditiva. En el segundo método, un modelo físico de síntesis proporciona explícitamente acceso a parámetros perceptivos y físicos, tales como tono, volumen, brillo, tiempo de ataque, inarmonía y factor de amortiguamiento. En lo que respecta al estudio de la experiencia musical en sí misma, evaluamos la influencia de la música generada por SMuSe en las respuestas emocionales del sujeto. Un primer experimento psicoacústico muestra la influencia significativa que tienen parámetros estructurales (escala,registro, armonía), expresivos (velocidad, tempo, articulación) y de timbre (brillo, ataque, flujo espectral) en la escalas emocionales de valencia, activacíon y dominancia. Adicionalmente, un experimento de gran escala realizado con pacientes de demencia, una patología que asociada a déficits afectivos y cognitivos, demuestra que los pacientes responden emocionalmente a rasgos específicos del sonido (e.g. bajo volumen y brillo inducen poca tensión). Además, la respuesta emocional de los pacientes difiere si se compara con la mostrada por un grupo de control con la misma edad media. De tal manera, una mayor respuesta emocional aparece asociada a un mayor grado de demencia. Estos resultados sugieren que sería posible desarrollar técnicas basadas en el uso de música tanto para el tratamiento de la demencia como para su diagnóstico. Para concluir, la madurez y flexibilidad de SMuSe se demuestra con una serie de aplicaciones que incluyen la sonificación de un espacio de realidad mixta, un estudio acerca de la interacción musical mediante datos fisiológicos, un interfaz musical basado en feedback neurológico, un sistema basado en aprendizaje por refuerzo del feedback emocional, y una performance multimedia de gran escala controlada mediante interfaces cerebro-máquina. Este enfoque situado, perceptivo, emocional y cognitivo al diseño de sistemas musicales abre la posibilidad de desarrollar aplicaciones no sólo terapéuticas sino también para los juegos interactivos y nuevos interfaces que empleen fisiología. Nuestra propuesta proporciona un sólido paradigma para el desarrollo de sistemas de síntesis de estéticas avanzadas, que puedan servir para entender los procesos psicológicos subyacentes

Les interfaces cerveau-ordinateur basées sur l’imagerie mentale (MI-BCIs) offrent de nouvelles possibilités d’interaction avec les technologies numériques, telles que les neuroprothèses ou les jeux vidéo, uniquement en effectuant des tâches d’imagerie mentale, telles qu’imaginer d’un objet en rotation. La reconnaissance de la commande envoyée au système par l’utilisateur repose sur l’analyse de l’activité cérébrale de ce dernier. Les utilisateurs doivent apprendre à produire des patterns d’activité cérébrale reconnaissables par le système afin de contrôler les MI-BCIs. Cependant, les protocoles de formation actuels ne permettent pas à 10 à 30 % des personnes d’acquérir les compétences nécessaires pour utiliser les MI-BCIs. Ce manque de fiabilité des BCIs limite le développement de la technologie en dehors des laboratoires de recherche. Cette thèse a pour objectif d’examiner comment le feedback fourni tout au longde la formation peut être amélioré et adapté aux traits et aux états des utilisateurs. Dans un premier temps, nous examinons le rôle qui est actuellement donné au feedback dans les applications et les protocoles d’entraînement à l’utilisation des MI-BCIs. Nous analysons également les théories et les contributions expérimentales discutant de son rôle et de son utilité dans le processus d’apprentissage de contrôle de correlats neurophysiologiques. Ensuite, nous fournissons une analyse de l’utilité de différents feedback pour l’entraînement à l’utilisation des MI-BCIs. Nous nous concentrons sur trois caractéristiques principales du feedback, i.e., son contenu, sa modalité de présentation et enfin sa dimension temporelle. Pour chacune de ces caractéristiques, nous avons examiné la littérature afin d’évaluer quels types de feedback ont été testés et quel impact ils semblent avoir sur l’entraînement. Nous avons également analysé quels traits ou états des apprenants influaient sur les résultats de cet entraînement. En nous basant sur ces analyses de la littérature, nous avons émis l’hypothèse que différentes caractéristiques du feedback pourraient être exploitées afin d’améliorer l’entraînement en fonction des traits ou états des apprenants. Nous rapportons les résultats de nos contributions expérimentales pour chacune des caractéristiques du feedback. Enfin, nous présentons différentes recommandations et défis concernant chaque caractéristique du feedback. Des solutions potentielles sont proposées pour à l’avenir surmonter ces défis et répondre à ces recommandations. / Mental-Imagery based Brain-Computer Interfaces (MI-BCIs) present new opportunities to interact with digital technologies, such as neuroprostheses or videogames, only by performing mental imagery tasks, such as imagining an object rotating. The recognition of the command for the system is based on the analysis of the brain activity of the user. The users must learn to produce brain activity patterns that are recognizable by the system in order to control BCIs. However, current training protocols do not enable 10 to 30% of persons to acquire the skills required to use BCIs. The lack of robustness of BCIs limit the development of the technology outside of research laboratories. This thesis aims at investigating how the feedback provided throughout the training can be improved and adapted to the traits and states of the users. First, we investigate the role that feedback is currently given in MI-BCI applications and training protocols. We also analyse the theories and experimental contributions discussing its role and usefulness. Then, we review the different feedback that have been used to train MI-BCI users. We focus on three main characteristics of feedback, i.e., its content, its modality of presentation and finally its timing. For each of these characteristics, we reviewed the literature to assess which types of feedback have been tested and what is their impact on the training. We also analysed which traits or states of the learners were shown to influence BCI training outcome. Based on these reviews of the literature, we hypothesised that different characteristics of feedback could be leveraged to improve the training of the learners depending on either traits or states. We reported the results of our experimental contributions for each of the characteristics of feedback. Finally, we presented different recommendations and challenges regarding each characteristic of feedback. Potential solutions were proposed to meet these recommendations in the future.