Recent work has proposed sliders as a useful way to measure self-reported emotion continuously. My dissertation extends this work to ask: what are relevant properties of affective self-report on sliders and variations? How reliable are affective self-reports? How do they relate to physiological data? What are individual and cultural differences? How can this method be applied to ehealth? Three emotion self-report tools (one-slider, two-slider, a touchscreen) were developed and evaluated in four experiments. The first experiment was within-subjects. Participants viewed short videos, with four self-report conditions (including no reporting) and physiological capture (heart rate variability and skin conductance). In a re-rating task, the sliders models were found to be more reliable than the touchscreen (Lottridge & Chignell, 2009a). The second and third experiments were between-subjects, and examined individual and cultural differences. Canadian and Japanese participants watched a nature video, while rating emotions and answering questions. Analyses were carried out within and across the datasets. Larger operation span displayed a minor benefit. Valence and arousal ratings were not strongly related to skin conductance. The Japanese performed on par with Canadians but reported worse performance. Based on the results, the recommendation was made that a single slider be used to rate valence, that arousal be estimated with skin conductance, and that slider psychometrics be used to assess cognitive load over time. In the fourth experiment, diabetic participants watched Diabetes-related videos. They clustered into usage patterns: some moved the slider very little during videos and more afterward, some hardly moved the slider, and some used it as expected. Two novel metrics facilitated these analyses: Emotional Bandwidth, an application of information entropy that characterizes the granularity of the self reports (Lottridge & Chignell, 2009b) and Emotional Majority Agreement, the amount of agreement relative to a sample’s self-reports (Lottridge & Chignell, 2009c). In summary, this dissertation contributes a method of measuring emotion through sliders and skin conductance that has been evaluated in a number of experimental studies. It contributes the empirical results, design recommendations, and two novel metrics of emotional response. Limitations and implications for future research and practice are also discussed.

Recent work has proposed sliders as a useful way to measure self-reported emotion continuously. My dissertation extends this work to ask: what are relevant properties of affective self-report on sliders and variations? How reliable are affective self-reports? How do they relate to physiological data? What are individual and cultural differences? How can this method be applied to ehealth? Three emotion self-report tools (one-slider, two-slider, a touchscreen) were developed and evaluated in four experiments. The first experiment was within-subjects. Participants viewed short videos, with four self-report conditions (including no reporting) and physiological capture (heart rate variability and skin conductance). In a re-rating task, the sliders models were found to be more reliable than the touchscreen (Lottridge & Chignell, 2009a). The second and third experiments were between-subjects, and examined individual and cultural differences. Canadian and Japanese participants watched a nature video, while rating emotions and answering questions. Analyses were carried out within and across the datasets. Larger operation span displayed a minor benefit. Valence and arousal ratings were not strongly related to skin conductance. The Japanese performed on par with Canadians but reported worse performance. Based on the results, the recommendation was made that a single slider be used to rate valence, that arousal be estimated with skin conductance, and that slider psychometrics be used to assess cognitive load over time. In the fourth experiment, diabetic participants watched Diabetes-related videos. They clustered into usage patterns: some moved the slider very little during videos and more afterward, some hardly moved the slider, and some used it as expected. Two novel metrics facilitated these analyses: Emotional Bandwidth, an application of information entropy that characterizes the granularity of the self reports (Lottridge & Chignell, 2009b) and Emotional Majority Agreement, the amount of agreement relative to a sample’s self-reports (Lottridge & Chignell, 2009c). In summary, this dissertation contributes a method of measuring emotion through sliders and skin conductance that has been evaluated in a number of experimental studies. It contributes the empirical results, design recommendations, and two novel metrics of emotional response. Limitations and implications for future research and practice are also discussed.

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Monitoring stress in real-time, in a non-laboratory environment can be benecial in several applications. One of these, which have been the motivation for this thesis, is to to perform this measurement during Attention decit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) diagnosis. Monitoring several physiological responses to internal or external stimuli in a single soft-real-time system is nota solution widely used in an application like this. The thesis starts by studying several stress related responses in detail. Sensors for all of the responses are not implemented nor is it possible toimplement in to the desired system. After the study is was decided to implement two measurement modules. The first a Photo-plethysmogrophy (PPG) measurement module to measure heart rate and also estimate breathing. This module is prepared for estimating arterial blood oxygen levels but the calculation or verification have not been done. The second is Skin Conductance (SC) measurement module and in to both ofthese add a temperature sensor to measure the temperature of the skin. Time constraints limit the SC module to only be presented in theory. The PPG module on the other hand have been realisedin a prototype. This prototype performs the measurement in transmissive mode on the left earlobe, which leaves the hands free and it does not affect the hearing on that ear. The prototype giveout acceptable signal quality when good contact with the measurement site is achieved. The signalinterpretation, such as performing the signal analysis to count the beats per minute, is outside thescope of this thesis and will therefore not be presented but the signals can be seen in figures. / Att mäta stress i realtid i verkliga situationer kan vara fördelaktigt för flera applikationer. Det som har legat som grund för denna uppsats är att kunna mäta stress under ADHD diagnostisering. Genom att kombinera de vanliga testerna med stressnivåer hos patienten hoppas man kunna utveckla nya metoder för diagnostisering. Att mäta fera parametrar samtidigt i realtid är inte något ofta utförs idag. För att komma igång har fera kroppsliga funktioner som påverkas på olika sätt av stress studerats. Alla dessa funktioner kan inte inkluderas i det system som önskas konstrueras antingen på grund av systemets karaktär eller på grund tidsbrist. Efter att undersökningen var klar beslutades det att konstruera två moduler. Den första använder en mätteknik som kallas PPG och används för att mäta hjärtfrekvens, även andningsfrekvensen estimeras och modulen är förberedd för att estimera blodsyre nivåa men signalbehandling och validering för detta är inte gjord. Den andra modulen mäter resistans i huden. I dessa moduler lades även till en temperatur sensor för att mäta hudtemperaturen. Tidsbrist har gjort att endast en av dem två modulerna kunnat realiserats. Den som realiserat är PPG modulen och modulen för hudresistans presenteras endast teoretiskt. PPG modulen genomför matningen med en transmissiv teknik på vänster öra och ger ut en acceptabel signal kvalité om sensorn får bra kontakt. Arbetet är avgränsat och inkluderar inte signalanalysen av signalen däremot visualiseras signalen i figurer.

Research has documented a tendency among youth to have biased interpretations of ambiguous information. For example, anxious youth are more likely to interpret ambiguous situations as negative or threatening (e.g., Cannon & Weems, 2010). Similarly, when interpreting social cues, aggressive youth exhibit hostile attribution biases more often than non-aggressive youth in response to ambiguous situations (e.g., Crick & Dodge, 1996). Research suggests that youth with anxiety and aggression exhibit differential physiological reactivity in response to threat. However, research has yet to examine the linkages amongst physiological reactivity to ambiguous situations, anxiety, and aggression in adolescents. The current study had several interrelated aims. Youths’ physiological responding (i.e., heart rate and skin conductance) to a series of animated vignettes depicting ambiguous social situations was examined. Anxiety, aggression, and hostile attributional bias (HAB) were also tested as predictors of differential physiological responding to the vignettes, as well as the interrelations between anxiety and HAB and aggression and HAB. Eighty youth completed a physiological assessment in which they viewed a series of hypothetical situational vignettes while their heart rate and skin conductance were measured. Participants also completed questionnaires measuring symptoms of anxiety, aggression, and HAB. Results indicated that there was differential physiological responding to the vignettes such that participants’ heart rates showed a pattern of deceleration followed by acceleration across time. Physiological responses were predicted by HAB such that those with high HAB had higher heart rates and exhibited more pronounced deceleration and acceleration across time than those with low HAB. There was support for anxiety as a significant predictor of responses among those participants with higher levels of HAB such that heart rates remained elevated with very little deceleration across time, suggesting a pattern of physiological hyperarousal and blunted reactivity. However, aggression did not predict differential physiological responding to the ambiguous vignettes, nor did HAB moderate the association between aggression and physiological responding. These findings add to the literature by contributing to knowledge about physiological responding to ambiguous situations and associations between this link with anxiety, aggression, and HAB.

The purpose of this study was to compare and contrast within and between participant performance on three different measures of listening effort: a dual-task paradigm, pupillometry, and skin conductance; participants also subjectively rated the difficulty of their experience. A repeated measures design was used to address the reliability and validity of each measure. 20 participants were recruited and attended two sessions; the second occurred a minimum of one week after the first. Participants listened to sentences presented in stationary noise at four different signal-to-noise ratios: quiet, 0, -3, and -5 dB SNR. The variables of interest were: change in peak-to-peak pupil diameter, change in reaction time from baseline, skin conductance response amplitude, and skin conductance response quantity. The results indicated that as SNR decreased, speech perception performance decreased and subjective listening effort increased. Participants accurately and consistently rated the more difficult conditions as requiring more listening effort. The change in reaction time from baseline, peak-to-peak pupil diameter, and skin conductance response quantity increased as SNR decreased; skin conductance response amplitude did not vary as task difficulty increased, but skin conductance response amplitude was larger for incorrect responses than it was for correct responses. There was a significant practice effect observed for the reaction time data. The dual-task paradigm and pupillometry measures had the greatest reliability and validity. This study demonstrated that listening effort can successfully be quantified both subjectively and objectively by using a variety of tasks. Future studies may be able to use these measures to further assess listening effort in the clinic and in the real-world.

<p>This study is an attempt to conceptually replicate a study by Ramakers, Stevens and Morris (2005) using a measure of electrodermal activity skin conductance (EDA) to evaluate the possibility of telepathy occurring between biologically and/or emotionally related senders and receivers. Ten negatively valenced and highly arousing target pictures were mixed with 10 blank control pictures in 10 blocks, with one of each kind in each block. The order of presentation of the target and control pictures within the block was determined randomly by a computer program. The series of 20 pictures were shown for the sender on a computer screen. Relaxation for the receiver was facilitated by soft music. It was hypothesized that there would be significantly more variance in the receiver EDA when the sender was exposed to negative arousing pictures, than to blank pictures. The results failed to show a significant difference in EDA variance between negative arousing and blank pictures, and did thus not support the telepathy hypothesis. It was recommended that future replications allocate more time for relaxation for the receiver.</p>

This study is an attempt to conceptually replicate a study by Ramakers, Stevens and Morris (2005) using a measure of electrodermal activity skin conductance (EDA) to evaluate the possibility of telepathy occurring between biologically and/or emotionally related senders and receivers. Ten negatively valenced and highly arousing target pictures were mixed with 10 blank control pictures in 10 blocks, with one of each kind in each block. The order of presentation of the target and control pictures within the block was determined randomly by a computer program. The series of 20 pictures were shown for the sender on a computer screen. Relaxation for the receiver was facilitated by soft music. It was hypothesized that there would be significantly more variance in the receiver EDA when the sender was exposed to negative arousing pictures, than to blank pictures. The results failed to show a significant difference in EDA variance between negative arousing and blank pictures, and did thus not support the telepathy hypothesis. It was recommended that future replications allocate more time for relaxation for the receiver.

Recent research has suggested that boredom is a construct that can be distinguished from similar affective states including apathy, anhedonia, and depression, using self-reports. The current study investigated whether boredom and sadness (an analogue for depression) are distinct in terms of their physiological signatures. State boredom and sadness were induced in a group of healthy participants while their physiological parameters of heart rate (HR), skin conductance (SCL), and cortisol levels were monitored. Results indicated that the autonomic nervous system response for both states can be characterized by directional fractionation, with boredom resulting in increased HR but decreased SCL relative to sadness. Cortisol levels were higher after the boring induction than the sad induction, indicating increased hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis activation for boredom. Overall, boredom appears to have a physiological signature that is distinguishable from a primary symptom of depression.