Emotion can influence important user behaviors, including purchasing decisions, technology use, and customer loyalty. The ability to easily assess users' emotion during live system use therefore has practical significance for the design and improvement of information systems. In this paper, we discuss using human-computer interaction input devices to infer emotion. Specifically, we utilize attentional control theory to explain how movement captured via a computer mouse (i.e., mouse cursor movements) can be a real-time indicator of negative emotion. We report three studies. In Study 1, an experiment with 65 participants from Amazon's Mechanical Turk, we randomly manipulated negative emotion and then monitored participants' mouse cursor movements as they completed a number-ordering task. We found that negative emotion increases the distance and reduces the speed of mouse cursor movements during the task. In Study 2, an experiment with 126 participants from a U.S. university, we randomly manipulated negative emotion and then monitored participants' mouse cursor movements while they interacted with a mock e-commerce site. We found that mouse cursor distance and speed can be used to infer the presence of negative emotion with an overall accuracy rate of 81.7 percent. In Study 3, an observational study with 80 participants from universities in Germany and Hong Kong, we monitored mouse cursor movements while participants interacted with an online product configurator. Participants reported their level of emotion after each step in the configuration process. We found that mouse cursor distance and speed can be used to infer the level of negative emotion with an out-of-sample R-2 of 0.17. The results enable researchers to assess negative emotional reactions during live system use, examine emotional reactions with more temporal precision, conduct multimethod emotion research, and create more unobtrusive affective and adaptive systems.

As increasingly large displays are integrated into personal workspaces, mouse-based interaction becomes more problematic. Users must repeatedly "clutch" the mouse for long distance movements [61]. The visibility of the cursor is also problematic in large screens, since the percentage of the screen space that the cursor takes from the whole display gets smaller. We test multi-scale approaches to mouse interaction that utilize dynamic speed and size techniques to grow the cursor larger and faster for long movements. Using Fitts' Law methods, we experimentally compare different implementations to optimize the mouse design for large displays and to test how they scale to large displays. We also compare them to techniques that integrate absolute pointing with head tracking. Results indicate that with some implementation level modifications the mouse device can scale well up to even a 100 megapixel display with lower mean movement times as compared to integrating absolute pointing techniques to mouse input while maintaining fast performance of the typical mouse configuration on small screens for short distance movements. Designs that have multiple acceleration levels and 4x maximum acceleration reduced average number of clutching to less than one per task in a 100 megapixel display. Dynamic size cursors statistically improve pointing performance. Results also indicated that dynamic speed transitions should be as smooth as possible without steps of more than 2x increase in speed. / Master of Science

<p>In this thesis, design and realization of a system which enables precise positioning of RFID tags in both azimuth and elevation angles is explained. The positioning is based on measuring the phase difference between four Yagi antennas placed in two arrays. One array is placed in the azimuth plane and the other array is perpendicular to the first array in the elevation plane. The phase difference of the signals received from the antennas in the azimuth array is used to find the position of RFID tag in the horizontal direction. For the position in the vertical direction, the phase difference of the signals received from the antennas in the elevation plane is used. After that the position of tag in horizontal and vertical directions is used to control the mouse cursor in the horizontal and vertical directions on the computer screen. In this way by attaching one RFID tag to a plastic rod, a wireless pen is implemented which enables drawing in the air by using a program like Paint in Windows. Simulated results show that the resolution of the tag positioning in the system is in the order of 3mm in a distance equal to 0.5 meter in front of the array with few number of averaging over the received phase data. Using the system in practice reveals that it is easily possible to write and draw with this RFID pen. In addition it is argued how the system is totally immune to any counterfeit attempt for faked drawings by randomly changing the transmitting antenna in the array. This will make the system a novel option for human identity verification.</p> / QC 20100920

In this thesis, design and realization of a system which enables precise positioning of RFID tags in both azimuth and elevation angles is explained. The positioning is based on measuring the phase difference between four Yagi antennas placed in two arrays. One array is placed in the azimuth plane and the other array is perpendicular to the first array in the elevation plane. The phase difference of the signals received from the antennas in the azimuth array is used to find the position of RFID tag in the horizontal direction. For the position in the vertical direction, the phase difference of the signals received from the antennas in the elevation plane is used. After that the position of tag in horizontal and vertical directions is used to control the mouse cursor in the horizontal and vertical directions on the computer screen. In this way by attaching one RFID tag to a plastic rod, a wireless pen is implemented which enables drawing in the air by using a program like Paint in Windows. Simulated results show that the resolution of the tag positioning in the system is in the order of 3mm in a distance equal to 0.5 meter in front of the array with few number of averaging over the received phase data. Using the system in practice reveals that it is easily possible to write and draw with this RFID pen. In addition it is argued how the system is totally immune to any counterfeit attempt for faked drawings by randomly changing the transmitting antenna in the array. This will make the system a novel option for human identity verification. / QC 20100920