Using Biometric Data to Assess Affective Response to Media Experiences

Abstract: The purpose of this work is to investigate a method of measuring emotional experience by interrupting video content every three minutes to self-report. We let 16 test participants watch the short-film Helium divided into a control group and an intervention group. The subjective experiences from nine subjects (the intervention group) were captured by self-reporting via the widely used SAM pictogram scale. The intervention group was interrupted every three minutes for this. We found that interruptions induced by the self-reporting approach have negative effects on the subjects’ experience. This is observed in the biometric GSR data, which shows a clear correlation between GSR measures and the interruptions, showing an average of 30 s to return to “normal” after interruptions. The intervention group’s experience evaluation of the video content also support this effect, showing statistical evidence of a reduced experience when using the method of interruptions.