Paul Marcel Carl Lemmens

A body-conforming tactile jacket to enrich movie viewing

Adding haptic stimulation to movies is a promising step in creating more emotionally immersive experiences. To explore the potential of this concept, we have created a wearable tactile jacket that is used to deliver movie-specific tactile stimuli to the viewers body that are specifically targeted to influence the viewers emotions. Immersion was evaluated in a user test using questionnaires and physiological measurements. The findings show promising effects of the haptic stimuli that need to be substantiated in further more refined user tests.

Towards Emotion Classification Using Appraisal Modeling

The authors studied whether a two-step approach based on appraisal modeling could help in improving performance of emotion classification from sensor data that is typically executed in a one-stage approach in which sensor data is directly classified into a discrete emotion label. The proposed intermediate step is inspired by appraisal models in which emotions are characterized using appraisal dimensions, and subdivides the task in a person-dependent and person-independent stage. In this paper, the authors assessed feasibility of this second stage: the classification of emotion from appraisal data. They applied a variety of machine learning techniques and used visualization techniques to gain further insight into the classification task. Appraisal theory assumes the second step to be independent of the individual. Results obtained are promising, but do indicate that not all emotions can be equally well classified, perhaps indicating that the second stage is not as person-independent as proposed in the literature.

Same or different? Recollection of or empathizing with an emotional event from the perspective of appraisal models

The same stimulus can evoke different emotions for different individuals. Incorporating personalized construal of stimuli is how appraisal models differ from dimensional models of emotion. Scherer formulated a model of the cognitive antecedents of emotions and analyzed recollections of events and emotions that his participants provided. In the present study, we were interested whether Scherers appraisal model also applies to a situation in which participants have to empathize with a photo by building a story around the event depicted. Our results show that recollecting a personal emotional event and empathizing with a photo seem to be similar processes. Results of machine-learning techniques, however, show lacking performance of classifications to express discrete emotion labels in terms of appraisal data.