Determining the Psychological Involvement in Multimedia Interactions

Abstract

Modern multimedia applications are different from conventional applications, such as reading a text-document, because they involve modelling real-world social scenarios. For instance, e-learning is the computer realization of real-world class-based teaching and learning scenario. In the real-world, human interactions are influenced by cognitive, emotional, and social factors. However, in modern human-computer interactions, most of these factors are not accounted for. Addressing this issue, this paper presents a method to determine the psychological involvement of a human user in a computer-based multimedia interaction using Electro-oculogram (EOG) signals to determine the quality of visual attention and Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) signals to determine the emotional reaction, where most other studies rely on unreliable facial expressions, sophisticated brain scan technologies and expensive hardware, such as eye trackers. Based on the expected behavioural patterns of EOG and GSR signals three classes of involvement cases are proposed. The paper also presents a low-cost hardware/software combination that can be used to detect EOG and GSR signals. The results of the experiments show the validity of the involvement cases and the methodology.