Visual complexity of websites: Effects on users’ experience, physiology, performance, and memory

Visual complexity is an apparent feature in website design yet its effects on cognitive and emotional processing are not well understood. The current study examined website complexity within the framework of aesthetic theory and psychophysiological research on cognition and emotion. We hypothesized that increasing the complexity of websites would have a detrimental cognitive and emotional impact on users. In a passive viewing task (PVT) 36 website screenshots differing in their degree of complexity (operationalized by JPEG file size; correlation with complexity ratings in a preliminary study r=.80) were presented to 48 participants in randomized order. Additionally, a standardized visual search task (VST) assessing reaction times, and a one-week-delayed recognition task on these websites were conducted and participants rated all websites for arousal and valence. Psychophysiological responses were assessed during the PVT and VST. Visual complexity was related to increased experienced arousal, more negative valence appraisal, decreased heart rate, and increased facial muscle tension (musculus corrugator). Visual complexity resulted in increased reaction times in the VST and decreased recognition rates. Reaction times in the VST were related to increases in heart rate and electrodermal activity. These findings demonstrate that visual complexity of websites has multiple effects on human cognition and emotion, including experienced pleasure and arousal, facial expression, autonomic nervous system activation, task performance, and memory. It should thus be considered an important factor in website design.     

Emotional expression and modality: an analysis of affective arousal and linguistic output in a computer vs. paper paradigm

The authors hypothesized that writing longhand and typing about a stressful experience are equivalent in terms of emotional arousal and essay content. 168 college students were randomly assigned to describe either a neutral or emotional topic by typing or writing longhand, in a 2×2 factorial design. Compared with students in the neutral conditions, students instructed to describe an emotional topic reported greater negative affect following the writing task and produced essays that contained significantly more personal and psychological content. Consistent with the hypothesis, participants writing longhand and typing were equivalent in the direction and degree of this difference. These findings suggest that at least a portion of the population (i.e. college students) is now comfortable and/or adept in expressing themselves emotionally on a computer.     

Effects of Perceived Usability and Aesthetics on Emotional Responses in Different Contexts of Use

In understanding user experience issues, it is necessary to consider contextual features in user interaction with an application. The present study aims to examine the differences among applications with difference contexts of use (perceived type: interaction styles based on use purposes) in terms of the relationships between user perception (perceived usability and perceived aesthetics) and emotion (valence and arousal). A study was performed using 15 existing websites from various domains. From the responses of participants, the relationships between perceived usability and emotional valence were found to differ according to perceived type, but those between perceived aesthetics and emotional valence were not. On the other hand, sufficient reliability for the arousal items was not secured. Through the meaningful categorization of arousal into two factors (negative and positive), significant differences in the relationships between perceived usability/aesthetics and emotional arousal could be found. Implications of the findings are discussed in the connection of contextual/design features, perceptual characteristics, and emotional responses in the development of interactive applications.     

The atmospheric factors of online storefront environment design: An empirical experiment in Taiwan

The purpose of our study was to identify the effect of atmospheric factors such as music and color on participants’ emotional responses and subsequent shopping behavior in an online store setting. In this study, a laboratory experiment was conducted to test our hypotheses. The experiment was a 2 (music: fast/slow) × 2 (color: warm/cool) between-subjects factorial design with one control group. The results indicated that both music and color factors had a significant effect on participants’ emotional response, which in turn influenced their intention to purchase. Specifically, participants felt more aroused and experienced greater pleasure when they were exposed to fast-tempo music and a warm color website than those people who experienced slow-tempo music and cool colors. In addition, both pleasure and arousal emotions were significant predictors of approach–avoidance intention. We expected that a well-designed website with adequate music and color attributes would create a desired environment and thus entice and retain target customers. Our findings should help in deciding on ambient factors in online website design. Although studies on atmospheric effects in traditional stores have been abundant, knowledge of their effect in the online retail context has been sparse.     

Affectively intelligent and adaptive car interfaces

In this article, we describe a new approach to enhance driving safety via multi-media technologies by recognizing and adapting to drivers’ emotions with multi-modal intelligent car interfaces. The primary objective of this research was to build an affectively intelligent and adaptive car interface that could facilitate a natural communication with its user (i.e., the driver). This objective was achieved by recognizing drivers’ affective states (i.e., emotions experienced by the drivers) and by responding to those emotions by adapting to the current situation via an affective user model created for each individual driver. A controlled experiment was designed and conducted in a virtual reality environment to collect physiological data signals (galvanic skin response, heart rate, and temperature) from participants who experienced driving-related emotions and states (neutrality, panic/fear, frustration/anger, and boredom/sleepiness). k-Nearest Neighbor (KNN), Marquardt-Backpropagation (MBP), and Resilient Backpropagation (RBP) Algorithms were implemented to analyze the collected data signals and to find unique physiological patterns of emotions. RBP was the best classifier of these three emotions with 82.6% accuracy, followed by MBP with 73.26% and by KNN with 65.33%. Adaptation of the interface was designed to provide multi-modal feedback to the users about their current affective state and to respond to users’ negative emotional states in order to decrease the possible negative impacts of those emotions. Bayesian Belief Networks formalization was employed to develop the user model to enable the intelligent system to appropriately adapt to the current context and situation by considering user-dependent factors, such as personality traits and preferences.     

Phantom vibrations among undergraduates: Prevalence and associated psychological characteristics

‘Phantom vibration syndrome,’ or perceived vibrations from a device that is not really vibrating, is a recent psychological phenomenon that has attracted the attention of the media and medical community. Most (89%) of the 290 undergraduates in our sample had experienced phantom vibrations, and they experienced them about once every two weeks, on average. However, few found them bothersome. Those higher in conscientiousness experienced phantom vibrations less frequently, and those who had strong reactions to text messages (higher in the emotional reaction subscale of text message dependence) were more bothered by phantom vibrations. These findings suggest that targeting individuals’ emotional reactions to text messages might be helpful in combating the negative consequences of both text message dependency and phantom vibrations. However, because few young adults were bothered by these phantom vibrations or made attempts to stop them, interventions aimed at this population may be unnecessary.     

An integrated emotional and physiological assessment for VR-based active shooter incident experiments

Unfortunately, active shooter incidents are on the rise in the United States. With the recent technological advancements, virtual reality (VR) experiments could serve as an effective method to prepare civilians and law enforcement personnel for such scenarios. However, for VR experiments to be effective for active shooter training and research, such experiments must be able to evoke emotional and physiological responses as live active shooter drills and events do. The objective of this study is thus to test the effectiveness of an active shooter VR experiment on emotional and physiological responses. Additionally, we consider different locomotion techniques (i.e., walk-in-place and controller) and explore their impact on users’ sense of presence. The results suggest that the VR active shooter experiment in this study can induce emotional arousal and increase heart rate of the participants immersed in the virtual environment. Furthermore, compared to the controller, the walk-in-place technique resulted in a higher emotional arousal in terms of negative emotions and a stronger sense of presence. The study presents a foundation for future active shooter experiments as it supports the ecological validity using VR for active shooter incident related work for the purposes of training or research.     

Who interacts on the Web?: The intersection of users’ personality and social media use

In the increasingly user-generated Web, users’ personality traits may be crucial factors leading them to engage in this participatory media. The literature suggests factors such as extraversion, emotional stability and openness to experience are related to uses of social applications on the Internet. Using a national sample of US adults, this study investigated the relationship between these three dimensions of the Big-Five model and social media use (defined as use of social networking sites and instant messages). It also examined whether gender and age played a role in that dynamic. Results revealed that while extraversion and openness to experiences were positively related to social media use, emotional stability was a negative predictor, controlling for socio-demographics and life satisfaction. These findings differed by gender and age. While extraverted men and women were both likely to be more frequent users of social media tools, only the men with greater degrees of emotional instability were more regular users. The relationship between extraversion and social media use was particularly important among the young adult cohort. Conversely, being open to new experiences emerged as an important personality predictor of social media use for the more mature segment of the sample.     

Emotional design of multimedia learning using background images with motivational cues

Emotional design for multimedia learning can be implemented primarily using aesthetic design elements (e.g., color, shape and layout); however, we still have limited understanding on emotional design using content features visually depicting motivational cues. This study examines how valence and arousal of emotional learning content, generated by background images, in multimedia learning influenced learners' retention of factual knowledge and cognitive load, using a 2 (valence: positive, negative) × 2 (arousal: moderately low, moderately high) between-subjects experiment. The results showed significant interaction effects, implying the positive effects of using moderately low arousing negative images on both recognition and cued-recall test scores. Both scores were significantly lower when moderately high arousing negative images were used; however, they did not differ with increasing arousal of positive images. The emotional content did not influence germane and extraneous loads. Our findings emphasize the need for considering optimal levels of valence and arousal in emotional design.     

Realism, idealization, and potential negative impact of 3D virtual relationships

One hundred and ninety-nine participants, each of whom was currently involved in an intimate relationship within the 3D virtual world of Second Life, completed measures assessing whether they (1) viewed their 3D virtual relationship as an exercise in fantasy or one that had a quality of realism, and (2) perceived the personality characteristics of their 3D partner in more positive or idealized terms than a current or recent real life partner. Additionally, 71 of the 199 participants (36%) who were concurrently involved in a real life romantic relationship as well as their Second Life relationship provided data regarding the potential negative impact of Second Life relationships on co-occurring real life relationships. Results indicated that (1) the majority of participants viewed their Second Life relationships as real rather than as a form of game-playing, (2) participants generally reported more positive or idealized personality traits for their Second Life partners compared to their real life partners, and (3) a portion of participants in co-occurring Second Life and real life relationships indicated that their virtual relationship served as an emotional competitor or potential threat to their real life relationship, with the potential for detrimental effects rising as the couple progressively adds non-immersive digital and physical channels of communication to the original 3D relationship.     

Introducing the Wunderkammer as a tool for emotion research: Unconstrained gaze and movement patterns in three emotionally evocative virtual worlds

Here we introduce the “Wunderkammer”, a suite of immersive virtual worlds with different types of emotionally-charged content. We use these worlds to examine the effects of affective context on unconstrained gaze and movement. In the Affect Gallery, participants freely explored a virtual art museum filled with objects that varied in valence and arousal. Participants approached and gazed more at positively valenced objects. This preference was amplified by more arousing objects and was strongest among individuals with resilient emotion regulation tendencies. This bias of avoiding negative valence did not emerge in The Crowded Room, an environment in which participants encountered virtual humans expressing different emotions. Instead, participants gazed more at negative than neutral emotional displays although they physically avoided angry (but not sad or neutral) agents. When placed inside Room 101, an unpredictable environment filled with a series of disturbing events, frightened participants became relatively immobile in terms of both gaze and movement. This freezing-type response was particularly strong among dispositionally resilient individuals. Together these results demonstrate that distinct affective contexts elicit unique patterns in unconstrained gaze and movement. They further illustrate the benefits of using virtual reality to study affect as it naturally emerges.     

Exploring middle-aged and older adults’ sources of Internet self-efficacy: A case study

The purpose of this study was to examine sources underlying middle aged and older adults’ Internet self-efficacy. Interview data were collected from a total of 24 middle aged and older adults to categorize and synthesize their sources of Internet self-efficacy. It was found that there are five sources, (1) successful performance accomplishments or experience using the Internet to fulfill basic and living needs, (2) vicarious admirable modeling by children, friends, and neighbors, (3) verbal or social persuasion by influential friends and family, (4) fear, bad memory, slow reactions, or a joyful state, and (5) a proactive personality. In addition, it was found that in addition to performance accomplishments, psychological and physiological states are another primary source of Internet self-efficacy for middle-aged and older adults. Our findings advance the Internet self-efficacy literature as they extend what is known about the previous four sources, and indicate that proactive personality may be another important source that has been previously overlooked. The five sources are likely to be related to each other, emphasizing dynamic and reciprocal relationships between performance accomplishments and emotional and physiological states, emotional state and proactive personality, as well as social persuasion and performance accomplishments.     

Personality and positive orientation in Internet and Facebook addiction. An empirical report from Poland

Nowadays the Internet is used more and more. The use that becomes the most popular is social networking sites. The main aim of our two studies is to find an answer to the question of whether personality and positive orientation are linked to Internet and Facebook addiction. Two studies were conducted, verifying the effects of personality traits and positive orientation on these two kinds of addiction. Study 1 involved 631 participants and Study 2 involved 452. The Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale, the Internet Addiction Test, the Short Personality Scale, and the Positive Orientation Scale were used. Our results indicate that lower positive orientation, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness to experience are related to problematic use of both Internet and Facebook. What is more, extraversion and agreeableness are connected only with problematic Internet use.     

Factors associated with early adolescents’ anticipated emotional and behavioral responses to ambiguous teases on Facebook

A total of 69 sixth- through eighth-grade students rated their experiences with antisocial and prosocial teases as well as their general attitudes toward teases. Subsequently, the participants read hard copies of four ambiguous teases, one at a time, posted on a simulation of “their” Facebook wall by four different, hypothetical acquaintances. After reading each tease, the participants were asked to complete a questionnaire that assessed their emotional and behavioral response to the tease. Consistent with  and  cognitive (attribution)–emotion–action model of motivated behavior, path analyses revealed that the participants’ negative experiences with teases and negative attitudes toward teases were predictive of a negative emotional response to the ambiguous teases on Facebook which, in turn, was predictive of various negative behavioral responses to the ambiguous teasers. Therefore, consistent with the prior finding of a hostile attribution bias in some children’s reactions to ambiguous face-to-face teases (Barnett, Barlett, Livengood, Murphy, & Brewton, 2010), the early adolescents in the present study with relatively negative experiences with and attitudes toward teases appear to display a hostile attribution bias whereby teases on Facebook with an uncertain intent are viewed as if they were meant to be antagonistic and antisocial.     

Emotional Factors in Advertising Via Mobile Phones

Advertising delivered via mobile phones constitutes a promising approach to marketing because it enables easy targeting, content personalization, and interactive communication. We conducted a laboratory experiment with 48 participants using a 24-item structured questionnaire about important emotional components involved in using mobile phones for advertising. The data revealed 3 factors that explained 63% of the total variance. Factor 1 included activation, restfulness, desire, affection, gratitude, and urgency. Factor 2 included anger, fear, sadness, and irritation. Factor 3 included skepticism and boredom. Stepwise multiple regression analysis indicated that boredom accounted for 45% of the variance in attitudes toward the advertisements. These findings imply that low-intensity negative feelings are important contributors to the success of advertisements presented on mobile phones and that engagingness is the most important emotional component in effective cell phone advertising.     

Context-dependent memory under stressful conditions: the case of skydiving

Two experiments examined the effect of differing levels of emotional arousal on learning and memory for words in matching and mismatching contexts. In Experiment 1, experienced skydivers learned words either in the air or on the ground and recalled them in the same context or in the other context. Experiment 2 replicated the stimuli and design of the first experiment except that participants were shown a skydiving video in lieu of skydiving. Recall was poor in air-learning conditions with actual skydiving, but when lists were learned on land, recall was higher in the matching context than in the mismatching context. In the skydiving video experiment, recall was higher in matching learn-recall contexts regardless of the situation in which learning occurred. We propose that under extremely emotionally arousing circumstances, environmental and/or mood cues are unlikely to become encoded or linked to newly acquired information and thus cannot serve as cues to retrieval. Results can be applied to understanding variations in context-dependent memory in occupations (e.g., police, military special operations, and Special Weapons and Tactics teams) in which the worker experiences considerable emotional stress while learning or recalling new information.     

Service robot feature design effects on user perceptions and emotional responses

Service robots have been developed to assist nurses in routine patient services. Prior research has recognized that patient emotional experiences with robots may be as important as robot task performance in terms of user acceptance and assessments of effectiveness. The objective of this study was to understand the effect of different service robot interface features on elderly perceptions and emotional responses in a simulated medicine delivery task. Twenty-four participants sat in a simulated patient room and a service robot delivered a bag of “medicine” to them. Repeated trials were used to present variations on three robot features, including facial configuration, voice messaging and interactivity. Participant heart rate (HR) and galvanic skin response (GSR) were collected. Participant ratings of robot humanness [perceived anthropomorphism (PA)] were collected post-trial along with subjective ratings of arousal (bored–excited) and valence (unhappy–happy) using the self-assessment manikin (SAM) questionnaire. Results indicated the presence of all three types of robot features promoted higher PA, arousal and valence, compared to a control condition (a robot without any of the features). Participant physiological responses varied with events in their interaction with the robot. The three types of features also had different utility for stimulating participant arousal and valence, as well as physiological responses. In general, results indicated that adding anthropomorphic and interactive features to service robots promoted positive emotional responses [increased excitement (GSR) and happiness (HR)] in elderly users. It is expected that results from this study could be used as a basis for developing affective robot interface design guidelines to promote user emotional experiences.     

How student’s personality traits affect Computer Based Assessment Acceptance: Integrating BFI with CBAAM

Researchers in the Information Systems (IS) field have put considerable effort on identifying how personality affects technology acceptance. This study is a further step towards this direction within the context of Computer Based Assessment (CBA). Particularly, it investigates how the five personality factors affect the most important variables regarding CBA’s acceptance. For this purpose, 117 participants were required to complete a survey questionnaire. The questionnaire included the Big Five Inventory (BFI) questions in order to measure the five personality traits, and 23 items regarding student’s perceptions. Partial Least Squares (PLS) was used to test the measurement and the structural model. Results underline that Neuroticism has significant negative effect on Perceived Usefulness and on Goal Expectancy, Agreeableness determines Social Influence and Perceived Ease of Use, Conscientiousness defines Perceived Ease of Use, while Extroversion and Openness explain Perceived Importance. Important implications of these results are discussed.     

Perceiving artificial social agents

Three experiments were conducted to examine perceptions of a natural language computer interface (conversation bot). Participants in each study chatted with a conversation bot and then indicated their perceptions of the bot on various dimensions. Although participants were informed that they were interacting with a computer program, participants clearly viewed the program as having human-like qualities. Participants agreed substantially in their perceptions of the bot’s personality on the traits from the five-factor model (Experiment 1). In addition, factors that influence perceptions of human personalities (e.g., whether one uses another’s first name and response latency) also affected perceptions of a bot’s personality (Experiments 2 and 3). Similar to interactions with humans, the bot’s perceived neuroticism was inversely related to how long individuals chatted with it.     

Human perception of a conversational virtual human: an empirical study on the effect of emotion and culture

Virtual reality applications with virtual humans, such as virtual reality exposure therapy, health coaches and negotiation simulators, are developed for different contexts and usually for users from different countries. The emphasis on a virtual human’s emotional expression depends on the application; some virtual reality applications need an emotional expression of the virtual human during the speaking phase, some during the listening phase and some during both speaking and listening phases. Although studies have investigated how humans perceive a virtual human’s emotion during each phase separately, few studies carried out a parallel comparison between the two phases. This study aims to fill this gap, and on top of that, includes an investigation of the cultural interpretation of the virtual human’s emotion, especially with respect to the emotion’s valence. The experiment was conducted with both Chinese and non-Chinese participants. These participants were asked to rate the valence of seven different emotional expressions (ranging from negative to neutral to positive during speaking and listening) of a Chinese virtual lady. The results showed that there was a high correlation in valence rating between both groups of participants, which indicated that the valence of the emotional expressions was as easily recognized by people from a different cultural background as the virtual human. In addition, participants tended to perceive the virtual human’s expressed valence as more intense in the speaking phase than in the listening phase. The additional vocal emotional expression in the speaking phase is put forward as a likely cause for this phenomenon.