Researchers are using emerging technologies to develop novel play environments, while established computer and console game markets continue to grow rapidly. Even so, evaluating the success of interactive play environments is still an open research challenge. Both subjective and objective techniques fall short due to limited evaluative bandwidth; there remains no corollary in play environments to task performance with productivity systems. This paper presents a method of modeling user emotional state, based on a user’s physiology, for users interacting with play technologies. Modeled emotions are powerful because they capture usability and playability through metrics relevant to ludic experience; account for user emotion; are quantitative and objective; and are represented continuously over a session. Furthermore, our modeled emotions show the same trends as reported emotions for fun, boredom, and excitement; however, the modeled emotions revealed differences between three play conditions, while the differences between the subjective reports failed to reach significance.

When time is limited, researchers may be faced with the choice of using an extremely brief measure of the Big-Five personality dimensions or using no measure at all. To meet the need for a very brief measure, 5 and 10-item inventories were developed and evaluated. Although somewhat inferior to standard multi-item instruments, the instruments reached adequate levels in terms of: (a) convergence with widely used Big-Five measures in self, observer, and peer reports, (b) test–retest reliability, (c) patterns of predicted external correlates, and (d) convergence between self and observer ratings. On the basis of these tests, a 10-item measure of the Big-Five dimensions is offered for situations where very short measures are needed, personality is not the primary topic of interest, or researchers can tolerate the somewhat diminished psychometric properties associated with very brief measures.

Communication of affect across a distance is not well supported by current technology, despite its importance to interpersonal interaction in modern lifestyles. Touch is a powerful conduit for emotional connectedness, and thus mediating haptic (touch) displays have been proposed to address this deficiency; but suitable evaluative methodology has been elusive. In this paper, we offer a first, structured examination of a design space for haptic support of remote affective communication, by analyzing the space and then comparing haptic models designed to manipulate its key dimensions. In our study, dyads (intimate pairs or strangers) are asked to communicate specified emotions using a purely haptic link that consists of virtual models rendered on simple knobs. These models instantiate both interaction metaphors of varying intimacy, and representations of virtual interpersonal distance. Our integrated objective and subjective observations imply that emotion can indeed be communicated through this medium, and confirm that the factors examined influence emotion communication performance as well as preference, comfort and connectedness. The proposed design space and the study results have implications for future efforts to support affective communication using the haptic modality, and the study approach comprises a first model for systematic evaluation of haptically expressed affect.

To increase their revenue from electronic commerce, more and more Internet businesses are soliciting personal information from consumers so as to target products and services at the right consumers. But when deciding whether to disclose their personal information to Internet businesses, consumers may weigh the concerns of giving up information privacy against the benefits of information disclosure. This paper examines how Internet businesses can motivate consumers to disclose their personal information. Based on a synthesis of the literature, it identifies seven types of extrinsic or intrinsic benefits that Internet businesses can provide when soliciting personal information from consumers. Through comprehensive conceptual and empirical validation processes, it develops an instrument that allows Internet businesses to gauge the preference of consumers for the various types of benefits. By testing a set of nomological networks, it offers some ideas to Internet businesses about what types of benefits may be more effective given the personality traits of consumer populations. Besides providing a foundation for efforts at developing theories on information privacy and information disclosure, the results of this research provide useful suggestions to Internet businesses on how best to solicit personal information from consumers. Implications for research and practice are discussed. Key words: privacy, Internet business, information disclosure, extrinsic benefit, intrinsic benefit, personality, confirmatory factor analysis. We gratefully thank all participants in the 2002 NUS summer research workshop and the 2002 International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS). We also thank Ee-Cheah Tam for her contributions to a previous version of this manuscript, and Juan-Juan Han for her research

Online retailers are likely to try to influence consumers' shopping behavior through atmospherics and service, just as physical stores do. The impact of online atmospherics can be measured by the degree of stimulation and pleasure that is provided by the Website. It is suggested that the characteristics of products and websites that are encountered early in online browsing can significantly influence the level of arousal and pleasure that consumers experience, and thereby can influence their later shopping behavior. Two experiments show that if the initial experiences encountered in a simulated Internet shopping trip are higher in pleasure, then there is a positive impact on approach behaviors and subjects engage in more arousing activities (e.g., more exploration, more tendencies to examine novel products and stores, higher response to promotional incentives). Further, if higher stimulation or information load is provided by the initial Internet experience, then consumers subsequently tend to engage in less arousing activities. 2 In the 21 st century, there is little doubt that the Internet will become an important channel for retailing. Because the World Wide Web presents a fundamentally different environment for retailing activities than traditional physical stores or catalogs (Hoffman and Novak 1996), marketing activities and consumer behavior need to be re-evaluated in this context. As in physical stores, Internet websites are likely to try to differentiate themselves in part on the basis of atmospherics and service (Alba, Lynch, Weitz, Janiszewski, Lutz, Sawyer and Wood 1997). Technological innovations such as streaming audio/ video and the capability to relay smells through electronic networks, hold the promise that traditional atmospheric variables such as c...

Physical controls such as knobs, sliders, and buttons are experiencing a revival as many computing systems progress from personal computing architectures towards ubiquitous computing architectures. We demonstrate a process for measuring and comparing visceral emotional responses of a physical control to performance results of a target acquisition task. In our user study, participants experienced mechanical and rendered friction, inertia, and detent dynamics as they turned a haptic knob towards graphical targets of two different widths and amplitudes. Together, this process and user study provide novel affect- and performance-based design guidance to developers of physical controls for emerging ubiquitous computing environments. Our work bridges extensive human factors work in mechanical systems that peaked in the 1960’s, to contemporary trends, with a goal of integrating mechatronic controls into emerging ubiquitous computing systems. Author Keywords Haptic display, physical control, design process, affect, rotary Fitts-like task.

Designers of human-computer interfaces often overlook issues of affect. An example illustrating the importance of affective design is the frustration many of us feel when working with a poorly designed computing device. Redesigning such computing interfaces to induce more pleasant user emotional responses would improve the user’s health and productivity. Almost no research has been conducted to explore affective responses in rendered haptic interfaces. In this paper, we describe results and analysis from two user studies as a starting point for future systematic evaluation and design of rendered physical controls. Specifically, we compare and contrast self-report and biometric measurement techniques for two common types of haptic interactions. First, we explore the tactility of real textures such as silk, putty, and acrylic. Second, we explore the kinesthetics of physical control renderings such as friction and inertia. We focus on evaluation methodology, on the premise that good affect evaluation and analysis cycles can be a useful element of the interface designer’s tool palette.

One major aim of research in affective natural language generation is to be able to use language intelligently to induce effects on the emotions of the reader / hearer. Although varying the content of generated language (“strategic ” choices) might be expected to change the effect on emotions, it is not obvious that varying the form of the language (“tactical ” choices) can do this. Indeed, previous experiments have been unable to show emotional effects of tactical variations. Building on what has been discovered in previous experiments, we present a new experiment which does demonstrate such effects. This represents an important step towards the empirical evaluation of affective NLG systems. 1

Recent developments in humanoid robotics have made possible a vision of robots in everyday use in the home and workplace. However, little is known about how we should design social interactions with humanoid robots. We explored how cooperation versus competition in a game shaped people's perceptions of ASIMO. We found that in the co-operative interaction, people found the robot more sociable and more intellectual than in the competitive interaction while people felt more positive and were more involved in the task in the competitive condition than in the co-operative condition. Our poster presents these findings with the supporting theoretical background.

more. This is a test of the abstract. Write stuff here, and more, and more and more and Here is some more text The visceral emotional reactions that users have to technologies is increasingly understood to be important in terms of safety, performance, and pleasure in its own right. This thesis systematically explores users’s emotional (affect) reactions to everyday physical manual controls, in order to inform a design process that considers appropriate affective response as well as performance relationships. Design of both mechanical and emerging mechatronic physical controls are addressed. This novel design process includes parameterizing second order (inertial) dynamics using a system identification technique, and rendering models on a custom force-feedback knob. Next, this thesis explores biometric and self-reported measures of the affective responses elicited by these dynamics, and an iterative prototyping tool for rapid refinement of the “feel ” of physical controls. This research impacts use of the pas-sive physical interfaces such as mechanical knobs and sliders that are already ubiquitous