Abstract

Our goal was to develop a computer system trained to sense a user's emotional state via the recognition of physiological signals. In the course of developing an exploratory pilot study toward this end, we encountered and addressed unique and context-dependent interface design and synchronization challenges. We used social science methods to induce a state of frustration in users, collected the physiological data, and developed an effective strategy for coupling these data with real-world events. 1 Introduction Affective computing, a new area of computing research, has been described as "computing which relates to, arises from, or deliberately influences emotions [5]." Why build an affective computer? Recent evidence demonstrates that humans have an inherent tendency to respond to media in ways that are natural and social, mirroring ways that humans respond to one another in social situations [6]. Since affect is such an integral part of human-human social communication, we believe th...

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