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Mean head and shoulder heights when seated: subconscious postural cycles during discrete computerised stimuli

Published: 26 August 2013 Publication History

Abstract

Discrete, three-minute, computer-presented stimuli (designed to range from engaging to incredibly boring) were used to elicit changes in cognitive/emotional states in seated, healthy volunteers. These stimuli did not require the use of a mouse, so movements were assumed to be non- instrumental. Stimuli included films, games, quizzes and music. Motion capture and video analysis were used to detect changes in head and shoulder position in response to the stimuli. Results include changes occurring between the first half and the second half of each of the main stimuli (i.e. arising in less than one minute as the volunteer "settles in"); in the second half of each stimulus, there were decreases in head height and shoulder height (i.e. position rather than movement). In conclusion, we speculate that non-instrumental changes in head height and shoulder height may suggest loss of vigilance or diminishing arousal in seated computer-users. Our unique contributions are: 1) discrete stimuli, were used on seated volunteers 2) without a mouse, to show that 3) modest (mm) head and shoulder movements in the vertical axis correlated with 4) subtle cyclical changes in boredom, not overall changes in fatigue. Future psychological validation of tutoring systems with discrete stimuli can use these postural parameters as part of a multimodal analysis of engagement.

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  • (2022)The pause that refreshes: Break-taking occurs when task demands are reduced allowing for replenishing of attentional resourcesProceedings of the 33rd European Conference on Cognitive Ergonomics10.1145/3552327.3552339(1-7)Online publication date: 4-Oct-2022
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  • (2016)Non-Instrumental Movement Inhibition (NIMI) Differentially Suppresses Head and Thigh Movements during Screenic Engagement: Dependence on InteractionFrontiers in Psychology10.3389/fpsyg.2016.001577Online publication date: 23-Feb-2016
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cover image ACM Conferences
ECCE '13: Proceedings of the 31st European Conference on Cognitive Ergonomics
August 2013
220 pages
ISBN:9781450322515
DOI:10.1145/2501907
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

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Publication History

Published: 26 August 2013

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Author Tags

  1. affective computing
  2. arousal
  3. boredom
  4. discrete stimuli
  5. fatigue
  6. head attitude
  7. motion capture
  8. postural change
  9. video analysis
  10. vigilance

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Cited By

View all
  • (2022)The pause that refreshes: Break-taking occurs when task demands are reduced allowing for replenishing of attentional resourcesProceedings of the 33rd European Conference on Cognitive Ergonomics10.1145/3552327.3552339(1-7)Online publication date: 4-Oct-2022
  • (2017)Wearable sensor metric for fidgetingProceedings of the European Conference on Cognitive Ergonomics10.1145/3121283.3121290(158-161)Online publication date: 19-Sep-2017
  • (2016)Non-Instrumental Movement Inhibition (NIMI) Differentially Suppresses Head and Thigh Movements during Screenic Engagement: Dependence on InteractionFrontiers in Psychology10.3389/fpsyg.2016.001577Online publication date: 23-Feb-2016
  • (2016)The Complex Relationship Between Empathy, Engagement and BoredomProceedings of the European Conference on Cognitive Ergonomics10.1145/2970930.2970935(1-4)Online publication date: 5-Sep-2016
  • (2015)Multidisciplinary perspectives on affective experiencesProceedings of the Conference on Electronic Visualisation and the Arts10.14236/ewic/eva2015.16(163-170)Online publication date: 7-Jul-2015
  • (2014)A time series feature of variability to detect two types of boredom from motion capture of the head and shouldersProceedings of the 2014 European Conference on Cognitive Ergonomics10.1145/2637248.2743000(1-5)Online publication date: 1-Sep-2014

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