Welfare & Medical ICT Research Department, Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI), 218 Gajeong-ro, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon, 34129, Republic of Korea.
Department of Electronics Engineering, Incheon National University, 119 Academy-ro, Yeonsu-gu, Incheon, Republic of Korea.
J Physiol Anthropol. 2019 Nov 28;38(1):15. doi: 10.1186/s40101-019-0209-y.
Although emotion-specific autonomic responses based on the discrete theory of emotion have been widely studied, studies on the reliability of physiological responses to emotional stimuli are limited. In this study, we aimed to assess the reliability of physiological changes induced by the six basic emotions (happiness, sadness, anger, fear, disgust, and surprise) that were measured during 10 weekly repeated experiments.
Twelve college students participated, and in each experiment, physiological signals were collected before and while participants were watching emotion-provoking film clips. Additionally, the participants self-evaluated the emotions that they experienced during the film presentation at the end of each emotional stimulus. To avoid adaptation of participants to identical stimuli during repeated measurements, we used 10 different film clips for each emotion, and thus a total of 60 film clips over 10 weeks were used. Physiological features, such as skin conductance level (SCL), fingertip temperature (FT), heart rate (HR), and blood volume pulse (BVP), were extracted from the physiological signals. Two reliability indices, Cronbach's alpha and intraclass correlation coefficient, were calculated from the physiological features to assess internal consistency and interrater reliability, respectively.
We found that SCL, HR, and BVP measured during the emotion-provoking phase over the 10 weekly sessions were more reliable than those assessed at baseline. Furthermore, SCL, HR, and BVP from the emotion-provoking phase exhibited excellent internal consistency and interrater reliability.
Our findings suggest that these features can be used as reliable physiological indices in emotion studies. The results also support the significance of physiological signals as meaningful indicators for emotion recognition in HCI (human computer interface) area.
尽管基于离散情绪理论的情绪特异性自主反应已经得到了广泛研究，但对情绪刺激的生理反应的可靠性研究有限。在这项研究中，我们旨在评估在 10 周重复实验中测量的六种基本情绪（快乐、悲伤、愤怒、恐惧、厌恶和惊讶）引起的生理变化的可靠性。
12 名大学生参与了研究，在每个实验中，在参与者观看引发情绪的电影片段之前和期间收集生理信号。此外，参与者在每个情绪刺激结束时自我评估他们在电影呈现期间经历的情绪。为了避免参与者在重复测量中对相同的刺激产生适应，我们为每种情绪使用了 10 个不同的电影片段，因此在 10 周内总共使用了 60 个电影片段。从生理信号中提取了生理特征，例如皮肤电导水平（SCL）、指尖温度（FT）、心率（HR）和脉搏容积（BVP）。从生理特征计算了 Cronbach 的 alpha 和组内相关系数这两个可靠性指标，分别评估内部一致性和评分者间可靠性。
我们发现，在 10 周的每周会议期间，在情绪激发阶段测量的 SCL、HR 和 BVP 比基线评估更可靠。此外，在情绪激发阶段的 SCL、HR 和 BVP 表现出极好的内部一致性和评分者间可靠性。
我们的研究结果表明，这些特征可用作情绪研究中可靠的生理指标。这些结果还支持生理信号作为 HCI（人机界面）领域情绪识别的有意义指标的重要性。
