Department of Emotion Engineering, Sangmyung University, Seoul 03016, Korea.
Department of Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, Sangmyung University, Seoul 03016, Korea.
Sensors (Basel). 2022 Feb 22;22(5):1700. doi: 10.3390/s22051700.
The success of digital content depends largely on whether viewers empathize with stories and narratives. Researchers have investigated the elements that may elicit empathy from viewers. Empathic response involves affective and cognitive processes and is expressed through multiple verbal and nonverbal modalities. Specifically, eye movements communicate emotions and intentions and may reflect an empathic status. This study explores feature changes in eye movements when a viewer empathizes with the video's content. Seven feature variables of eye movements (change of pupil diameter, peak pupil dilation, very short, mid, over long fixation duration, saccadic amplitude, and saccadic count) were extracted from 47 participants who viewed eight videos (four empathic videos and four non-empathic videos) distributed in a two-dimensional emotion axis (arousal and valence). The results showed that viewers' saccadic amplitude and peak pupil dilation in the eigenvalues of eye movements increased in the empathic condition. The fixation time and pupil size change showed limited significance, and whether there were asymmetric pupil responses between the left and right pupils remained inconclusive. Our investigation suggests that saccadic amplitude and peak pupil dilation are reliable measures for recognizing whether viewers empathize with content. The findings provide physiological evidence based on eye movements that both affective and cognitive processes accompany empathy during media consumption.
数字内容的成功在很大程度上取决于观众是否能与故事和叙述产生共鸣。研究人员已经研究了可能引起观众共鸣的元素。同理心反应涉及情感和认知过程，并通过多种言语和非言语方式表达出来。具体来说，眼动传达情绪和意图，并可能反映出同理心的状态。本研究探讨了观众对视频内容产生共鸣时眼动的特征变化。从观看分布在二维情绪轴（唤醒度和效价）上的八个视频（四个有同理心的视频和四个无同理心的视频）的 47 名参与者中提取了眼动的七个特征变量（瞳孔直径变化、瞳孔峰值扩张、极短、中、过长注视持续时间、眼跳幅度和眼跳次数）。结果表明，在同理心条件下，观众的眼跳幅度和瞳孔峰值扩张在眼动特征中增加。注视时间和瞳孔大小变化显示出有限的意义，左右瞳孔之间是否存在不对称的瞳孔反应仍不确定。我们的调查表明，眼跳幅度和瞳孔峰值扩张是识别观众是否对内容产生共鸣的可靠指标。研究结果提供了基于眼动的生理学证据，表明在媒体消费过程中，情感和认知过程伴随着同理心。
