title: Inference of human affective states from psychophysiological measurements extracted under ecologically valid conditions.
abstract: Compared to standard laboratory protocols, the measurement of psychophysiological signals in real world experiments poses technical and methodological challenges due to external factors that cannot be directly controlled. To address this problem, we propose a hybrid approach based on an immersive and human accessible space called the eXperience Induction Machine (XIM), that incorporates the advantages of a laboratory within a life-like setting. The XIM integrates unobtrusive wearable sensors for the acquisition of psychophysiological signals suitable for ambulatory emotion research. In this paper, we present results from two different studies conducted to validate the XIM as a general-purpose sensing infrastructure for the study of human affective states under ecologically valid conditions. In the first investigation, we recorded and classified signals from subjects exposed to pictorial stimuli corresponding to a range of arousal levels, while they were free to walk and gesticulate. In the second study, we designed an experiment that follows the classical conditioning paradigm, a well-known procedure in the behavioral sciences, with the additional feature that participants were free to move in the physical space, as opposed to similar studies measuring physiological signals in constrained laboratory settings. Our results indicate that, by using our sensing infrastructure, it is indeed possible to infer human event-elicited affective states through measurements of psychophysiological signals under ecological conditions.
authors.affiliation: Synthetic, Perceptive, Emotive and Cognitive Systems group (SPECS), Universitat Pompeu Fabra Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Alberto
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Betella
authors.affiliation: Synthetic, Perceptive, Emotive and Cognitive Systems group (SPECS), Universitat Pompeu Fabra Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Riccardo
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Zucca
authors.affiliation: Synthetic, Perceptive, Emotive and Cognitive Systems group (SPECS), Universitat Pompeu Fabra Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Ryszard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Cetnarski
authors.affiliation: Research Centre "E. Piaggio", University of Pisa Pisa, Italy ; Information Engineering Department, University of Pisa Pisa, Italy.
authors.forename: Alberto
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Greco
authors.affiliation: Research Centre "E. Piaggio", University of Pisa Pisa, Italy ; Information Engineering Department, University of Pisa Pisa, Italy.
authors.forename: Antonio
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Lanatà
authors.affiliation: Research Centre "E. Piaggio", University of Pisa Pisa, Italy.
authors.forename: Daniele
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Mazzei
authors.affiliation: Research Centre "E. Piaggio", University of Pisa Pisa, Italy ; Information Engineering Department, University of Pisa Pisa, Italy.
authors.forename: Alessandro
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Tognetti
authors.affiliation: Synthetic, Perceptive, Emotive and Cognitive Systems group (SPECS), Universitat Pompeu Fabra Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Xerxes D
authors.initials: XD
authors.lastname: Arsiwalla
authors.affiliation: Synthetic, Perceptive, Emotive and Cognitive Systems group (SPECS), Universitat Pompeu Fabra Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Pedro
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Omedas
authors.affiliation: Research Centre "E. Piaggio", University of Pisa Pisa, Italy ; Information Engineering Department, University of Pisa Pisa, Italy.
authors.forename: Danilo
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: De Rossi
authors.affiliation: Synthetic, Perceptive, Emotive and Cognitive Systems group (SPECS), Universitat Pompeu Fabra Barcelona, Spain ; ICREA, Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Paul F M J
authors.initials: PF
authors.lastname: Verschure
keywords: ECG; EDR; VR; affect; conditioning; ecological validity; emotions; wearable devices