Influences of embodied interactions on the affective evaluation of digital pictures: Developing novel experimental multi-touch paradigms to examine the interplay of space-valence associations, action-contexts, and hand proximity effects
| Workgroup | Multimodal Interaction Lab |
| Duration | 03/2022-open |
| Funding | Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) |
Project description
Interacting with technologies and particularly, multitouch devices such as smartphones, tablets, or large-scale monitors (e.g., in museums) has become standard in daily life. To date, however, it is very unclear how manipulating digital objects physically through these devices, influence affective processing (e.g., when encountering potentially pleasant or unpleasant stimuli).
Against this backdrop, the project aims at advancing the understanding of affective processing through the manual interaction with digital objects. Theoretically, it seeks the integration of three pivotal topics discussed in cognition and emotion fields: (a) spatial affective biases linked to space-valence associations (up/right - positive; down/left - negative), (b) situated action-goal representations linked to approach-avoidance mechanisms, and (c) visuo-spatial effects linked to hand-proximity to visual stimuli. Methodologically, the project builds upon own prior exploratory research on manual interactions with digital affective pictures to develop novel experimental paradigms, which will be used to deepen three main research questions: (i) May interaction gestures with affective digital pictures unravel space-valence effects observed in standard experimental research; (ii) Which contextual aspects shape affective action-goal representations during manual interactions? (iii) What is the specific affective contribution of interacting with digital objects directly by hand? The findings will contribute to the field of human-computer interaction and particularly, how multimodal aspects shape together emotional processing during interactions with digital objects.
Cooperations
Prof. Dr. Susana Ruiz-Fernández. Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-Senftenberg (BTU)
