USING TOUCH GESTURES TO RECORD AND RECOGNIZE EMOTIONS

Abstract

In this thesis, we explore how people use touchscreens to express emotional intensity, and whether these intensities can be understood by oneself later or by others. We conducted a four-week participatory-design activity to improve the design of JogChalker, a system that allows recreational runners to record their emotional state while running using touchscreen gestures. Results indicated a desire for more expressiveness when gestures are recorded. A controlled study was then conducted in a lab environment where we asked 26 participants to express a set of emotions mapped to predefined gestures, at range of different intensities. One week later, participants were asked to identify the emotional intensity visualized in animations made by themselves and by other participants. Results indicate that the choice of factors was impacted by the specific emotion, and the range and rate of increase of these factors varied by individual and by emotion. We discuss implications for developers of annotation systems and other touchscreen interfaces that wish to capture affect.