Assessing affective experience of in-situ environmental walk via wearable biosensors for evidence-based design. (December 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Chen, Zheng; Schulz, Sebastian; Qiu, Ming; Yang, Wen; He, Xiaofan; Wang, Zhuo; Yang, Ling
• Is Part Of: Cognitive systems research. Volume 52(2018)
• Page Start: 970
• Page End: 977
• Publication Date: 2018-12
• Subjects: Environmental neuroscience -- Affective mapping -- Environmental experience; Cognition -- Periodicals; Cognitive engineering (System design) -- Periodicals; Artificial intelligence -- Periodicals; 153.05
• DOI: 10.1016/j.cogsys.2018.09.003
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1389-0417

Abstract

Abstract: In environmental psychology research, the most commonly used methods are phenomenological interviews and psychometric scales. Recently, with the development of wearable bio-sensing devices, a new approach based on bio-sensing data is becoming possible. In this study, we examined the feasibility of using wearable biosensors to document affective experience during in-situ walk. An eight-channelled Procomp multi-bio-sensing devices (EKG, EEG, skin conductance, temperature, facial EMG, respiration) were used, in addition with a GPS tracker, to measure the in situ physiological affective responses to environmental stimuli. This pilot experiment revealed consistent results between bio-sensing measures and two traditional methods, i.e. phenomenological interviews and psychological Likert scale rating, which indicated that mobile bio-sensing could be a promising method in measuring in-situ affective responses to environmental stimuli as well as diagnosing potential environmental stressor. This new bio-sensory method, as exemplified in this paper, could help identifying negative stressful stimuli and providing evidence-based diagnosis to support design strategies.