Stimulus–response compatibility and affective computing: a review

Abstract

Affective computing, a human-factors effort to investigate the merits of emotions while people are working with human–computer interfaces, is gaining momentum. Measures to quantify affect (or its influences) range from EEG, to measurements of autonomic nervous system responses (e.g., heart rate, blood pressure), to less objective self-reports. Here we claim that simple response-time measurements may be a viable alternative to measure (indirectly) the effects of affect on performance by providing a review of experimental paradigms and associated models of human information processing. In particular, we focus on stimulus–response compatibility paradigms that have provided important insights for human-factors research, for instance regarding the important role of the spatial layout of interface design on the efficiency of human task performance, to show that these paradigms can also be applied to investigate the role of affect in human–computer interaction.

Keywords:

• Affective computing
• Stimulus–response compatibility, Earcons
• Major/minor distinction
• Multimodality

Notes

¹ This is in contrast to some researchers who explicitly use different terms for different relations between S_r, S_i, and R such as congruency, consistency, correspondence as well as compatibility, for the present review we will use the words interchangeably.

² Recently Stevens and Kornblum (2000) extended the number of possible ensembles to around twelve to also include response–effect compatibilities (e.g. Beckers et al. 2002; Koch and Kunde 2002, Kunde 2003, Kunde et al. 2002; also see Kornblum and Stevens 2002.

³ Related to this proposal was the interesting alternative formulation by Montani (1945) who claimed that the lowered middle third of a minor triad produced castration anxiety, mediating the negative connotation of minor chords (cited in Crowder 1984).