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Biosignals as Social Cues: Ambiguity and Emotional Interpretation in Social Displays of Skin Conductance

Authors:

Laura Devendorf,

Rundong (Kevin) Tian,

Tomás Vega Galvez,

Kimiko RyokaiAuthors Info & Claims

DIS '16: Proceedings of the 2016 ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems

Pages 865 - 870

https://doi.org/10.1145/2901790.2901850

Published: 04 June 2016 Publication History

Abstract

This paper explores the social meaning of clothing-based displays of biosignals. How do friends make sense of their own and each other's skin conductance display in the context of a conversation? We developed Hint, a dynamic thermochromic t-shirt whose ambiguous pattern changes color when its wearer's skin conductance increases, an indication of sudden arousal. We investigated how pairs of friends each wearing the shirt conversed and interpreted the display. Participants shared a broad range of interpretations; e.g., joy and embarrassment were associated with an increase in skin conductance. Additionally, participants expressed desires for their skin conductance display to help validate their feelings and show emotional engagement with others. We explore ambiguity in the context of clothing-based information displays and discuss how skin conductance display became part of social performance in our study. From there, we suggest framing biosignals as social cues along with facial expression, gestures, etc., and begin to question what design territories this might uncover.

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Index Terms

Biosignals as Social Cues: Ambiguity and Emotional Interpretation in Social Displays of Skin Conductance
1. Human-centered computing

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Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

DIS '16: Proceedings of the 2016 ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems

June 2016

1374 pages

ISBN:9781450340311

DOI:10.1145/2901790

General Chair:
Marcus Foth
Queensland University of Technology
,
Program Chairs:
Wendy Ju
Stanford University
,
Ronald Schroeter
Queensland University of Technology
,
Stephen Viller
University of Queensland

Copyright © 2016 Owner/Author.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution International 4.0 License.

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SIGCHI: ACM Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

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Published: 04 June 2016

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DIS '16

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DIS '16: Designing Interactive Systems Conference 2016

June 4 - 8, 2016

QLD, Brisbane, Australia

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DIS '16 Paper Acceptance Rate 107 of 418 submissions, 26%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 1,158 of 4,684 submissions, 25%

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Barker-Canler MGooch DVan Der Linden JPetre M(2024)Flexible Minimalist Self-Tracking to Support Individual ReflectionACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction10.1145/366033931:3(1-35)Online publication date: 23-Apr-2024
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Haynes AKent CRossiter JCiolfi LHogan TDöring TJenkins Tvan Dijk JHuron SLi ZCoyle DSigner B(2024)Just a Breath Away: Investigating Interactions with and Perceptions of Mediated Breath via a Haptic CushionProceedings of the Eighteenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction10.1145/3623509.3633384(1-19)Online publication date: 11-Feb-2024
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Feng YGao MLi CYao ZMi H(2024)ExBreath: Explore the Expressive Breath System as Nonverbal Signs towards Semi-unintentional ExpressionExtended Abstracts of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613905.3650870(1-7)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
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