Can Images Be Effective in Evoking Emotions? A Pilot Study Based on an Innovative Visual Stimuli Database

• Activity Number: 461
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Wednesday, August 6, 2014 : 8:30 AM to 10:20 AM
• Sponsor: Mental Health Statistics Section
• Author(s): Chiara Brombin*+ and Riccardo Maria Martoni and Elisa Bruna Matilde Galimberti and Paola Maria Vittoria Rancoita and Scaini Simona and Lorenzo Cibrario and Manuela Ferrario
• Companies: CUSSB, Vita-Salute San Raffaele University and San Raffaele Scientific Institute and San Raffaele Scientific Institute and Vita-Salute San Raffaele University and Vita-Salute San Raffaele University and Vita-Salute San Raffaele University and Politecnico di Milano
• Keywords: Affective database ; Affective rating system ; Biosignals analysis ; Emotion induction ; Emotion recognition ; Psychology

Abstract

Developing original quantitative tools for emotion recognition has become one of the most fashionable topic in psychological research. In this work we present results from a pilot study aiming at identifying emotions through psychophysiological responses to visual stimuli chosen from a new database of affective pictures. Limitations of available databases (e.g, IAPS, GAPED) have been extensively discussed in Marchewka et al. (2013). In order to construct a database made up of pictures rated by a sample of participants representative of the general population, we have built an online questionnaire of 80 visual stimuli, posted on the Internet via social media sites and promoted by word of mouth. Out of the 309 respondents, only 198 (127 females and 71 males, mean age 29.45, ranging from 18 to 62 years) evaluated at least 40 pictures; on average 173 ratings have been collected for each picture. Finally, 20 stimuli consistently rated by subjects have been selected and used in a pilot study including 20 healthy subjects, screened using the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview. Psychophysiological responses have been recorded as they watched emotion inducing pictures.