Researchers in Athlone Institute of Technology found that the Pip can be used to measure peoples’ emotional responses while using virtual reality headsets [1].
The study, “An evaluation of Heart Rate and Electrodermal Activity as an Objective QoE Evaluation method for Immersive Virtual Reality Environments”, had participants hold the Pip while they either viewed a city on a normal computer screen or navigated their way around a city using a virtual reality (VR) headset. Afterwards, they asked participants to rate their experience of the city including how much they enjoyed the experience, how difficult they felt it was, how immersed they were in it and how comfortable or uncomfortable they were with the whole experience.
They found that electrodermal activity (EDA), as measured by the Pip, could distinguish between those who played the VR game and those who played on the computer screen. This indicates that the Pip was a marker of the users’ emotional responses to playing the VR game. They also found that the more difficult users found the game the more their EDA changed meaning that the Pip could show when people were experiencing something difficult, demanding or perhaps stressful.
The paper was presented at the 8th International Conference on Quality of Multimedia Experience (QoMEX 2016) June 2016, in Lisbon, Portugal.
The link to the study can be found here: goo.gl/hyLzgp
- Darragh Egan, Sean Brennan, John Barrett, Yuansong Qiao,Christian Timmerer and Niall Murray (2016) “An evaluation of Heart Rate and Electrodermal Activity as an Objective QoE Evaluation method for Immersive Virtual Reality Environments”. In 8th International Conference on Quality of Multimedia Experience. June 2016. Lisbon, Portugal.
