For some reason I thought that it was probably a good idea to go into a proper scientific analysis and research into the data we gathered from our investigation.
I’m not too sure whether or not we will get too much out of having a proper scientific analysis of this but its probably a good idea to get some sort of formal investigation into the questions we ask and give a chance to have something that can back up our project in an academic way. But here I present the investigation into the emotional effects of creative technology students when subjected to certain visual and auditory sensory stimuli.
Investigation into the emotional effects of creative technology students when subjected to certain visual and auditory sensory stimuli.
The aim of this investigation is to gauge whether or not our chosen stimuli of the visual and auditory variety has the intended affect of evoking emotions inside of the students we will be testing.
We will be exposing our subjects to a test version of our project that has the two main intended stimuli. Visual aspects are rear projected onto a piece of fabric that has motion reactive artwork on it. Audio parts are also movement reactive and are played through speakers that the subjects listen to at the same time as the visuals are shown. After they have experienced the piece they are then asked a few questions which have been crafted to gain as much understanding possible about whether or not they were emotionally effected by our piece at all. The questions that we asked were;
1). Using our piece did you think about how you emotionally felt?
2). Do you think our piece evoked emotion inside of you in anyway?
3). In 3 or less words describe your experience.
4). Did you focus on the visuals or the audio aspect of the experience more?
As you can see we are going for a more qualitative response instead of quantitative due to the emotional aspect of our project we thought that it would be a good idea to gain a more personal understanding of it due to the subjective nature of emotional responses, we thought it would be a better idea to get descriptions rather than numbers.
My hypothesis for this investigation is that without the finished pieces of our project like for instance the fact that we will have to substitute the projector for a computer screen due to the projector not being available at the time of the testing and us having to use the computer speakers as well, we will not be able to create the large enough presence we want and people will feel disconnected and won’t think about how the piece made them feel. I also feel that with the nature of our testing environment we will not be a personal place and the intended stimuli will be convoluted with other noises and lights etc. from the surrounding environment so I believe that we won’t be able to create a true reflective environment that people will think about their feelings alot.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B3KmxlKyL4ZfSURuOWw0MlgzcGM
The data we got was taken over two days with a variation taking place in the visuals on the second day, so the data isn’t completely consistent for the both days but we can still get a feel for the trends with both days separated.
Question 1 analysis: Day 1′s data shows that 85% of people saying they did not think about their feelings at all. this is obviously something we do not want as the entire purpose of the project is to make people aware of how they feel. 3 people also said that they were too focused on how to make it work to start thinking about how the piece made them felt.
Question 2 analysis: For the second question of did our piece evoke emotion inside of the person 4/9 people said no. The other 5 people felt "happy" using it and "confusion" was a common theme.
Question 3 analysis: The "Describe your experience in 3 words" provided us with some clarification in terms of their exact reasons for their feeling s. What was most prominent in the details the basis of interesting and contemplative.
Question 4 analysis: This question varied throughout the day so the results are somewhat inconsistent but what we asked mostly was whether or not the visuals overpowered the importance of the sound or vice versa. From this we gained a mixed response with 5 people saying they were more sound focused and the other 4 saying they were more visually focused.
Question 1 analysis: To this question all 3 participants responded with a "no".
Question 2 analysis: The three participants responded with "yes" but they were not insanely strong emotions, and two of the participants said that they were just too mechanically focused to try to feel the emotion being evoked. This is a trend that we see carrying on from yesterday with 44% of people saying the same thing.
Question 3 analysis: The main trend with the describing words on day #2 was that everyone displayed some sort of confusion which was all due to the visuals.
Question 4 analysis: When asked whether they were focused on visuals or sound 2/3 said visuals and they both said the visuals were confusing but the sounds were more confusing.
These results have provided a very good starting foundation for the analysis into the validity of our project. For starters it seems as though my prediction and hypothesis was correct in the prediction that most people did not think about their emotions. The reason for this I suggest is that the atmosphere in which we were testing in was not conducive to thought provoking/deep connections with themselves. This I suggest is because of the atmosphere that was present when we were testing, it was not enclosed and external factors like light and sounds made it feel as if they had not been transported in any way. We need to create an area that makes people feel enclosed and encapsulated in their own thoughts, which in turn creates an area where people can think about things.
Another point I suggest from our data and seeing the comparisons between the two days, we can see that the mechanical aspect of our piece is convoluting the main message of our piece. With this we can understand that people need at least some simplicity in the way they control it, or maybe a much more simply displayed impact of your movements. I suggest we try to have very simplistic and responsive visuals such as the first day compared to the second day where it was more abstract and such. Maybe also we can suggest using the right arm to control the piece as well as which may take away from the exploitative nature but will provide clarity and hopefully a greater understanding of the piece.
Another piece of opinion I have created about our project with this data is that we need to create more of a pressure and maybe create a larger prototype that will have a larger feeling it makes sense. Essentially what we need to do is to make people feel overpowered by the piece in most ways to think people feel overpowered by the piece. When people are overpowered by the piece they might be suggested to the fact that the piece knows more than them in terms of their feelings and emotions. I think that then we will create a great atmosphere for deep thoughts and elicit reflection which will be encapsulated in our booth. Also what ties into this is the universe theme, nothing really conveys that portrays the largest questions in our existence then the stars do so I feel that sticking with this theme is a very good idea to make this project meaningful.
In conclusion this investigation could have been carried out in much better format and a more efficient manner by doing more things that would ensure it being a completely fair test. But regardless we are still able to produce some good conclusions of how we can go ahead and improve our project further. All we can do now is try to implement those changes as good s possible then do another investigation and compare the data and see whether or not these trends are due to factors of our piece or if they are just limitations with our thinking.
