A Hybrid Interface Model for Studying Socio-emotional Phenomena

• Grant number: 21/12984-1
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: December 01, 2022
• End date: September 30, 2024
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Information Science
• Principal Investigator: Julio Cesar dos Reis
• Grantee: Geovanna Evelyn Espinoza Taype
• Host Institution: Instituto de Computação (IC). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The phenomenon of emotion contagion is a perspective where one individual acts upon one or more individuals influencing his/her emotional state. Behind our emotional expressions, a complex circuit is triggered in our mind and body. It involves neurological and physiological activities. The last technological advances in literature show studies using Electroencephalogram (EEG), and Electrocardiogram (ECG) to collect neurological and physiological information to analyze, find patterns, and get inferences (Hybrid BCI) on people's emotions. Still scarce in literature are systems that consider not only the neurophysiological aspects in emotional experiences but also the environment composed by things, and other humans with their perceptual, cognitive, and sensorimotor information. Our research proposal involves studying the phenomenon of contagion based on Socio-enactive systems perspective (a novel approach) which considers all the aforementioned aspects in the relationship among human's mind, body and the environment as a unity in the social world. We aim revisit the emotion contagion phenomena to promote socio-emotional interactions. Our study explores Artificial Intelligence algorithms and methods to recognize patterns from data collected by the system. The hybrid interface consists of diverse input signals from the brain and from other physiological data, within wearable and ubiquitous systems. In this case each system in the hybrid paradigm plays different roles. Our research investigates and develops a hybrid interface model for these systems. Our research will be evaluated via case studies in which participants are invited to use and assess the proposed system.