ABSTRACT

While the heart rate has been used as a psychophysiological measure in media research, the perception of heart rates may have a considerable influence on individuals. Based on social information processing theory, this paper proposes the heart rate as a chronemic cue in virtual environments, with a varied heart rate accompanying a communicator’s emotional expressions leading to differing perceptions among observers as compared to a consistent one. In a pilot study, 44 participants watched a recording of a virtual human telling an emotional story and either saw it without any accompanying heart rate, a consistent heart rate or a varied one. Results showed that varied heart rate can lead to higher perceived other-arousal, empathy and social presence in observers as compared to a consistent heart rate. Study 2 tested the original hypotheses with a larger sample, and introduced two new conditions which explored the conformity and violations of observer’s expectations of heart rates; specifically if the varied heart rate needs to be in synch with the expressed emotions. Results from 173 participants showed that varied heart rate conditions which conformed to observers’ expectations of heart rate and emotional content lead to higher perceived other-arousal, empathy and social presence.

摘要

虽然心率已被用作媒体研究中的心理生理测量，但对心率的感知可能对个人产生相当大的影响。基于社会信息处理理论，本文提出将心率作为虚拟环境中的一个时间线索，与一致的心率相比，随着沟通者的情绪表达而变化的心率会导致观察者之间的不同看法。在一项试点研究中，44 名参与者观看了一个虚拟人讲述一个情感故事的录音，他们要么在没有任何伴随心率的情况下看到它，要么是一致的心率，要么是变化的心率。结果表明，与一致的心率相比，不同的心率可以导致观察者感知到的其他唤醒、同理心和社会存在感更高。研究 2 用更大的样本检验了原始假设，并引入了两个新条件，探索了观察者对心率预期的一致性和违反情况；特别是如果不同的心率需要与表达的情绪同步。来自 173 名参与者的结果表明，符合观察者对心率和情绪内容预期的不同心率条件会导致更高的感知他人唤醒、同理心和社会存在感。