Facial Expression Recognition for Measuring Jurors' Attention in Acoustic Jury Tests.

The perception of sound greatly impacts users' emotional states, expectations, affective relationships with products, and purchase decisions. Consequently, assessing the perceived quality of sounds through jury testing is crucial in product design. However, the subjective nature of jurors' responses may limit the accuracy and reliability of jury test outcomes. This research explores the utility of facial expression analysis in jury testing to enhance response reliability and mitigate subjectivity. Some quantitative indicators allow the research hypothesis to be validated, such as the correlation between jurors' emotional responses and valence values, the accuracy of jury tests, and the disparities between jurors' questionnaire responses and the emotions measured by FER (facial expression recognition). Specifically, analysis of attention levels during different statuses reveals a discernible decrease in attention levels, with 70 percent of jurors exhibiting reduced attention levels in the 'distracted' state and 62 percent in the 'heavy-eyed' state. On the other hand, regression analysis shows that the correlation between jurors' valence and their choices in the jury test increases when considering the data where the jurors are attentive. The correlation highlights the potential of facial expression analysis as a reliable tool for assessing juror engagement. The findings suggest that integrating facial expression recognition can enhance the accuracy of jury testing in product design by providing a more dependable assessment of user responses and deeper insights into participants' reactions to auditory stimuli.

Emotional Valence from Facial Expression as an Experience Audit Tool: An Empirical Study in the Context of Opera Performance.

This paper aims to explore the potential offered by emotion recognition systems to provide a feasible response to the growing need for audience understanding and development in the field of arts organizations. Through an empirical study, it was investigated whether the emotional valence measured on the audience through an emotion recognition system based on facial expression analysis can be used with an experience audit to: (1) support the understanding of the emotional responses of customers toward any clue that characterizes a staged performance; and (2) systematically investigate the customer's overall experience in terms of their overall satisfaction. The study was carried out in the context of opera live shows in the open-air neoclassical theater Arena Sferisterio in Macerata, during 11 opera performances. A total of 132 spectators were involved. Both the emotional valence provided by the considered emotion recognition system and the quantitative data related to customers' satisfaction, collected through a survey, were considered. Results suggest how collected data can be useful for the artistic director to estimate the audience's overall level of satisfaction and make choices about the specific characteristics of the performance, and that emotional valence measured on the audience during the show can be useful to predict overall customer satisfaction, as measured using traditional self-report methods.