Experiencing the Affective Diary

Abstract

PostprintThis is the accepted version of a paper published in Journal of personal and ubiquitous computing. This paper has been peer-reviewed but does not include the final publisher proof-corrections or journal pagination. Citation for the original published paper (version of record):Ståhl, A., Höök, K., Svensson, M., Taylor, A., Combetti, M. (2009) Experiencing the Affective Diary. Journal of personal and ubiquitous computingAccess to the published version may require subscription. (0)1223 479999 {annas, kia, martins}@sics.se ast@microsoft.com Abstract: A diary is generally considered to be a book in which one keeps a regular record of events and experiences that have some personal significance. As such, it provides a useful means to privately express inner thoughts or to reflect on daily experiences, helping in either case to put them in perspective. Taking conventional diary keeping as our starting point, we have designed and built a digital diary, named Affective Diary, with which users can scribble their notes, but that also allows for bodily memorabilia to be recorded from body sensors and mobile media to be collected from users' mobile phones. A premise that underlies the presented work is one that views our bodily experiences as integral to how we come to interpret and thus make sense of the world.We present our investigations into this design space in three related lines of inquiry: (i) a theoretical grounding for affect and bodily experiences; (ii) a user-centred design process, arriving at the Affective Diary system; and (iii) an exploratory end-user study of the Affective Diary with 4 users during several weeks of use. Through these three inquiries, our overall aim has been to explore the potential of a system that interleaves the physical and cultural features of our embodied experiences and to further examine what media-specific qualities such a design might incorporate. Concerning the media-specific qualities, the key appears to be to find a suitable balance where a system does not dictate what should be interpreted and, at the same time, lends itself to enabling the user to participate in the interpretive act. In the exploratory end-user study users, for the most part, were able to identify with the body memorabilia and together with the mobile data, it enabled them to remember and reflect on their past. Two of our subjects went even further and found patterns in their own bodily reactions that caused them to learn something about themselves and even attempt to alter their own behaviours.

Unconscious emotions: quantifying and logging something we are not aware of

“…However, these tools can only record the surrounding environment of people, which ultimately includes everything that they encounter, but not the internal world, which comprises moods, thoughts and emotions. Therefore, current lifelogging tools do not provide people with a possibility to keep records of their mental life, which is crucial for some people who keep diaries [4,5].…”

Emotions in context: examining pervasive affective sensing systems, applications, and analyses

“…There are many wireless wearable sensors that are available today to provide continuous physiological signal measurements by connecting them to mobile platforms such as Affectiva Q Sensor [10] [14] and Affective Diary [15] are two systems that use electrodermal activity (EDA) to measure the arousal levels of individuals while carrying out their daily activities, while systems such as MOLMOD [16] use skin temperature and heart rate to detect pleasure and arousal levels in different locations. Perttula et al [17] employ heart rate as a measure of user experience in order to monitor the feelings of ice hockey game audiences using mobile phones with heart rate belts.…”

Inside-out: Reflecting on your inner state

“…However, the system did not gather any additional contextual information, so the person could not accurately identify the leading factors to each emotional state. In a separate study, Ståhl et al [7] monitored physiological information and activity of participants and asked them to manually provide contextual information through self-reports. Using the information, they created an affective diary that helped people to better reflect on their emotional responses to daily-life activities.…”