Towards Universal Visualisation of Emotional States for Information Systems

TL;DR

This study explores how to visually represent human emotional states in information systems using features like color and shape, aiming for a universal visualization method.

Contribution

It identifies key visual features correlated with emotional states and advances towards a standardized emotion visualization framework.

Findings

Color, speed, and size correlate with discrete emotion labels.

Speed correlates with arousal in a dimensional model.

First step towards a universal emotion visualization system.

Abstract

The paper concerns affective information systems that represent and visualize human emotional states. The goal of the study was to find typical representations of discrete and dimensional emotion models in terms of color, size, speed, shape, and animation type. A total of 419 participants were asked about their preferences for emotion visualization. We found that color, speed, and size correlated with selected discrete emotion labels, while speed correlated with arousal in a dimensional model. This study is a first step towards defining a universal emotion representation for use in information systems.