Anthropomorphizing malware, bots, and servers with human-like images and dialogues: the emotional design effects in a multimedia learning environment

Emotional design refers to imbuing a multimedia learning environment with design attributes that promote learners’ positive affect and motivation to enhance learning. One such feature is anthropomorphism, in which human-like attributes are infused into learning elements in a multimedia learning environment. This study examines the affective, motivational, and cognitive effects of incorporating cute and funny human-like images and dialogues into learning objects depicting malware, bots, and servers in an animation conveying a lesson on how a distributed denial-of-service attack occurs. A between-subjects online experiment was conducted in which undergraduates from a large Asian university (n = 70) engaged with either the anthropomorphized or non-anthropomorphized multimedia lesson. The findings partially supported the anthropomorphism effects on learners’ affective-motivational states insofar as the anthropomorphized multimedia lesson evoked a significantly greater change of positive affect but did not differently affect intrinsic motivation and learning outcome than the non-anthropomorphized version. Concerning cognitive load, anthropomorphism led to significantly lower perceived difficulty regarding the learning topic (intrinsic load), which conforms with most emotional design findings. There was a marginal trend in which learners engaged longer with the anthropomorphized than the non-anthropomorphized multimedia lesson. This study offers insights on anthropomorphism in multimedia learning that extends to cultural factors unique to Asian learners and information technology subject domain. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed through the lens of cognitive-affective theory of learning with media, integrated cognitive affective model of learning with multimedia, and cognitive load theory. Future directions concerning anthropomorphism research in the multimedia learning context are addressed in this paper.

Systematic Literature Reviews in Kansei Engineering for Product Design—A Comparative Study from 1995 to 2020

Individual products and models on the market must be specifically differentiated from the rest to meet user demand. In terms of consumer purchasing behaviour, consumers increasingly base their decisions on subjective terms or the impression that the product leaves on them, both in terms of functionality, usability, safety, and price adequacy, and regarding the emotions and feelings that it triggers in them. This demand has lead both Asia and Europe to implement new methodologies to develop new products, such as “emotional design” or Kansei engineering. This paper presents a systematic literature review (SLR) on the most relevant methodologies based on Kansei engineering and their relevant results in the specific discipline of product design, addressing these five questions: (RQ1) How many studies on KE and emotional design are there in the Scopus and Web of Science (WoS) databases from 1995 to February 2021? (RQ2) Which research topics and types of KE are addressed? (RQ3) Who is leading the research on KE and emotional design? (RQ4) What are the benefits and drawbacks of using and applying the methodology? (RQ5) What are the limitations of the current research? We analysed 87 studies focusing on the Kansei methodology used for product design and device technologies (e.g., shape design, actuators, sensors, structure) and aesthetic aspects (e.g., Kansei words selection, the quantification of measured emotions of results, and detected shortcomings), and provided the database with all the collected information. One identified and highlighted sector in the results is the electronic–technological-device sector. Results confirm that this type of methodology has a majority and direct application in these sectors, and they are widely represented in the automotive and electronics industries. Lastly, this SLR provides researchers with a guide for comparative emotional-design work, and facilitates future designers who want to implement emotional design in their work by selecting the specific type according to the results of the SLR.

Research on Emotional Expression of Daily-use Ceramic Product Design Based on Meta-model

Objectives: Modern people’s pursuit and consumption of ceramic products are different from those in the past. Therefore, designing new daily ceramic products full of enthusiasm, touching and spiritual enjoyment is our constant pursuit of innovative goals. The design of daily-use ceramics has developed from satisfying the needs of life at first to pursuing the individuality and emotion of products at later stages, showing different cultural connotations and pursuits in each stage of development. Methods: Information objects under meta-model are obtained by extracting the characteristics of project management information and product design information, reflecting the relationship between information entities, while knowledge objects are obtained by associating related information objects. Results: Emotional information products have more understanding of human psychology in the design process, which runs through the whole process of product interaction design. Conclusion: Through theoretical analysis of emotional design and analysis of a series of classic design cases of daily ceramic products, emotional expression forms of daily ceramic product design are summarized, and emotional design products that can bring people better use experience are designed.

The Effects of Emotional Design on Multimedia Learning and Appreciation of Chinese Poetry

Painting, music, literature, and other art forms embody the essence of human wisdom and induce esthetic experience, among which poetry is inherently creative, because it contains a wealth of symbols, imageries, insights, and so forth. The appreciation and learning of Chinese poetry is an important part of the curriculum in secondary schools. However, studies have mainly focused on textual characters of poetry, with little literature focusing on esthetic appreciation and in-depth learning of poetry. In this vein, we ask whether emotional designs will promote the appreciation and learning of Chinese poetry. To answer this question, we explored the influence of the combination of external emotion induction (positive and neutral movie clips) and internal colorful design (chromatic and achromatic) on esthetic preference and learning of poetry. One hundred and sixty-six participants (14–15 years old) were randomly assigned to one of four conditions created by two factors (external emotion induction and internal colorful design). The results showed that the combination of external emotion induction and internal colorful design promoted positive emotions, retention, and transfer performances of learners. Furthermore, perceived difficulty of learners decreased significantly when external emotional induction and internal colorful design were both positive. Consequently, these findings indicated that emotional designs in multimedia facilitated the learning performance of middle school students in Chinese poetry, and supported the cognitive-affective theory of learning with media. This research was a preliminary exploration of emotional design in humanities.