Custom emoji based emotion recognition system for dynamic business webpages

PurposeOne of the contributions of artificial intelligent (AI) in modern technology is emotion recognition which is mostly based on facial expression and modification of its inference engine. The facial recognition scheme is mostly built to understand user expression in an online business webpage on a marketing site but has limited abilities to recognise elusive expressions. The basic emotions are expressed when interrelating and socialising with other personnel online. At most times, studying how to understand user expression is often a most tedious task, especially the subtle expressions. An emotion recognition system can be used to optimise and reduce complexity in understanding users' subconscious thoughts and reasoning through their pupil changes.Design/methodology/approachThis paper demonstrates the use of personal computer (PC) webcam to read in eye movement data that includes pupil changes as part of distinct user attributes. A custom eye movement algorithm (CEMA) is used to capture users' activity and record the data which is served as an input model to an inference engine (artificial neural network (ANN)) that helps to predict user emotional response conveyed as emoticons on the webpage.FindingsThe result from the error in performance shows that ANN is most adaptable to user behaviour prediction and can be used for the system's modification paradigm.Research limitations/implicationsOne of the drawbacks of the analytical tool is its inability in some cases to set some of the emoticons within the boundaries of the visual field, this is a limitation to be tackled within subsequent runs with standard techniques.Originality/valueThe originality of the proposed model is its ability to predict basic user emotional response based on changes in pupil size between average recorded baseline boundaries and convey the emoticons chronologically with the gaze points.

The Emotional Response to Pandemic of Middle- and High-School Students of an Italian Northern Province: The ERP Study

The COVID-19 outbreak variably affected people’s mental reactions worldwide but was only episodically investigated in healthy Italian teenagers. Our aim was to investigate the emotional responses of Italian middle and high school students to the pandemic. An anonymous 10-item questionnaire was distributed in pre-selected school samples. Responders had to score their perceived extent for each reaction from 0 (lowest perception) to 10 (highest perception). A group of adults was selected as control. Generalized linear models were used to estimate differences among adults and students, high school (HS) and middle school (MS) students, and urban (U) and rural (R) MS students. Comparisons were presented as mean difference (Δ) with a 95% confidence interval (CI). A total of 1512 questionnaires (635 adults, 744 HS, 67 UMS, and 66 RMS) were analyzed. Students appeared more indifferent (Δ = 1.97, 1.52–2.41), anxious (Δ = 0.56, 0.07–1.04), aggressive (Δ = 2.21, 1.72–2.70), and depressed (Δ = 1.87, 1.40–2.34) than adults did, and claimed a higher loss of interest in their activities (Δ = 1.21, 0.72–1.70). Students were less disbelieving (Δ = −0.93, −1.50–0.35) and feared for their loved ones (Δ = −0.89, −1.40–0.39). MS students were less affected by the outbreak than HS students were. Furthermore, R-MS students were significantly less aggressive and depressed, but more indifferent and disbelieving than U-MS. Female sex was an independent factor associated to almost all the questionnaire domains. The pattern of the psychological responses to the pandemic in Italian students proved multifaceted. In addition to anxiety, loss of interest in activities, and depression, aggressiveness emerged as the most characterizing mental attitude in response to the pandemic.

Water and Emotion: Testing a New Approach for Monitoring Water Security Among Afar Pastoralists in Ethiopia

Ethiopia has over 12 million pastoralists that raise livestock and move their herds in search of fresh pasture and water. This way of life is especially vulnerable to climate change as drought and shifts in seasonal rainfall patterns are changing the distribution and availability of these resources in pastoralist regions. The dynamic use of water within these settings is also not well-understood or captured by conventional water sector monitoring systems, which prevents appropriate supportive interventions and policies to be delivered. This paper presents results from a study into a new approach to measuring water security that focuses on assessing the emotional response of pastoralist populations to their water security situation. Formative research involving focus groups and interviews was followed by a survey of 148 pastoralists to assess their emotional response to different water security dimensions. The results indicate that emotional response can be used to elicit valuable insights into water security and provide a powerful complement to conventional water security monitoring techniques. Using the approach, we show a strong relationship between variation in seasonal water access and reported emotional response. Negative emotions also strongly associate with the most laborious methods of collecting water such as scoop holes and hand dug wells, whereas positive emotions were associated with access to higher quantities of water. Access to equines for carrying water was associated with more positive emotional well-being indicating a route to water security improvement in this context could be through the provision of donkeys and mules for water carrying. The paper discusses the value of using an emotion-based approach to capture experiences of water security alongside more conventional objective measures, especially among populations with water use patterns that continue to be poorly understood.

Evaluating an E-Learning Application to Protect Vulnerable Users From Cyberbullying

This research project evaluates Let's Be Safe, an e-learning application. This application aims to educate young adults with intellectual disability about cyberbullying—an issue prevalent among this population—and cybersafety. Twenty-two individuals with mild to moderate intellectual disability took part in the research. The study employed a mixed-methods design including observational and inquiry methods of usability evaluation as well as focus groups. The evaluation investigated the relationships between perceived aesthetics, emotional response, and usability for the application. The focus group gathered information from the participants regarding their knowledge and experience of cyberbullying and cybersafety. The analyses found no significant relationships between aesthetics, emotional response, and usability for this user group. However, the research gathered data, which will contribute to the development of Let's Be Safe. The findings of the focus group revealed that cyberbullying is an issue among this population.

Sadness, Negativity, and Uncertainty in Education During COVID-19 on Social Media

The global COVID-19 pandemic increased social media usage to obtain information and to share concerns, feelings, and emotions, turning it into a prolific field of research through which it is possible to understand how audiences are coping with the multitude of recent challenges. This paper presents results from a social media analysis of 61532 education-related news headlines posted by the major daily news provider in Portugal, Sic Notícias, on Facebook, from January to December 2020. We focus on how the news impacted on audiences’ emotional response and discourse, and we analyze the key issues of the most commented news content. The results show a prevailing sadness among audiences and a very negative discourse all throughout 2020, with a high degree uncertainty being expressed. The main concerns revolved around parents supporting children in their first remote learning endeavors, financial sustainability, the lack of devices, the disinfection of schools, and the students’ mobility, particularly in the non-higher education context.

How KOLs Influence Consumer Purchase Intention in Short Video Platforms——Mediating Effects of Emotional Response and Virtual Touch

In recent years, Key Opinion Leader (KOL) marketing opens up a new mode of social commerce by effectively integrating social networking and marketing since it has been successfully taking advantage of KOL’s high popularity to promote products. This study expands the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) model by combining the communication persuasion theory with the flow experience theory. Our model considers the characteristics of KOLs and published content features as independent variables, consumer perception as the mediating variable and consumer purchase intention as the dependent variable. This study also refines the measurement dimensions of each variable and analyzes KOL impacts on consumer purchase intention on short video platforms. After analyzing 357 valid questionnaires, we find that the variables –reputation, perceived fit, aesthetic quality and content richness have significant impacts on consumer purchase intention where virtual touch and emotional response play intermediary roles. This study provides insights into KOL marketing.

Online casinos: advertising and avoidance among Generation Y consumers in Sweden

Online casinos are one of Sweden’s largest gambling sectors. Increased advertising investment and advertising frequency have sought to attract Generation Y consumers to these casinos, yet it has been suggested that advertising can contribute to avoidance behaviours towards products and services, including online casinos and specific gambling brands. The various advertising aspects used in gambling advertising and their impact on behaviour have not been widely researched. Thus, the purpose of this study was to explore the use of creative strategies in casino advertising and how it contributes to the avoidance of online casinos, specifically among Swedish Generation Y consumers. As an exploratory study, qualitative methods were used. Initially, 13 casino advertisements were analysed to identify the strategies used in the advertisements. These were then presented to Generation Y consumers in three focus groups and six in-depth interviews. The analysis of the advertising shows the use of people and characters in presenting the casino brand. Male voice-overs were utilised in addition to music and other casino-related sounds. The advertising also used bright colours to attract attention. The impact of these advertisements is that the content, the auditory cues rather than just music, the emotional response, and the frequency of the advertising were found to contribute to the avoidance of casino brands. Furthermore, the ethics and general attitudes to the industry impact the decision to avoid these brands. The managerial implication of this research shows the impact of advertisements on the decision to avoid a brand, specifically a casino brand.