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When thwarted in a behaviour, laying hens show an increase in stereotyped pacing, displacement preening and a specific vocalisation known as the ‘gakel-call’. How these behaviours, which might serve as indicators of welfare, are influenced by social factors is not yet known. In this study, we investigated the effect of an audience (another bird or a human) on the expression of the gakel-call and other behaviours indicating frustration. Twenty-four Lohman Brown hens were trained to gain free access to food in a test cage. Sixteen hens were used as test birds and eight as non-test audience birds. The food-deprived test hens were tested for 15 min in a non-thwarting situation (food freely available) and for 15 min in a thwarting situation (food covered but visible). For both situations we investigated four different treatments: no audience in the adjacent cage; a non-thwarted audience bird in the adjacent cage; a thwarted audience bird in the adjacent cage; and finally a human audience. The durations of stereotyped pacing and displacement preening were significantly higher in test birds during thwarting than during non-thwarting; thwarted birds also gave significantly more gakel-calls compared to non-thwarted birds. The test birds, and also the audience birds, gave more gakel-calls when thwarted in the presence of a thwarted conspecific than when in the presence of a non-thwarted bird, but there were no significant differences in stereotyped pacing or displacement preening, which are usually associated with frustration. In conclusion, this study supports the view that the gakel-call signals frustration in laying hens. Furthermore, the state of the audience influences the occurrence of gakel-calls in thwarted hens. Thus, when using the gakel-call as a welfare-indicator, the social aspects of the vocal expression of frustration in laying hens should not be overlooked.

The aim of this special session at Measuring Behavior 2012 is to look at engagement and ways to measure engagement in situations where users are not glued to their chair and keyboard, that is, in sensor-equipped environments that are able to perceive nonverbal interaction behavior. And, moreover, we focus on activities that are not necessarily aimed at performing a particular task in the most efficient way. Rather the focus is on enjoyment during performance and satisfaction during and after finishing the interaction.

In this article the complexity of the construct engagement and three theories on this topic are discussed. Csikszentmihalyi's theory of flow is taken as starting point for the measurement of engagement. The measurement of each of its eight aspects is discussed, including its pros and cons. Regrettably, no overarching computational model is available. This article ends with a concise discussion.

Ambient spaces are characterized by sensors, which allow detailed observation of visitors and inhabitants, and by displays and actuators that allow the system to react to the observed behavior. Starting from a general ambient space, we are working towards an interactive environment that invites and seduces people to interaction with each other and with the environment. We aim at “play‿ rather than at “game‿; the visitor has no obligation to interact with the system, nor is there any specific goal to reach or task to complete.

A method is proposed to validate Microsoft’s Kinect as a device and, hence, to enable low fidelity, unobtrusive, robust sensing of behavior. The Xsens MVN suit is proposed as the measurements’ ground truth. An overarching framework is introduced that facilitates a mapping of both devices upon each other. This framework includes a complete processing pipeline for both the Xsens and the Kinect data, recorded in parallel, which, at the end of both pipelines, are mapped upon reach other. Next, two strategies are presented that aim to interpret the data gathered. We close with a brief discussion on the pros and cons of the protocol proposed.

Binnen een gecontroleerd werklastexperiment schatten we in een gesimuleerde online situatie werklastniveau op basis van EEG spectral power, ERPs en een combinatie hiervan. Dit lukt voor 33 van de 35 proefpersonen met gemiddelden van 80-90% correct.

This paper aims to give a brief overview of the current state-of-the-art in automatic measurement of affect signals in dimensional and continuous spaces (a continuous scale from -1 to +1) by seeking answers to the following questions: i) why has the field shifted towards dimensional and continuous interpretations of affective displays recorded in real-world settings? ii) what are the affect dimensions used, and the affect signals measured? and iii) how has the current automatic measurement technology been developed, and how can we advance the field?

In this paper we present the results of a pilot study investigating the impact of stress and cognitive load on the perceived interaction quality of a multimodal dialogue system for crisis management. Four test subjects interacted with the system in four differently configured trials aiming to induce low/high levels of stress and cognitive load. To measure the level of stress and cognitive load physiological sensors and subjective ratings were collected. After each trial the subjects filled in an evaluation questionnaire regarding the system interaction quality. In the end we conducted an in-depth interview with each subject. The trials were recorded with a webcam to facilitate the behaviour analysis. Results showed that both factors have an influence on the way subjects perceived the interaction quality, whereas the cognitive load seems to have a higher impact. Further quantitative experiments are needed in order to validate the results and quantify the weight of each factor.

In this paper we assess the sternocleidomastoid muscle stress with two experimental studies to evaluate the developed smart neck support system. The first studyinvolving head rotation angle and sternocleidomastoid muscle (SCM) electromyography (EMG) activity. This (descriptive) study extends efforts from different authors to assess the isometric strength of SCM, in which the experiment is carried out in relation to time. This first study functions as a calibration experiment which provides the input for the second study as a validation experiment. The validation experiment was conducted inside the aircraft cabin simulator. The SCM of participant was evaluated with electromyography.The smart neck support system is to reduce the SCM muscle stress of aircraft passenger adaptively during air travel.

Travel by air, especially long distance, the enclosed environment of the aircraft cabin causes discomfort and even stress to flight passengers. In this paper, we present a new heart rate controlled music recommendation system. Heart rate is used as a stress indicator. If the user is stressed and his/her heart rate is higher/lower than normal, the system recommends a user preferred calm/uplift music playlist to transfer the heart rate back to normal; An user experiment is done to validate our system. The experiment results not only show that our system keeps the user’s heart rate at normal but also show that

This paper summarizes some key concepts and data collection methods used in a study which aims at better understanding how cognitions of urban environments evolve over time as individual learn about the environment by executing activity patterns. A GPS device is used to trace respondents over a longer period of time. These traces are semi-automatically interpreted to derive data on activity-travel patterns. A Web-based survey serves to complement these behavioral data with data on cognitions.

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The current paper sets out to describe a first exploration of behavioral expressions that could serve as real-time indicators of experiences related to playing digital games. In this paper, we focus primarily on pressure patterns exerted on a physical control device, and postural responses. Based on this exploration, we present our progress in developing a set of behavior-based measures of such player experiences and their validation through an experimental study.

International audience

This paper presents an overview of the work carried out at the HMI group of the University of Twente in the domain of multi-party interaction. The process from automatic observations of behavioral aspects through interpretations resulting in recognized behavior is discussed for various modalities and levels. We show how a virtual meeting room can be used for visualization and evaluation of behavioral models as well as a research tool for studying the effect of modified stimuli on the perception of behavior.

The creation of large, richly annotated, multimodal corpora of human interactions is an expensive and time consuming task. Support from annotation tools that make the annotation process more efficient is required, especially if the annotation effort involves really large amounts of data. Therefore we investigated how different properties of specific annotation tasks can have an impact on the design of a tool focused on that general class of tasks. In this paper we present our view on the considerations that should drive the design of new tools geared to specific tasks. The main dimensions that we consider are: observation vs interpretation, explicit and implicit input layers, segmentation, feedback, constraints, relations and the content of the annotation elements.

Within the AMI (Augmented Multi-party Interaction) project technologies will be developed that can facilitate human interaction in the context of instrumented meeting rooms, which includes remote participant support and the possibility to browse through past meetings. The project collects data on people engaged in meetings in order to describe, analyze and theorize about meeting behavior and collaborative work. This symposium addresses research methods and techniques used in the AMI project. It deals with the collection of a richly annotated corpus, the design of annotation tools that are focused on specific annotation tasks, methods for user requirements elicitation and browser evaluation, and the observation and interpretation of behavior to obtain recognized behavioral aspects that are visualized and evaluated in a virtual meeting room.

We present work on Obie, an embodied conversational agent framework. An embodied conversational agent, or talking head, consists of three main components. The graphical part consists of a face model and a facial muscle model. Besides the graphical part, we have implemented an emotion model and a mapping from emotions to facial expressions. The animation part of the framework focuses on the combination of different facial movements temporally. In this paper we propose a scheme of combining facial movements on a 3D talking head.

'Welzijn bestaat niet', is een gevleugelde uitdrukking van één van mijn collega's. Deze weliswaar ietwat ongenuanceere stelling geeft het probleem weer waarmee een gedragsbioloog in het welzijnsonderzoek geconfronteerd wordt: welzijn is niet direct meetbaar. Want de aanname is dat een dier zelf uitmaakt hoe het met zijn welzijn gesteld is. Dat hangt af van de omstandigheden waarin het dier zich bevindt. Maar hoe komt een etholoog te weten hoe een dier de eigen situatie beoordeelt? Je kunt er niet naar vragen. Nou ja, je kunt er wel naar vragen, maar een antwoord zul je niet krijgen. Of misschien toch wel? Het promotie-onderzoek van Patrick Zimmerman richtte zich op de vraag of het welzijn van leghennen te meten is op basis van geluiden die ze maken

Een Wageningse promovendus deed vier jaar onderzoek en probeerde de kippen 'zelf te laten spreken'

Animal welfare plays a major role in the societal and scientific debate about the housing of laying hens. In this thesis it is assumed that welfare is good when physiologically an animal functions well. It is also proposed that affective states or feelings motivate an animal to perform behaviours that ensure proper biological functioning. Thwarting or blocking these behaviours impairs functioning and welfare. Emotional expressions, such as vocalisations, could be useful in assessing the welfare state of an animal.There are indications that a state of frustration, induced by thwarting of behaviour, in laying hens is expressed through a specific vocalisation, thegakel-call.Before the gakel-call can be used as a tool to assess welfare two requirements have to be met: a) frustration is consistently expressed through the gakel-call and b) the intensity of frustration is reflected in the number of gakel-calls or qualitative characteristics.The experiments in this thesis show that frustration, resulting from the thwarting of feeding, drinking, dustbathing and nesting behaviour, is expressed through the gakel-call. The motivation to feed affects the frustration response and is reflected in a higher number of gakel-calls. Social factors such as an audience-effect and social facilitation influence the gakel-call. The functional significance of these latter findings is discussed.As yet the gakel-call seems a useful parameter to study the impact of certain elements of a housing system on the frustration response of laying hens. Frustration can be an indicator of the welfare state of an animal and with the use of the gakel-call welfare of laying hens in different housing systems can be assessed.