Measuring real-time cognitive engagement in remote audiences

Ana Levordashka; Danaë Stanton Fraser; Iain D Gilchrist

doi:10.1038/s41598-023-37209-7

Measuring real-time cognitive engagement in remote audiences

Ana Levordashka^*
, Danaë Stanton Fraser
, Iain D Gilchrist

^*Corresponding author for this work

Bristol Neuroscience

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article (Academic Journal) › peer-review

15 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Responses to arts and entertainment media offer a valuable window into human behaviour. Many individuals worldwide spend the vast majority of their leisure time engaging with video content at home. However, there are few ways to study engagement and attention in this natural home viewing context. We used motion-tracking of the head via a web-camera to measure real-time cognitive engagement in 132 individuals while they watched 30 min of streamed theatre content at home. Head movement was negatively associated with engagement across a constellation of measures. Individuals who moved less reported feeling more engaged and immersed, evaluated the performance as more engaging, and were more likely to express interest in watching further. Our results demonstrate the value of in-home remote motion tracking as a low-cost, scalable metric of cognitive engagement, which can be used to collect audience behaviour data in a natural setting.

Original language	English
Article number	10516
Journal	Scientific Reports
Volume	13
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-37209-7
Publication status	Published - 29 Jun 2023

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This work was supported by Bristol and Bath Creative R&D funded by the AHRC Creative Industries Cluster Programme (AH/S002936/1). For more information on the project and its partners, visit our website at https://bristolbathcreative.org/ . We would like to thank Rebecca Hirst and Alain Pitiot of Open Science Tools for their work on the Research Media Player, Paul Hill for his involvement during the early stages of the project, Real World Studios and sleepdogs for guiding our understanding of arts audiences, inspiring discussions, and permission to use original material. The stimulus material used in the study is a recording of sleepdogs’ play The Bullet and The Bass Trombone, performed at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre in 2019.

Funding Information:
This work was supported by Bristol and Bath Creative R&D funded by the AHRC Creative Industries Cluster Programme (AH/S002936/1). For more information on the project and its partners, visit our website at https://bristolbathcreative.org/. We would like to thank Rebecca Hirst and Alain Pitiot of Open Science Tools for their work on the Research Media Player, Paul Hill for his involvement during the early stages of the project, Real World Studios and sleepdogs for guiding our understanding of arts audiences, inspiring discussions, and permission to use original material. The stimulus material used in the study is a recording of sleepdogs’ play The Bullet and The Bass Trombone, performed at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre in 2019.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023, The Author(s).

Keywords

Humans
Emotions
Head Movements
Leisure Activities
Motion
Cognition

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abstract = "Responses to arts and entertainment media offer a valuable window into human behaviour. Many individuals worldwide spend the vast majority of their leisure time engaging with video content at home. However, there are few ways to study engagement and attention in this natural home viewing context. We used motion-tracking of the head via a web-camera to measure real-time cognitive engagement in 132 individuals while they watched 30 min of streamed theatre content at home. Head movement was negatively associated with engagement across a constellation of measures. Individuals who moved less reported feeling more engaged and immersed, evaluated the performance as more engaging, and were more likely to express interest in watching further. Our results demonstrate the value of in-home remote motion tracking as a low-cost, scalable metric of cognitive engagement, which can be used to collect audience behaviour data in a natural setting.",

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Measuring real-time cognitive engagement in remote audiences

Abstract

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