Psychophysiological Measurement and Meaning: Cognitive and Emotional Processing of Media

by Robert F. Potter, Paul D. Bolls

This research volume serves as a comprehensive resource for psychophysiological research on media responses. It addresses the theoretical underpinnings, methodological techniques, and most recent research in this area. It goes beyond current volumes by placing the research techniques within a context of communication processes and effects as a field, and demonstrating how the real-time measurement of physiological responses enhances and complements more traditional measures of psychological effects from media.

This volume introduces readers to the theoretical assumptions of psychophysiology as well as the operational details of collecting psychophysiological data. In addition to discussing specific measures, it includes brief reviews of recent experiments that have used psychophysiological measures to study how the brain processes media. It will serve as a valuable reference for media researchers utilizing these methodologies, or for other researchers needing to understand the theories, history, and methods of psychophysiological research.

310 pages, Hardcover

First published August 24, 2011

Reviews

[Sara Ringbauer · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book provides a good overview of using electrodes to measure attention, heart rate and emotion in media studies. The book provided a good overview of physiological response and psychology. Typical applications are watching a video or looking at picture slideshows and seeing how users react.

One thing lacking was a strong citation of supporting research support the conclusions drawn from this method - e.g. lowering heart rate means the user is paying attention.

This methodology could be applied to other areas of research. However, the researchers would need to find more empirical studies to support this method before they use it.