Smartphone Apps in Psychological Science: Results from an Experience Sampling Approach

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1 Smartphone Apps in Psychological Science: Results from an Experience Sampling Approach Stefan Stieger University of Konstanz, Germany Workshop on Innovations in Online Experiments, Oxford, March 13, 2015

2 Why should we do research with smartphone apps? Penetration rate Asymco 2014

3 Penetration rate - Generalizability Asymco 2014

4 Who is doing smartphone app studies right now?

5 Why not use online questionnaires instead of apps? Sensors and many more will be implemented in the future.

6 Who is doing smartphone app studies right now? Some examples: Environmental psychology geolocation and well-being MacKerron, G., & Mourato, S. (2013). Happiness is greater in natural environments. Global Environmental Change, 23, density of local Bluetooth devices proxy for the number of people nearby Do, T. M. T., Blom, J., & Gatica-Perez, D. (2011). Smartphone usage in the wild: A large-scale analysis of applications and context. In Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Multimodal Interaction. New York, NY: ACM. emotion recognition from microphone input Rachuri, K. K., Musolesi, M., Mascolo, C., Rentfrow, P. J., Longworth, C., & Aucinas, A. (2010). EmotionSense: A mobile phone based adaptive platform for experimental social psychology research. In Proceedings of the 12th ACM International Conference on Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp 10) (pp ). New York, NY: ACM. GPS Bluetooth Microphone

7 How to program them? Classical way: Java Android Object-C Apple C# - Windows Alternative: MIT App Inventor Advantages: Free Easy-to-use Browser-based Tutorials Forums Conferences Disadvantage: Only Android Restrictions not everything is possible

8 How to program them? Tools Graphical view of the app Properties

9 How to programm them?

10 Project 1: Well-being N = 213 participants Design: Experience Sampling Method Time-frame: two weeks with three measurements per day well-being judgments 87.3% of reminders resulted in a valid response Accuracy of reminders: Md = 49 minutes Topics: Well-being + geolocation (MacKerron & Mourato, 2013) Mind-wandering Sport exercises many non-reactive data

13 Procedure Recruitment: face-to-face Informed consent Installation of the App via App store Current wellbeing

14 Procedure Reminders sent out three-times a day for 14 days Onlinequestionnaire at the end of the study

15 Geographical dispersion

16 Distribution of all ratings Germany MacKerron & Mourato, UK

17 Well-being during the day

18 Well-being during the week Akay & Martinsson (2009): blue Sunday effect Results of the our study: Not the whole Sunday is blue, only the evening!

19 Orientation sensor: Roll = Inclination to the left or right M = -4.50, SD = 9.17 one-sample t-test: t = -7.10, p <.001 reference value = 0 Smartphone shifted to the right. Proxy for handedness?

20 Orientation sensor: Pitch = Inclination forward or backward µ = 35.6 (95% CI [35.2, 36.1 ]) r =.937 Rayleigh test of uniformity for circular statistics: z = 7,150.8, p <.001 < 35.6: r =.06, p =.001 > 35.6: r = -.04, p =.025

21 Soccer what else! Portugal (4:0) Ghana (2:2) USA (1:0)

22 Project 2: Holiday Feeling N = 110 Time-frame: 3 weeks with two measurements per day Data collection over Christmas and New year! judgments Topics: Well-being Loneliness Alkohol consumption Eating behavior Dream quality Critical life events Again, many non-reactive data

23 Do critical life-events have an impact on our dream quality? χ 2 = 13.9 df = 4, p =.008; CC =.087

24 Body postures and well-being: Inclination again r =.07, p =.06, n = 1025 r = -.01, p =.74 r =.20, p =.12, n = 59 r = -.03, p =.75 µ = 40.4

25 How feasible are smartphone app studies for research? 1. Smartphone apps can produce replicable, valid data. 2. We get very close to the behaviour when it actually happens (i.e., no post-hoc questions). 3. Extra burden for participants is low compared to traditional methods (e.g., diary method). 4. Intrusion into participants everyday life is low. 5. Time when participants answer the questions is traceable. 6. Smartphone sensors can give us additional information about the constructs under investigation. Resumé: Smartphone app studies have not only the potential to advance applied sciences substantially (e.g., health science), they also have the potential to substantially advance basic research in many different scientific disciplines.

26 Thank you

Impact of Experience Sampling Methods on Tap Pattern based Emotion Recognition

Impact of Experience Sampling Methods on Tap Pattern based Emotion Recognition Surjya Ghosh IIT Kharagpur WB-7232, India surjya.ghosh@iitkgp.ac.in Niloy Ganguly IIT Kharagpur WB-7232, India niloy@cse.iitkgp.ernet.in