About The BioPanel Measures
Measuring Your Pulse
We measure your pulse by placing an electrode on one of your finger tips on your non-dominant hand and another onto your ear lobe. We use both methods because neither is always accurate for all people. The data collected from the finger can be compromised if the hand or fingers move and the data collected from the ear lobe can differ in quality depending upon a person’s ear shape or whether they are wearing ear rings. We are interested in your heart rate because it can indicate your level of attention to a stimulus (e.g., what you are watching on the television). Click here to see what this would look like.
Measuring Your Skin Conductance
We measure the changes in the conductance of your skin principally by gauging changes in your sweating response. We measure these changes by placing two electrodes on your fingers on your non-dominant hand. This change in sweating can indicate the level of psychological arousal (i.e., how awake you are) in response to a stimulus (e.g., what you are watching on the television). Even though you might not see any sweat on your skin, you may still have an increase in skin conductance which indicates greater psychological arousal. Click here to see what this would look like.
Both of these measures are collected with a piece of equipment called a Biopac, into which the electrodes are plugged.
Measuring your Eyes on the Screen
We use a system called Face Lab by a company called Seeing Machines. This system consists of two cameras that sit on a table in front of you, some infra red light sources that are near these cameras and by the TV screen, and some software that works to get a fix on where your face and eyes are within the room using these cameras and light sources. The room is very dimly lit, almost dark, so that there is no other light being reflected off your eyes. It takes about 10minutes to set the system up for each person. The software can then track where your eyes are looking on screen. You are not hooked up to any wires for this procedure, but we do require you to be fairly consistent in how you sit throughout your viewing session so that the cameras can keep track of your eyes. Click here to see what this would look like.
What is Measured When
Sometimes we are only interested in your pulse and sweating data, whereas other times we are only interested in where you are looking on the television screen. On occasion we are interested in all measures. You will be told about the measures involved when you are invited to take part in a study.
On the day of your viewing session…
You will need to be at least 12 hours free from alcohol and recreational drug use.
Additionally, we would also ask that you not drink anything that contains caffeine or a similar stimulant 2 hours prior to your appointment time.
We will ask you if you are in general good health.
If you are female, we will ask you about your menstrual cycle (e.g., first day of your last period; number of days in your cycle).