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386 CHAPTER 13 Measuring the human

areas of the brain involved in relevant cognitive processes, locations associated with
particular classes of problems can be identified. One study used fMRI to observe an
emotional response to emoticons, even when regions of the brain associated with
face recognition were inactive, indicating that participants did not recognize the
emoticons as faces (Yuasa et al., 2006). Other HCI studies have applied fMRI to
study the effect of multiple exposure to security warnings (Anderson et al., 2015), the
extent to which participants feel that they are “present” in virtual reality (Clemente
et al., 2014); mental loads associated with 3D motion and interactivity in virtual
reality (Sjölie et al., 2010); perception of the quality of design (Lee et al., 2009),
processes involved in learning new tools (Kitamura et al., 2003) and information
search processes (Mostafa and Gwizdka, 2016); and validation of think-aloud proto-
cols (Durning et al., 2013), among others.
Measurements of brain activity present tantalizing prospects for HCI research,
presenting the possibility of getting “under the hood” and gaining otherwise un-
available understanding of mental states and cognitive processes. However, these
techniques are not without their drawbacks. Although EEGs may be used reasonably
inexpensively, fMRI research requires often expensive access to complex machinery.
Data are often quite noisy, and interpretation can be challenging. Collaboration with
neuroscientists trained in these techniques is often a winning strategy for HCI studies.

13.5 DATA COLLECTION, ANALYSIS, AND INTERPRETATION
Whether eye tracking; motion and posture sensing; or one of the several types of
physiological data discussed earlier, studies measuring human activity will generally
follow the same set of steps as any other study: designing, configuring, and test-
ing data collection approaches; analyzing captured data; and interpreting the results.
Despite these similarities to other studies, studies using the techniques described in
this chapter present their own specific challenges at each of these stages (Figure 13.6)

FIGURE 13.6
Stages and challenges in research studies involving collection of data from the human
body.