Sensitive pictures is a special emotion-detection museum audio guide built using our proprietary MUSEIS digital platform and tested in the Munch Museum in Oslo, as a part of the H2020 project GIFT.

The idea behind the project was to make a personal(ized) museum experience that will cause emotion, measure them and adapt the experience accordingly. By making strong links between museum objects and personal experiences, memories, emotions… we managed to trigger strong focus on art piece.  Our tests have shown that visitors spend substantially longer time in front of the art piece and have more intensive focus than during the average museum visit. 

The design of audio guide was is the central and most artistic part of the experience. Audio guide scripts were planned and written together with the Munch Museum curator which helped us achieve a good balance between emotional and fictional elements on one side, and educational-informative content on the other. We have chosen six paintings of Edvard Munch representing six different life aspects anyone can relate with. The emotions were related to different details from the Munch’s biography – and were linked with personal questions visitors were given to think about. Therefore, all emotions were Munch-specific and related to his life, while all questions were visitors-specific and related to their lives. Participants were encouraged to think and reflect on those questions which made this experience quite personal and intimate.  

All files/stories were recorded with professional voice talents using complex audio design. Sound layers and details were carefully planned thus making an immersive, strong and compelling audio experience. 

Each audio file was linked with an emotion self-reporting tool where participants were supposed to measure their emotions by using the “Self-Assessment Mannequin” (SAM model). SAM is a non-verbal pictorial assessment technique that directly measures the pleasure, arousal, and dominance associated with a person’s reaction to a wide variety of stimuli. It is a very efficient tool in the measurement of personal responses to stimulus that has been scientifically validated.

Additionally, we used cutting edge emotion detection technology to compare self-assessment results with bodily reactions thus making 360 degrees map of the human rational, emotional and physiological reactions on art. In two subsequent experiments we used computer vision technology to detect facial signals and state-of-the-art EEG device to analyse brain waves. 

Our EEG prototype has been listed on the Innovation Radar European Commission  platform.