In a project conducted for the State House News Service, CRC researchers used biometric methods to measure potential voters’ subconscious responses to candidates running in this year’s presidential election.
Utilizing galvanic skin response (GSR), facial expression analysis, eye tracking, and self-report survey data, researchers Susie Blair, Anne Danehy, and Mina Tsay-Vogel designed a study to better understand how voters respond to information about six of this year’s candidates—five of the Democratic frontrunners, plus Donald Trump.
Reporter Craig Sandler of the State House News Service authored a piece about the study’s findings which has since been published on WGBH’s news site.
“Biometrics studies like the one the CRC conducted for the News Service do ask voters questions in traditional ways, and the group was asked a battery of questions about their personal impressions of the contenders after being presented with their photos and biographies,” he writes. “But they studied those photos and biographies on a monitor that recorded their eye movements and facial expressions, and while wearing sensors that measured their galvanic skin response—a proven indicator of emotional involvement and arousal.”