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.<\/p>\n
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\u2014five of the Democratic frontrunners, plus\u00a0 Donald Trump.<\/p>\n
Reporter Craig Sandler of the\u00a0State House News Service<\/a> authored a piece about the study’s findings which has since been published on WGBH’s news site<\/a>.<\/p>\n “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\u2014a proven indicator of emotional involvement and arousal.”<\/p>\n