Can Biosignals be Expressive? How Visualizations Affect Impression Formation from Shared Brain Activity

We are exploring the concept of expressive biosignals: leveraging wearable technologies to introduce sensed physiological data as cues for social perception. Biosignals can help us achieve a deeper understanding of each other by revealing or clarifying the psychological processes that underlie our subjective experience. We conducted an exploratory study investigating expressive biosignals, comparing the influence of a variety of brain activity visualizations on impression formation. Results revealed that while participants readily infer emotional and cognitive states from visualized brain activity, the ambiguity of the data can lead to diverse perceptions and interpretations. Participants also expressed concerns that the observation of another individual's data during interaction might be invasive or distracting. We present a set of design considerations addressing issues of interpretability, integration, and privacy of biosignals in interpersonal contexts.