Researchers from Barcelona Media study when and why the audience gets bored

The technology center's perception and cognition line measures brain waves, heart rate and facial muscles to determine when the audience disconnects from the content.

Technology center researchers Barcelona Media, a member of the TECNIO network, study when a person disconnects from audiovisual content by measuring variations in different physiological indicators, such as alpha brain waves, the electrical conductivity of the skin, heart rate or activity in the muscles of the face.

To predict whether content is capable of capturing the audience's attention, researchers focus on recording, for example, certain electrical waves emitted by the human brain, so that depending on the levels captured, the degree of acceptance of a given content can be deduced.

Specifically, “high levels of alpha waves are associated with boring content because there is a relationship between these levels and the degree of attention paid,” explains Alexandre Pereda, head of the perception and cognition line at Barcelona Media.

Information of this nature can be used in the production process of a program to modify it and couple it to the brain responses of an audience during a test period.

This information is complemented by other data from psychophysiological measurements, such as the level of electrical conductivity of the skin or heart rate.

According to the researcher, “understanding what motivates us to consume certain content, as well as the psychosocial effects of the current technological offering of audiovisual leisure, has become one of the basic fields of research when it comes to understanding the user-‐technology relationship.” This industry, he specifies, "is also in continuous research to understand the sensations and perceptions of the user and thus be able to offer a virtual experience that is as real as possible", as exemplified by the introduction of 3D techniques in the field of cinema and television.