Support for tension reduction in performers through laughter transmission

Abstract

Presentations are frequent in social life, and adequately conveying information is essential. However, many people feel nervous about presenting or giving a presentation in front of a large group, leading to poor performance and a wrong impression on the audience. Nervousness often comes from inexperience, fear of failure, and awareness of how the audience perceives them, and it takes a lot of time and practice to ease this feeling. According to a survey of comedians who have been performing for over a year, about 90% felt nervous during rehearsals or just before performances. Thus, it is clear that having many opportunities and practicing a lot does not necessarily relieve the tension. On the other hand, 80% of them answered that the audience's reaction alleviates nervousness. We developed the Laugh Detection and Tension Reduction System (LTRS) to support comedians leveraging nervousness during their performances. The LTRS detects the audience's laughter from Heart Rate Variability (HRV) and transmits it to the performer as vibrotactile feedback. We evaluated the effect of LTRS on the performer's tension, both quantitatively and qualitatively, using HRV and the System Usability Scale (SUS), respectively. The quantitative evaluation results suggested that the LTRS slightly reduced nervousness, but there was no significant difference. In addition, the LTRS usability evaluation revealed individual differences in its feeling of use. We expect to achieve more effective tension reduction by improving the laughter detection method and reconsidering the feedback modality to the performer.