Using individual data to characterize emotional user experience and its memorability: Focus on gender factor

Delivering the same digital image to several users is not necessarily providing them the same experience. In this study, we focused on how different affective experiences impact the memorability of an image. Forty-nine participants took part in an experiment in which they saw a stream of images conveying various emotions. One day later, they had to recognize the images displayed the day before and rate them according to the positivity/ negativity of the emotional experience the images induced. In order to better appreciate the underlying idiosyncratic factors that affect the experience under test, prior to the test session we collected not only personal information but also results of psychological tests to characterize individuals according to their dominant personality in terms of masculinity-femininity (Bem Sex Role Inventory) and to measure their emotional state. The results show that the way an emotional experience is rated depends on personality rather than biological sex, suggesting that personality could be a mediator in the well-established differences in how males and females experience emotional material. From the collected data, we derive a model including individual factors relevant to characterize the memorability of the images, in particular through the emotional experience they induced.