Project Journal Week 9

After Dr Charlton addressed that the fact the GAQ questionnaire would not a valid method of testing with our investigation, a new testing method needed to be discovered soon. This problem could have a large impact on the investigation as if a valid method could not be found, then any results the team collects could be void, therefore it is highly imperative that the team amends this a.s.a.p.
The majority of the weekend was spent researching various testing methods. This involved reading a large amount of journals and analyzing the methods that they had used for testing. The research covered lots of academic papers including psychology, marketing and film theory. During Saturday the team managed to find the document about Color and Emotion, that discussed and used a testing method known as SAM, which is known as Self Assessment Mannequin. This method measures emotion on a pictorial graph, and was invented by Lang. SAM seemed to be the valid method of measuring emotion that the team needed.

The research still continued to see if the majority of emotion studies used SAM, which again came after many of hours was research. However it was noted that many of these studies also had an additional method such as pupil dilation monitoring or heart rate studies. After Dr Charlton had highlighted the fact that heart rate studying could be a viable option for our testing, it was concluded that this was the best second method.
Once we had identified SAM, the team began investigation in to how to use it for our testing methods. As this was quite a mathematical procedure, it was handled by Nick and Phil, as their general level of maths was much better than myn or Matts. It was soon discovered that SAM focused on Standard Deviation. This followed on to using MS Excel using its STDEV function to work out the results. After the weekend was over the team felt although the research was very difficult and put us under a lot of stress, the final results will benefit greatly from this research. A brief meeting was called between the team members and things continued as usual. This involved the completion of the design document, and preparation of the presentation.Meeting with supervisors (22nd Nov 07) all team members present
There were some major points highlighted in the meeting. The first of these was the fact that the supervisors felt that as a team we were putting too much work into this investigation and were worried about our stress levels and general low morale. This was discussed for the majority of the meeting and the group took note of this point, but we highlighted that this effort was needed in some cases to ensure the project moved along smoothly. For example, if a valid testing method had not been discovered, it could have been disastrous to our investigation.

Another brief meeting was held with Brian Morris after this as the team felt confused with some of the points highlighted. Firstly, there sometimes seems to be contradictory messages from the supervisors, for example they stated in week 6 that the group should do some sort of film analysis to demonstrate our knowledge of Mise-en-Scene, but yet the supervisors suggested it was only a suggestion and could be disregarded. This seems puzzling, in the sense that if the team does not do what the supervisors want, they we could be subsequently marked down.

Overall this week was a very important week for the project. The discussion with the supervisors raised many major points that the team took onboard, as well as having spent a great deal of time researching to ensure the project continues smoothly.