Effect of Advance Elevation of Physiological Activities on Emotionally Appealing Jump-performance Scene of Figure Skating

This study investigated whether the intensity of emotional arousal can be magnified by presenting vibratory stimuli to upper body before emotionally appealing scenes of sports videos. To test this possibility, we gave vibratory stimuli to the thoracoabdominal part of participants while they watched competitive figure skating videos. The vibrations were introduced at two time points—just before the jump performance scene and right at the moment the jump occurred. The former increased the viewers’ physiological activities, that is, skin conductance responses; however, no clear effects were observed on subjective excitement. In contrast, the vibratory stimuli at the moment of the jump had a definite effect on physiological and subjective responses. Thus, the effects of stimuli presented before emotionally appealing scenes are inconclusive in case of figure skating videos. In contrast, the before-scene stimuli was found to be effective for horror videos in an earlier study. Thus, the effects may depend on the type of emotions evoked by videos.