Does emotion modulation influence speed–Accuracy trade-off in numerical data entry task?

Abstract

It has been demonstrated that speed-accuracy trade-off (SAT) plays an important part in choice and decision analysis, but how emotion influences SAT is yet to be understood. SAT refers to the inverse relationship between speed and accuracy. It implies individual’s willingness to increase either speed or accuracy; if one chooses to increase speed then accuracy often decreases, and if one increases accuracy then speed of the task decreases. The study investigates the effect of participant’s emotion on SAT in numerical data entry task. The influence of induced emotion on SAT among the people (N = 48) familiar with number entry task has been studied experimentally through computerized data entry task. Positive, negative, and neutral emotions are induced through video clips and accordingly, their subjective emotional states are recorded through self-assessment Manikin (SAM) scale. Afterward, their performance is assessed on a computerized number entry task. The results suggest that there is no significantly observed difference in the trade-off performance between the participant groups with positive and neutral emotions. However, participants induced with negative emotion display reverse SAT effect, which implies a decrease in accuracy with a decrease in speed in numerical data entry task performance. These findings have significant implications in users-centered design research. © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd 2019.