Happiness and heart rate response: a case of fan services at japanese professional baseball games

doi:10.4236/ns.2011.33032

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Vol.3, No.3, 255-258 (2011) Natural Science

http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ns.2011.33032

Happiness and heart rate response: a case of fan

services at japanese professional baseball games

Kohzoh Yoshino*, Sayaka Matsumoto, Eiichi Someya, Muneo Kitajima

Center for Service Research, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Midorigaoka, Ikeda, Osaka,

Japan; *Corresponding Author: [email protected]

Received 19 November 2010; revised 22 December 2010; accepted 25 December 2010.

ABSTRACT

The aim of this study was to develop a method

for predicting the psychological states of spec-

tators watching professional baseball games at

a stadium. This method includes a real time

measurement of instantaneous heart rate (i.e.,

the inverse of the RR interval) without prevent-

ing the subject from watching the game and a

mathematical procedure used to predict mo-

ment by moment psychological states by cor-

relating the degree of a psychological state with

the strength of heart rate response, defined as

the mean deviation of heart rate variability from

a linear regression line from 5 sec before to 25

sec after an event during a baseball game. We

recorded the instantaneous heart rates of 10

subjects (total of 27 cases) while they watched

Japanese professional baseball games at a sta-

dium and had them subjectively rate the degree

of their psychological states in an after-event

interview. We identified three psychological

states (happiness, excitement, and vigor) whose

strength can be predicted from the strength of

heart rate response. Analysis of the measured

data clarified that heart rate response had a sig-

nificant correlation with the subjective rating of

the intensity of happiness (r = 0.56, p < 0.0001),

vigor (r = 0.55, p < 0.0001), and excitement (r =

0.49, p < 0.0001).

Keywords: Sports Entertainment; Physiological

Signal; Heart Rate; Happiness; Excitation

1. INTRODUCTION

One of the most important goals of sports entertain-

ment services, such as professional baseball game ser-

vices, is to enhance the happiness of spectators at the

stadium. To this end, it is important to measure how the

spectator psychologically responds to each event at the

stadium, and to develop a method to use the data to

achieve this goal. Human psychological states can be

measured in two ways. One is on-site measurement, in

which the spectators report their psychological states by

filling out questionnaires or by verbally describing them.

The other is after-event interviews in which they are

asked to remember their psychological state during the

event in baseball game [1,2]. Since these methods are

easy to carry out, they have been used widely. However,

each method has a problem. One is that the on-site

measurement is likely to interfere with spectators’ watch-

ing of games. The other is that the after-event measure-

ment may not be reliable due to interviewees’ failure to

remember or to their psychological biases [3,4]. In this

paper, the use of an on-site physiological measurement

that does not interfere with spectators’ watching of

games and a method to relate the physiological data with

spectators’ psychological states is proposed.

Physiological signals such as heart rate reflect the

autonomic nervous system’s activity [5]. The autonomic

nervous system is strongly affected by such psychologi-

cal states as excitement. Thus, it may be possible to use

heart rate (physiological signals) to evaluate psycho-

logical states [6-9]. The use of physiological signals has

two advantages over the conventional method. The first

is a relatively unobtrusive and automatic measurement

of psychological states in real time without interfering

with the spectators’ watching of games, and the second

is a continuous measurement of their variability.

To our knowledge, no study thus far has clarified the

correlation between the physiological response and the

psychological state of a spectator watching a profes-

sional game at a stadium. We hypothesize that heart rate

increases when a spectator becomes happy and excited

by such events as the favored team’s scoring and ap-

pealing fan service events while it decreases when a

spectator becomes depressed by events such as the op-

posing team’s scoring and boring fan service events. For

this study, we recorded the instantaneous heart rates of

K. Yoshino et al. / Natural Science 3 (2011) 255-258

256

subjects while they watched a Japanese professional

baseball game at a stadium. We analyzed how their heart

rate responses to events during games correlated with

their subjective psychological states.

2. METHODS

Ten subjects (five females and five males between the

ages of 21 and 53 years) participated in the on-site

physiological data collection sessions, after providing

their informed written consent approved by the ethical

committee at AIST. All subjects were fans of the Hok-

kaido Nippon-Ham Fighters, a Japanese professional

baseball team, and had been to the Sapporo Dome to

watch Fighters’ games 28 to 250 times.

Subjects watched Fighters’ games at the Sapporo

Dome. We collected physiological data while they

watched the games. Eight subjects watched three games

(one in July, one in August, and one in September of

2008); one subject watched one game in September of

2008; and one watched two games in July and August of

2008. We collected a total of 27 cases. All subjects were

seated in the infield zone. We recorded their RR-inter-

vals with a wearable electrocardiogram device (Active-

Tracer, AC-301, GMS, Japan), from about 5 min before

the start of the game until 10 min after the end of the

game. Typically, the length of a baseball game is 180 min.

We also recorded video images of each subject’s be-

havior. Subjects watched their video images on a sepa-

rate day and recalled their subjective psychological

states at specific events as they watched the games. The

specific events were the Fighters’ and opponents’ scoring

and four fan service events. The four fan service events

were two types of dancing exhibitions, the Fighters’

cheering song, and a show by the Fighters’ mascot. The

subjects registered the intensity of their psychological

states on a 100 mm-long visual analogue scale (VAS)

questionnaire, for which the end points were labeled

“lowest” and “highest”. The questionnaire quantified the

intensity of eight psychological states: happiness, ten-

sion, fatigue, boredom, depression, anger, vigor, and

excitement. Tension, fatigue, depression, anger, and vigor

are scales on the well-known Profile of Mood States

(POMS) questionnaire [10]. In addition to these scales,

we adopted the scales happiness, boredom, and excite-

ment since these intensities vary greatly in an entertain-

ment environment. To reduce inter-individual variability,

we normalized the measured values of psychological

state intensity by transforming the data to a z-score for

each subject.

Figure 1 presents an example of the time course of a

subject’s heart rate from the beginning to the end of a

game. Clearly, heart rate increased when the Fighters

scored.

Figure 1. Example of the time course of a subject’s heart rate

from the beginning to the end of a game. Heart rate increased

when the Fighters scored.

We fitted a linear regression line to the time course of

heart rate measured from the beginning to the end of a

game and then calculated the heart rate response to spe-

cific events. The heart rate response was defined as the

mean deviation of heart rate variability from a linear

regression line from 5 sec before to 25 sec after an event

during a game. The heart rate responses to Fighters’ and

opponents’ scoring and to four fan service events (two

types of dancing exhibitions, the Fighters’ cheering song

and a show by the Fighters’ mascot) were calculated.

The correlation coefficients of the heart rate responses to

the specific events and z-scored psychological state

scores were calculated. The grand mean value of heart

rate response to scoring events in July of 2008 was then

compared with those in August and September of 2008.

We also analyzed how fan career, measured by the total

number of past visits to Sapporo Dome to watch Fight-

ers’ games affected the subject’s heart rate responses to

scoring events.

3. RESULTS

Table 1 summarizes the correlation coefficients be-

tween heart rate responses to scoring and fan service

events and z-scored subjective psychological state inten-

sities. Figure 2 shows the scatter plots from comparing

heart rate response to scoring and fan service events with

the corresponding subjectively evaluated normalized

intensity of happiness. Heart rate responses indicated

significant positive correlations with the subjective

evaluation of happiness (r = 0.56, p < 0.0001) (Figure 2).

Moreover, it indicated significant positive correlations

with vigor (r = 0.55, p < 0.0001) and excitement (r =

0.49, p < 0.0001).

The grand mean heart rate response to Fighters’ scor-

ing in July of 2008 (12.95 bpm) was twice as high as

K. Yoshino et al. / Natural Science 3 (2011) 255-258

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Figure 2. Scatter plots comparing heart rate (HR) response to

scoring and fan service events with the corresponding subjec-

tively evaluated intensity of happiness (z-scored) (r = 0.56, p <

0.0001).

Table 1. Correlation coefficient between heart rate (HR) re-

sponses to scoring and fan service events and the correspond-

ing subjectively evaluated intensity of psychological states

(z-scored). *: p < 0.0001.

Correlation coefficient

Happiness 0.56*

Tension 0.07

Fatigue –0.23

Boredom –0.29*

Depression –0.43*

Anger –0.33*

Vigor 0.55*

Excitement 0.49*

those in August (4.92 bpm) and September of 2008 (6.29

bpm). The heart rate increase response when the Fighters

scored was likely to decrease as the total number of past

visits to Sapporo Dome to watch Fighters’ games in-

creased (Table 2).

4. DISCUSSION

This study aimed to develop a new method that uses a

physiological signal (heart rate) to assess the psycho-

logical state of a spectator watching a professional

baseball game in a stadium. Analysis of the measured

data clarified that heart rate response had a significant

correlation with the subjectively rated intensity of hap-

piness, vigor, and excitement (Table 1 and Figure 2).

This result suggests that it may be possible to predict

automatically a spectator’s happiness, vigor, and excite-

ment in response to each event at a stadium automati-

cally and in real time by simply measuring instantaneous

heart rate. The grand mean heart rate response to Fight-

ers’ scoring in July of 2008 (12.95 bpm) was twice as

high as those in August (4.92 bpm) and September of

2008 (6.29 bpm). Fighters were in contention for the

league championship in July of 2008 but fell behind the

competition in August and September of 2008. Moreover,

the game schedule overlapped the Olympic Games in

Beijing in August of 2008. These factors may have re-

sulted in the decreased excitement in supporting the

team’s scoring event.

Heart rate response to Fighters’ scoring tended to de-

crease as the total number of past visits to Sapporo

Dome to watch Fighters’ games increased (Table 2).

This result implies that responses to scoring became

duller as fan career matured. Thus, it is necessary to take

fan career into account when using heart rate responses

to evaluate a spectator’s psychological state.

Several limitations pertain to this study. First, the

number of subjects was small. Second, all subjects were

seated in the infield zone for this experiment. Therefore,

half of the subjects who usually watch games from the

outfield zone did not watch the games from their usual

standing position. Third, subjects did not watch the

games with their usual companions. In order to apply the

results of this study to baseball entertainment services,

data should be collected in a more typical situation. The

limitations of the present study will be addressed in our

future work.

In summary, the results of this study show that the

heart rate response of spectators has a significant corre-

lation with the subjective rating of the intensity of hap-

piness, vigor, and excitement in the field of professional

Table 2. Dependence of the heart rate (HR) responses to Fighters’ and opponents’ scoring on the total number of past visits to Sap-

poro Dome to watch Fighters’ games.

S1 S2 S3 S4 S5 S6 S7 S8 S9 S10

HR response to Fighters’ scoring 5.4 3.6 1.6 14.0 11.6 7.7 11.4 7.2 11.2 14.8

HR response to opponents’ scoring –1.4 –4.7 0.3 –3.4 –6.6 –2.7 –2.7 –3.2 –1.5 –0.3

Total number of past visits 250 153 120 64 50 48 42 36 31 28

K. Yoshino et al. / Natural Science 3 (2011) 255-258

258

baseball entertainment.

5. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This research was supported by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and

Industry (METI). The authors express their gratitude to collaborating

company Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters for their helpful discussions

and for providing experimental field space. We also thank Dr. M. Mo-

chimaru and Dr. K. Naito of the National Institute of Advanced Indus-

trial Science and Technology (AIST) for their helpful discussions.

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