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

Abstract

The aim of this study was to develop a method for predicting the psychological states of spectators 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 preventing the subject from watching the game and a mathematical procedure used to predict moment by moment psychological states by correlating 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 stadium 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 significant 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).