Between-subject correlation of heart rate variability predicts movie preferences

We introduce a novel and simple method for assessing audiences’ emotional responses to audiovisuals (e.g. films). Viewers ( N = 21) watched movies TV commercials from different genres while wearing photoplethysmography (PPG) optic sensors on their wrists. Heart rate variability (HRV) synchrony was observed among the audience. Based this between-subject measure, we identified emotionally arousing segments materials. New participants 24; 16) were then invited watch these along with some randomly selected as control; they reported that former more engaging (effect size w .67; .5). This finding confirmed in an online study larger cohort 300 ) . While specific effects varied depending movie genre or gender, HRV-based editing generally performed better than control. These findings suggest HRV can be used new tool audience psychology, potentially also automatically creating short trailers out of principled manner taking into account human perspective.