The Halloween Photo Booth: Desensitization Expieriment

We propose an experiment that serves as an activity for students and other individuals to partake in during lunchtime. We wanted to make something that fits the spirit of Halloween, lets individuals take pictures, and gives them an opportunity to view their photo as well as the photos of others. In the spirit of Halloween, we wanted to make something that the potential to be somewhat startling. Because of this we decided to make a Halloween-themed photo booth that lets us carry out our own experiment involving human reaction. Our title for this is “The Halloween Photo Booth: Desensitization Experiment”.

Desensitization is, by definition, the act of making something less sensitive, sometimes by gradual exposure or overexposure to an object. Many people believe that due to changes in media, people in this age have become desensitized to themes associated with fear and thrill. This can be seen in the change in the majority of horror films’ themes from “shock/thrill-fest” to “tragic humor.” Halloween is the part of the year that makes “fear and thrill” into an annual ritual of enjoyment. We wanted to capitalize on that ideal for the sake of our experiment.

Our experiment is as follows:
We have realized that desensitization is not measured as an “either/or.” It is instead measured as an amount. For every individual, many factors play into one’s ability to be startled. We wanted to disguise our experiment as an elaborate activity that others can enjoy. This elaborate activity is our photo booth. Using visual cues and sound, we established a control by which to measure individual levels of desensitization to unexpected media. Once in the photo booth, we prompt the individual to put on a set of earphones. An audio cue will play so they know when the picture is being taken. Our interface is set up so that we can watch as the individual focuses their attention to the screen while waiting for his or her picture. As we take their picture, our image and sound plays in the booth, amplified by the somewhat claustrophobic environment we have set up

One way or another, the individual will react to the image and sound. What we want to find out, however is if that reaction is enough to generate a facial response. If so, this would indicate to us the most heartfelt reactions an individual can make. Results of our data collection is set up as http://reactime.blogspot.com, a blog that allows individuals to print the images of themselves as well as their friends that participated. There we can tally the results of our experiment, and generate a conclusion from our recorded findings.

We are using the Sleaze and Slime as the location of our project in hopes of getting a larger audience for our work. We are depending on word of mouth, (something we have already started,) timing of the event, as well as visual indication of our project to encourage people to participate. Since we will be showing it during lunchtime, we believe our photo booth will be considered a nice activity to do as individuals wait for class to start again at 1:00 PM. Our blog with posted photos encourages each individual to go to the blog to see their picture and the pictures of others. We believe that the opportunity to see who was and was not startled by our setup is enough to get some traffic on our blog. This way, they can take our data, save it, and manipulate it as they see fit.

Note: Because some individuals may be uncomfortable with having others view, or manipulate their photo, we have a short disclaimer that requires one’s signature, indicating that he or she is comfortable with having one’s photo displayed. This is a way for us to document the number of people that actually participate and keep us from being held liable for anyone else looking at our collection of photos.


Peer Reviews:

To accomplish our project, different tasks were delegated to each member. Me and Anthoney worked primarily on our interface and code for our project, while Scottie and Quaaim handled the aesthetics of the installation. Contributing equally, we exchanged feedback between each other about problems and solutions to every roadblock we faced. Making the code for our project was a group effort as well; We took input from Scottie and Quaaim as well as tested our project among a few people and took feed back from that as well. Having all of us meet on time was a problem every now and then, but we utilized other sources to stay in contact with each other about the work. Dropping files on the server was a big help.

All in all, everyone contributed equally.