Gender Differences in Emotional Responses to Iconic Design

Abstract

This study investigated how iconic design influenced emotional responses between male and female participants. An emotion recognition experiment was proposed by using FaceReader, a facial expression recognition software, to examine the participants' emotional responses. The results revealed that the males and the females experienced different emotional states throughout the experiment. The females displayed more positive emotions than the males did, while the males appeared to be calmer than the females. According to the participants' verbalized content, the females expressed more objective feelings than the males in describing the configuration of the images. The results could shed light on how iconic design aroused different emotions between genders.