Why Does Content Desirability Impact Subjective Video Quality Ratings andWhat Can Be Done About It
Rochelle E. Evans · Rice Research Repository (Rice University) · 2011
This study attempted to determine why users who like a product (in this case, film clips) rate the product higher in quality (in this case, video quality). In this study, film clips were located that were high or neutral in enjoyment. Experiment I determined that participants liked the enjoyable film clips more than the neutral clips. In Experiment 2, liking, affect, and content immersion were positively correlated with video quality. Additionally, liking partially mediated the relationship between affect and video quality. A halo effect was also found whereby all items assessing each film clip were rated highly due to heuristic reliance on affect. In Experiment 3, training participants on video quality moderated the relationship between affect and video quality; therefore, training was able to remove the halo effect. Training also increased participants' accuracy at rating video quality. Experiment 4 demonstrated that participants' video quality ratings could also be improved by instructing participants to focus on quality. Focusing on quality did not moderate the relationship between content immersion and video quality, as participants maintained high levels of content immersion even when focusing on video quality. All experiments demonstrated that enjoyable clips were rated higher in quality than neutral clips. Both training and focusing attention were helpful in increasing the accuracy of subjective video quality ratings; therefore, both approaches could be utilized in usability testing to improve the quality of feedback received.