Subjective perception of facial expression of stress created using the Lombard effect

The management of stress in geographically dispersed organisations requires a mature approach to the use of audio visual communications technologies. Good quality audio visual samples help in the development of approaches and tools. This study uses subjective evaluators to rate perception of stress in video samples created using the Lombard effect. It finds that there is a significant difference in the perception of the facial expressions of actors recording speech created when the Lombard effect is applied, compared to recordings created when it is not. This finding means that valid samples can now be more easily created to test telecommunications based approaches to the remote management of stress..