Using electroencephalography to analyze sleepiness due to low-quality audiovisual stimuli

•Using physiological measures to obtain features to relate to audiovisual quality perception.•In two studies we could confirm previous research results.•Commercially available documentaries were used for the studies.•We extracted frequency band powers from two sub-bands,•Could show significant differences for low-quality sequences compared to high-quality sequences.•Increased level of fatigue physiologically measured.

Standardized methods to assess the quality of experience (QoE) of multimedia focus typically on short sequences of approximately 10 s and a subjective judgment of the test participant. Two main problems occur when using this methodology: On the one hand these short sequences do not represent the typical media usage, and on the other hand it is still not completely understood how these subjective ratings are formed within the test participant. To overcome the second issue and to gain insight into the internal processing, electroencephalography (EEG) has been introduced successfully to the domain of QoE. As it is possible to use EEG to assess the quality perception continuously, we present two studies using standard documentary audiovisual clips with a length of 40 min and 60 min as stimuli. During the presentation of these quality-wise manipulated test sequences, we record an electroencephalogram and other physiological measures. We show that features of the EEG recordings indicate a change in the cognitive state of the test participant during the exposure to low-quality compared to high-quality sequences.