Physiological Data Associated with Linguistic Racism

This project focuses on testing the correlation between linguistic racism and anxiety using physiological data. In this experiment, participants consisted of two groups, native English speakers (NES) and non-native English speakers (NNES). Each group had 5 participants, with a total of 10 participants. In the pre-experiment phase, participants were required to fill out two surveys. The first survey was on social anxiety and the second survey was on their emotional state. In addition, participants were exposed to a 25-minute video. The video was organized into 4 sections: (1) listening to 10 min. of relaxing music, (2) 10 min. Relating to linguistic racism, (3) second time taking their emotional state survey, and (4) listening to 5 min. of relaxing music. The hypothesis is that when NNES are exposed to linguistic racism, anxiety-like symptoms will occur such as an increase in heart rate and body temperature. Another part of our hypothesis is that non-native English speakers will be more stressed or sad after watching the linguistic racism video. To find this correlation, quantitative data was collected using E4s and Muse 1. Other data analysis will include participants’ survey results before and after watching the linguistic racism video. The qualitative data results that will be more focused on is comparing the participants’ results in their emotional state, specifically their changes before and after watching linguistic racism.

Hello everyone, we are one of the groups taking part in the STIP (Summer Team Impact Project) program for the summer of 2022. Our group consists of five members that helped with research and running experiments throughout the entirety of the summer. These members include Susan Pham, Elizabeth Kwari, Sara Razavi, Pamela Benitez, & McKenna Olsen.

While there are many that view being different as something good, being unique, there are just as many people that also degrade others for being different too. Words like foreigner, second class, alien, etc. are just some examples of direct forms of the prejudice that many had experience in today’s society. However, it does not just stop at direct comments. There are numerous ways that society subtly expresses racism whether it be certain words and actions, but not enough research has been done to show that this an actual problem. Our group’s project hopes to bring more awareness to the topic of linguistic racism and show that such subtle forms of racist words and actions do have a significant impact on an individual’s psyche, shown through their physiological signals.

Before we begin an overview of our group’s research, it is important to first understand what exactly linguistic racism is.

Linguistic racism is a type of prejudice individuals may have towards others based on the way they speak, accent or dialect they have, or their repertoire. Linguistic racism can be expressed in a variety of ways but is often done through the form of explicit verbal attacks such as mocks, slurs, and name-calling.

Not only does linguistic racism affect an individual by making them feel embarrassed because of their way of speaking, but it can also affect them on a deeper level, going as far as affecting the individual’s mentally. There are studies to suggest it may lead to increases in anxiety, depression, and insecurity about their language skills. Because of this, victims of linguistic racism may feel that they have reduced opportunities for self-representation and require increased effort to try and mask their accents.

And this brings us back to our group’s overall objective and research question relating to this project. Our objective is to investigate experimental methods to capture physiological data related to anxiety and linguistic racism. Our research question is how did our team test the correlation between linguistic racism and anxiety?

Based on some previous studies that have researched on detecting social anxiety with E4 data. E4 Empatica watches were used to collect physiological data and only heart rate, electrodermal activity, and skin temperature can be used as social anxiety indicators.

Our first trial procedure consists of a few steps. First, participants wore E4 watches while watching a video. Second, the video itself had three sections, the first section of listening to soothing music for 10-minute, second session of watching a 3-minute video on racism, then listening to soothing music again for 10-minute. Lastly, E4 data was synched to the E4 connect website.

The results shown from the first trial did not capture what we were looking for. Our hypothesis is that heart rate will increase when the participant is exposed to linguistic racism. In both of these graphs, both the participants from the non-native English speaker group showed a consistent heart rate pattern the whole time watching the video and listening to relaxing music. It is important to note that the decrease in skin temperature was due to the room temperature the participants were in.

Based on the first trial methods errors, our final trial procedure is much more structured and thorough. First, participants wore E4 watches and the muse 1 headband. Next, participants took 2 surveys on personal anxiety and emotional level. The second step included the participant listening to 10 minutes of soothing music, then watching a 6-minute video on linguistic racism, and then listening to 5 minutes of soothing music once again. Participants pressed the E4 button to mark their event of transitioning between listening and watching the video. Afterwards participants retook the emotional level survey.

Results from the second trial show that when the participant is watching the 6-minute video about linguistic racism, there is a slight increase in heart rate.

Tying it back to our hypothesis, it is predicted that participants would show an increase of heart rate when exposed to linguistic racism. What the researchers are looking for is a correlation between an increase in heart rate and frontal cortex activity. In the E4 graph, during the linguistic racism video section, there was an increase in heart rate. With the muse graph, we can associate not only that the heart rate was increasing, but the participant’s frontal cortex was active when watching the linguistic racism video. This correlation can show that the participant was either angry, anxious, or stressed.

Some issues we have encountered were technical related problems of data collection. Some participants showed weaker physiological responses and that the Muse 1 headband had issues streaming onto the muse app. Another issue is that the first trial setting had a lot of background noises and the room temperature would be on the cold side. Lastly there was the issue of lack of relatability. Some participants in both the native English-speaking group and non-native English-speaking group showed no reaction when watching the linguistic racism video.

Here is our bibliography

A Special thanks to George Mason University and the OSCAR Office for this research opportunity. Thank you to all the team members who have worked hard in this project, and Susan, who is the project manager of this group. Special thanks to Dr. Zhang and Dr. Park for supervising us and thank you to Venkat and Nathalia for supporting us.