**The uulmMAC Database—A Multimodal A**ff**ective Corpus for A**ff**ective Computing in Human-Computer Interaction**

**Dilana Hazer-Rau 1,\*, Sascha Meudt 2, Andreas Daucher 1, Jennifer Spohrs 1, Holger Ho**ff**mann 1,**†**, Friedhelm Schwenker 2,**† **and Harald C. Traue 1,**†


Received: 11 March 2020; Accepted: 14 April 2020; Published: 17 April 2020

**Abstract:** In this paper, we present a multimodal dataset for affective computing research acquired in a human-computer interaction (HCI) setting. An experimental mobile and interactive scenario was designed and implemented based on a gamified generic paradigm for the induction of dialog-based HCI relevant emotional and cognitive load states. It consists of six experimental sequences, inducing *Interest, Overload, Normal, Easy, Underload*, and *Frustration*. Each sequence is followed by subjective feedbacks to validate the induction, a respiration baseline to level off the physiological reactions, and a summary of results. Further, prior to the experiment, three questionnaires related to emotion regulation (ERQ), emotional control (TEIQue-SF), and personality traits (TIPI) were collected from each subject to evaluate the stability of the induction paradigm. Based on this HCI scenario, the *University of Ulm Multimodal A*ff*ective Corpus (uulmMAC)*, consisting of two homogenous samples of 60 participants and 100 recording sessions was generated. We recorded 16 sensor modalities including 4 × video, 3 × audio, and 7 × biophysiological, depth, and pose streams. Further, additional labels and annotations were also collected. After recording, all data were post-processed and checked for technical and signal quality, resulting in the final *uulmMAC* dataset of 57 subjects and 95 recording sessions. The evaluation of the reported subjective feedbacks shows significant differences between the sequences, well consistent with the induced states, and the analysis of the questionnaires shows stable results. In summary, our *uulmMAC* database is a valuable contribution for the field of affective computing and multimodal data analysis: Acquired in a mobile interactive scenario close to real HCI, it consists of a large number of subjects and allows transtemporal investigations. Validated via subjective feedbacks and checked for quality issues, it can be used for affective computing and machine learning applications.

**Keywords:** affective corpus; multimodal sensors; overload; underload; interest; frustration; cognitive load; emotion recognition; stress research; affective computing; machine learning; human-computer interaction
