An Empirical Study Comparing Unobtrusive Physiological Sensors for Stress Detection in Computer Work.

Several unobtrusive sensors have been tested in studies to capture physiological reactions to stress in workplace settings. Lab studies tend to focus on assessing sensors during a specific computer task, while in situ studies tend to offer a generalized view of sensors' efficacy for workplace stress monitoring, without discriminating different tasks. Given the variation in workplace computer activities, this study investigates the efficacy of unobtrusive sensors for stress measurement across a variety of tasks. We present a comparison of five physiological measurements obtained in a lab experiment, where participants completed six different computer tasks, while we measured their stress levels using a chest-band (ECG, respiration), a wristband (PPG and EDA), and an emerging thermal imaging method (perinasal perspiration). We found that thermal imaging can detect increased stress for most participants across all tasks, while wrist and chest sensors were less generalizable across tasks and participants. We summarize the costs and benefits of each sensor stream, and show how some computer use scenarios present usability and reliability challenges for stress monitoring with certain physiological sensors. We provide recommendations for researchers and system builders for measuring stress with physiological sensors during workplace computer use

Prerequisites for Affective Signal Processing (ASP)

Although emotions are embraced by science, their recognition has not reached a satisfying level. Through a concise overview of affect, its signals, features, and classification methods, we provide understanding for the problems encountered. Next, we identify the prerequisites for successful Affective Signal Processing: validation (e.g., mapping of constructs on signals), triangulation, a physiology-driven approach, and contributions of the signal processing community. Using these directives, a critical analysis of a real-world case is provided. This illustrates that the prerequisites can become a valuable guide for Affective Signal Processing (ASP)

Impact of the HeartMath Self-Management Skills Program on Physiological and Psychological Stress in Police Officers

This study explored the impact on a group of police officers from Santa Clara County, California of the HeartMath stress and emotional self-management training, which provides practical techniques designed to reduce stress in the moment, improve physiological and emotional balance, increase mental clarity and enhance performance and quality of life.This study provides evidence that practical stress and emotional self-management techniques can reduce damaging physiological and psychological responses to both acute and chronic stress in police, and positively impact a variety of major life areas in a relatively short period of time. In particular, results show that application of these interventions can produce notable improvements in communication difficulties at work and in strained family relationships, two areas that are well recognized to be major sources of stress for police

Deontological morality can be experimentally enhanced by increasing disgust. A transcranial direct current stimulation study

Previous studies empirically support the existence of a distinctive association between deontological (but not altruistic) guilt and both disgust and obsessive-compulsive (OC) symptoms. Given that the neural substrate underlying deontological guilt comprises brain regions strictly implicated in the emotion of disgust (i.e. the insula), the present study aimed to test the hypothesis that indirect stimulation of the insula via transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) would enhance disgust and morality in the deontological domain. A randomized, sham-controlled, within-subject design was used. Thirty-seven healthy individuals (25 women) underwent 15-min anodal and sham tDCS over T3 in two different days, while their heart rate (HR) was recorded to derive measures of parasympathetic nervous system activity (HR variability; HRV). After the first 10-min of sham or active tDCS stimulation, participants were asked to 1) complete a series of 6-item words that could be completed with either a disgust-related word (cleaning/dirtiness) or neutral alternatives; 2) rate how much a series of vignettes, each depicting a behavior that violated a specific moral foundation, were morally wrong. Levels of trait anxiety, depression, disgust sensitivity, scrupulosity, and altruism as well as pre- and post- stimulation momentary emotional states were assessed. Compared to the sham condition, after active stimulation of T3 a) HRV significantly increased and participants b) completed more words in terms of cleaning/dirtiness and c) reported greater subjective levels of disgust, all suggesting the elicitation of the emotion of disgust. Although the results are only marginally significant, they point to the absence of difference between the two experimental conditions for moral vignettes in the altruistic domain (i.e., animal care, emotional and physical human care), but not in the deontological domain (i.e., authority, fairness, liberty, and sacrality), where vignettes were judged as more morally wrong in the active compared to the sham condition. Moreover, scores on the OCI-R correlated with how much vignettes were evaluated as morally wrong in the deontological domain only. Results preliminarily support the association between disgust and morality in the deontological domain, with important implications for OC disorder (OCD). Future studies should explore the possibility of decreasing both disgust and morality in patients with OCD by the use of non-invasive brain stimulation techniques

Depression-related difficulties disengaging from negative faces are associated with sustained attention to negative feedback during social evaluation and predict stress recovery

The present study aimed to clarify: 1) the presence of depression-related attention bias related to a social stressor, 2) its association with depression-related attention biases as measured under standard conditions, and 3) their association with impaired stress recovery in depression. A sample of 39 participants reporting a broad range of depression levels completed a standard eye-tracking paradigm in which they had to engage/disengage their gaze with/from emotional faces. Participants then underwent a stress induction (i.e., giving a speech), in which their eye movements to false emotional feedback were measured, and stress reactivity and recovery were assessed. Depression level was associated with longer times to engage/disengage attention with/from negative faces under standard conditions and with sustained attention to negative feedback during the speech. These depression-related biases were associated and mediated the association between depression level and self-reported stress recovery, predicting lower recovery from stress after giving the speech