EMOTION SENSING TECHNOLOGY

Emotion is a mental state associated with the nervous system brought on by chemical changes variously associated with thoughts, feelings, behavioural responses, and a degree of pleasure or displeasure. Reading and understanding emotions can lead to wide-ranging opportunities. Emotion sensing technologies are being widely used in many applications to effectively understand the users' mood and use that information to do something productive.

EMOTION SENSING TECHNOLOGIES can be used in various fields such as personal robots, driverless cars, educational software, consumer electronic devices, video games etc and is on the verge of becoming the next big thing.

THE TECHNOLOGY INVOLVED:

SKIN CONDUCTANCE SENSORS:

Skin conductance (SC) is an index of sympathetic nervous system (SNS) activation and emotional arousal. To measure skin conductance, a small electrical potential is applied between two electrodes strapped or taped to the palmer side of the hand, and the amount of current conducted between the electrodes is measured. It is generally accepted that SC varies directly with the amount of sweat secreted by the skin and indirectly with the number of sweat glands that are activated by the SNS.

Skin conductance sensors are being widely used by psychologists, therapists in clinics and hospitals. The IoT is implementing this in wearable devices like wristwatches. The sensors allow gathering of data on heart and breathing rates, blood pressure, skin conductance and temperature to accurately gauge a person’s mood.

The advantages include:

1. Can be easily fabricated.

2. Cheap 

With such modern devices available, users can now track and evaluate their physical condition, mental health, access their reactions to various stress-inducing situations and learn to cope effectively with anxiety, depression and stress.

Breathing rates, facial expressions, eye movements, voice intonations, are also taken into account and analysed. This also enables the user to learn better ways of coping with emotional stress.

Most importantly, these do not require the installation of expensive hardware. It works with simple recognition software or some additional code on computers.

CURRENT DEVELOPMENTS:

1.       University of South Wales, Sydney has developed a garment that lights up in different ways according to the users' mood. It allows the user to communicate non-verbally. Sensors in the garment detect muscle tension, pulse, breathing rates and the physical information is converted to coloured light.

2.       Some of the world’s famous coaches, teams, and individual athletes are using headsets developed by SenseLabs.Inc, the USA which has dry sensors that assess brain performance.

3.       AUTO EMOTIVE is a project of MIT’S Affective computing group which is based on exploration of the potential of emotional connection to machines with humans. Their aim is to implement mood recognition technology in cars to improve the driving experience.

APPLICATIONS  OF EMOTION SENSING TECHNOLOGY:

Emotion sensing can be potentially widely used in a multitude of fields like robotics, diagnostics, automotive, education, Improving workers conditions etc. Healthcare sectors are the keenest to adopt the use of such technology. Car manufacturers are exploring its use to detect the drowsiness, mood and emotions of the driver to ensure road safety and a safe journey for everyone on the road.

Emotion sensing has thus come a long way in understanding human behavioural patterns. It has changed the way human emotions are perceived and is certain to give rise to path-breaking discoveries for the benefits of mankind in the near future.

SREYASHI BANDYOPADHYAY

AEIE (1^ST YR)

ROLL-1953007