A band-aid like patch has been developed which can accurately track a person’s emotional state, with the potential to help health practitioners treat stoic people.
Penn State Associate Professor Huanyu Cheng said that saying one thing while feeling another was part of being human, but bottling up emotions could have serious psychological consequences like anxiety or panic attacks.
Associate Professor Cheng said the new stretchable, rechargeable sticker could help health care providers by detecting a person’s real emotions, even when they are putting on a brave face.
“This is a new and improved way to understand our emotions by looking at multiple body signals at once,” he said.
“Relying only on facial expressions to understand emotions can be misleading. People often don’t visibly show how they truly feel, so that’s why we’re combining facial expression analysis with other important physiological signals, which will ultimately lead to better mental health monitoring and support.”
Associate Professor Cheng said the patch tracked a range of physiological responses, such as skin temperature, humidity, heart rate and blood oxygen levels, that were associated with emotional states.
“The device’s sensors are designed to work independently, minimizing any interference between the different measurements.”
He said the device combined its analysis of the physiological signals with facial expression data to better distinguish between genuine emotions and acted ones.
“It then wirelessly transmits the real-time measured data to mobile devices and the cloud, where clinicians could potentially use it to better assess patients virtually.”
Associate Professor Cheng said the device did not record personal information, only signals, meaning personal privacy was protected.
He said the collected data could also help bridge cultural or social gaps, which could manifest as a person appearing more stoic or expressive to their health care providers.
“By keeping track of these signals, it could be possible to detect problems like anxiety or depression earlier in its progression.”
Read the full study: Stretchable, Rechargeable, Multimodal Hybrid Electronics for Decoupled Sensing toward Emotion Detection.
