Authors:
Rüdiger Zillmer
;
Brian Newby
and
Robert Treloar
Affiliation:
Unilever R&D and Port Sunlight, United Kingdom
Keyword(s):
Activity Sensor, Accelerometer, Context Recognition, Emotional Stress, Tremor.
Related
Ontology
Subjects/Areas/Topics:
Biomedical Engineering
;
Biomedical Signal Processing
;
Devices
;
Health Information Systems
;
Human-Computer Interaction
;
Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics
;
Physiological Computing Systems
;
Physiological Processes and Bio-Signal Modeling, Non-Linear Dynamics
;
Signal Processing, Sensors, Systems Modeling and Control
;
Time and Frequency Response
;
Time-Frequency Analysis
;
Wearable Sensors and Systems
Abstract:
This work presents the results of a controlled study with the aim to quantify the effect of emotional stress
on physiologic tremor. A paced auditory addition test is utilized to induce emotional stress. The tremor is
measured by means of a wearable activity sensor (GENEA), were empirical mode decomposition is used to
extract the tremor signal. An autoregressive model and the fractal dimension of the signal are used to construct
tremor features. The result of an ANOVA test provides evidence that the stress condition increases the tremor
strength compared to the control. The observed changes of the spectral properties indicate that emotional stress
affects intentional tremor. These findings support the usage of wearable activity sensors for the investigation
of stress-related tremor changes and the evaluation of emotional context.