Less stress during computer work: Survey on user preferences of stress measurement and notification methods

J.J.M. van Dalen jvdalen@gmail.com ABSTRACT

People working with computer often experience work-related stress, which is unpleasant, unhealthy and unproductive, especially when experienced for prolonged periods. The aim of this paper is to indentify non intrusive ways to measure users stress and inform users about their stress. A survey was completed to assess computer users opinions on different ways used to measure their emotional state during work and on different methods used to inform them of their stress level. The conclusion is that the most preferred measuring method is a modified mouse: 89% of the people would not disagree or would accept this at work. The most preferred notification method is an MSN-like pop-up in the bottom right of the screen. Users expect that a pop-up with exercises is more effective to reduce stress than the MSN-like pop-up. Intrusion of privacy is a factor that correlated highly with disliking a measuring method. These findings can be applied in stress reducing software. into account working time and amount of clicks, and warns a user if he or she is risking RSI. The software will then notify the user and in some cases propose exercises to prevent RSI [36]. Different notification methods are thus possible. Experimental software that measures emotions during computer work is becoming accurate. Computers are able to distinguish up to 8 emotions with accuracy ranging from 50 to 95% when using a combination of different input signals [27]. Available computer software can recognize users mental or physiological states. For example, heart rate variability (HRV) has turned out to be an effective way to measure physiological state. HRV and especially the low frequency (LF) band of the power spectral has currently been investigated and found to correlate with: stress[3][4][6][7][8], anger [2], mental demand[1][5][6], frustration and attention [1][9]. Many other ways to measure computer user emotion are being researched, some examples are: pupil dilation, blink rate, facial expression recognition, infrared camera, respiration, heart rate and EEG measurements. Most of these methods will be discussed in the chapter related work. Affective computing and intelligent interaction is a key emerging technology that focuses on myriad aspects of the recognition, understanding, and expression of affective and emotional states by computers [33]. The future of affective computers is described by Scheirer in this way: Ideally, an affect-intelligent computer should be able to use the information it gains from the user to enhance the computerhuman interaction. If a system recognizes that the user is experiencing distress, it might act to ameliorate that stress, or simply monitor it and make an internal note associating one of the system behaviors with a probability of frustration. [14]. There hardly exists any commercial software that measures users stress level in order to use it to reduce stress. Although research claims that it could be possible. For example Jaimes says; another application (for HRV) is to help the human users monitor their stress level. [18]. Reducing stress level might be possible by decreasing computer task load or warning the user if he endures high stress levels for a long time [14]. Some experimental software on this matter exists, but widely used commercial software has yet to be found [16][26]. For example searching Google for anti-stress software or stress recognition software gives no commercial tools in the first 30 results that help to reduce stress level by using stress measuring methods. This paper helps developing software that measure user stress levels and warns a user when he is getting too stressed. To do this, measuring methods must be known. Not all measuring methods used in experimental software can be used in a normal work setting. Some experiments use large setups with electrodes attached to the face or chest of a participant, while others use a cap on the head with wires attached to the computer as shown in figure 1. This paper focuses on stress reducing solutions that are applicable in real-life work settings. The measuring methods relevant for this research must be able to measure stress rate during most of work time, therefore

Keywords
Reduce stress level, computer user, measuring stress, emotion recognition, affective computing, Stress recognition,, Notification methods.

1. INTRODUCTION
Computer users experience stress and frustration during work. Stress can be detected by computers. But most of the ways to do this are intrusive or not accurate. A growing proportion of workforce is spending an increasing time using computers during work [7]. Computer task load can result in increased stress levels, especially in current working environment. Enduring high stress levels can result in health problems. Under computer stress our brains signal our body to secrete cortisol and adrenaline. These hormones normally help to survive in tense situations, boost energy level and augment memory. On the longer term they impair cognition and lead to depression. [29]. Therefore, high stress levels for prolonged periods should be avoided [17]. Too low or too high workload can lead to boredom or frustration, while balanced workload and skill combination leads to a flow state which benefits performance [15]. Balanced workload leads to health, pleasure and productivity during work. At this moment a scarce amount of software takes the stress level of the user into account to avoid health problems or to improve productivity. Experimental software and current RSI software are inspirations for this research. RSI software takes
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission.

10thTwente Student Conference on IT, Enschede, January 23rd, 2009

Copyright 2009, University of Twente, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science

software such as HeartTracker, which keeps the person from ps working when measuring stress, cannot be used [34].

contains methods which are used in current research, are not e obviously too intrusive to use in a work situation and are expected to be implemented without new innovations needed.

2.1 Physiological measurements

Heart rate variability analysis gives an indication of stress of the computer user during computer tasks [2][5][6]. HRV is the ter beat-to-beat difference in heart rate. It can be measured by beat wiring users with electrodes to measure heart activity. Previous research suggests that HRV can be used as a component of an adaptive interface [4]. Respiration, blood pressure, skin conductivity [1], blood volume pressure [23][24][13] just like HRV are all highly correlated with our sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system(SNS/PNS). The SNS/PN is correlated with stress. NS Measuring skin conductivity is tested with an adjusted computer mouse. Also heart rate can be measured with a computer mouse. Therefore heart rate variability could be derived from a user working with a computer mouse. A commercial mouse that measures heart rate will be released soon by Asus [3 [39]. A mouse will be used as measuring method in the survey. Also a chest belts can be used to measure heart rate. Chest belt are often used in sports to monitor heart rate and are therefore widely available. A chest belt is also use in the survey as a used measuring method.

Figure 1: Exaggeration of research setup : In this paper different possibilities to measure stress levels during computer tasks are researched. The aim of the paper is to he explore which stress measuring and notification methods are most likely to succeed in a professional environment Little is environment. known on both the topics of measuring stress and notification users about their stress level. The above discussion leads to the following research question:

2.2 Visual measurements

Visual measurements are measurements which can be taken with a camera or video camera ( (webcam). Three aspects are common in research: Facial recognition [21][22] where characteristics and facial expressions are measured, detected xpressions and classified. Facial expressions correlate across culture with emotions [31]. Secondly gaze and gazing direction give signals of attention [18]. The last is large body movements, where gestures and body movements is meas measured and classified [18]. A webcam will be used as a measuring method in the survey.

What are preferred ways of measuring stress and notifying users about their stress level during computer work?

To answer this question, the following three questions need to , be answered first:

What are candidates for measuring stress that can be easuring used at work? How can users be notified about their stress stress-level? What is the opinion of computer workers on the measuring and notification method method?

2.3 Haptic measurements

Different ways of classifying user stress and emotions can be done by analyzing typing and clicking. The mouse clicking ratio highly correlates with frustration in certain situations [14]. Click ustration ratio is expected not to be accurate enough f constant stress for measurement; therefore it is not used in the survey. It might be used in combination other measuring methods which can be fitted in a mouse in order to raise accuracy This has to be accuracy. further investigated before put to use.

This paper is relevant both for practice and theory. The results can be used to build software that helps users to reduce their stress level in real-life situations. This paper is academically life relevant because it points out where improvement can be made in stress measuring and notification methods. The results can be used to further develop measuring methods focused on what evelop users prefer. This paper is structured as follows. First, the different ways to measure stress are discussed. Second, different ways to notify when users are stressed are discussed. Third, the ways of measuring stress and notifying about stress levels are combined ess in a survey. In the fourth chapter is elaborated how this survey is constructed. Fourth, I present the results of the survey. , Finally, discussed are the findings of this study together with the limitations and possibilities of further research.

2.4 Auditory measurements

By using a microphone to measure the speech of users during work, different aspects of speech such as vocal features can be measured. These can then be analyz and used to detect stress, analyzed anxiety or joy [19][20]. We cannot expect that computer users speak while they work with their computers. Therefore this is not used a measuring method in the survey.

2.5 Infrared measurements

An infrared webcam records the face of a computer user. The infrared data which shows temperature of the face and surrounding can be interpreted by a computer. This way, an infrared camera can be used to measure respiration rate, cardiac pulse and blood flow [3]. Respiration rate, cardiac pu (heart pulse rate) and blood flow all correlate to stress and certain emotions. This kind of measurements correlates significantly with direct measurements of these physiological signals. An infrared webcam is used in the survey as a measuring method.

2. MEASURING METHODS
There are many ways to measure stress or emoti emotions like frustration or anger. In this chapter ways of measuring user s states are lined out. Not all methods are feasible for use in real0life work environment, some because they are intrusive; they are mentioned here because they are often used in research. They will not be used in the survey. The list of measuring methods is not an exhaustive list of measuring methods, the list

2.6 Multi modal measurements

Measuring multiple signals and fusing these signals turns out to raise accuracy [14][27]. These kind of combined measurements are called multi modal measurements. Current research is focusing on multi modal measurements because this seems to be more accurate. The mouse and infrared webcam can both be used in a multi modal way. Both may measure multiple stress signals.

set or headset and that the user does not play its own music. The same problems occur as with speech.

4. RESEARCH METHOD
In the course of researching for this paper a survey is held to collect necessary data. In the survey, scenarios are used to describe different ways of measuring stress and notifying about stress. Scenarios are used in human computer interaction to find users opinion of computer software [28]. Users can give their opinion on each of these scenarios. The measuring methods are found by literature research. The notification methods are commonly used notification methods derived from brainstorms. First, I present the measuring methods. Second, I discuss the notification methods. Subsequently, the survey questions are presented. Finally, the target group of the survey is discussed.

3. NOTIFICATION METHODS
The user needs to be notified when he is under stress. From brainstorms, six different notification methods are derived: Popup, MSN-pop-up, exercise, constant stress rate, speech and music. The first four notification methods are visual method shown on the screen of the computer user. The last two are auditory and can be heard via speakers or headphone.

4.1 Measuring methods

From the literature research (stated in the related work section), four important measuring methods that are not intrusive came forward: Measuring stress via a computer mouse, via an infrared webcam, via a normal webcam and via a belt around the chest. Each of these measuring methods will be used in the survey. They will be described with a picture and a scenario.

3.1 Pop-ups
Pop-ups are notifications that pop-up in the middle of the screen of the computer user. The pop-up shows a little message and often has one button. This pop-up will prevent the user from active working; the pop-up first has to be clicked away. This is an effective way to warn a computer user. This way of notifications is often used to display errors to a computer user.

4.2 Notification methods

Six different notification methods are found: Pop-up, MSNpop-up, exercise, constant stress rate, speech and music. The first four notification methods are visual method shown on the screen of the computer user. The last two are auditory and can be heard via speakers or headphone. The six notification methods are used in the survey. The four visual methods will be presented as a scenario with a example of a screenshot and a guiding text.

3.2 MSN Pop-up

The MSN pop-up is a pop-up in the bottom right of the screen. The pop-up is a small window with a message. This pop-up does not stop the user from performing its task, but has as a drawback that it is easy to ignore. This method is for example used within windows to notify users about e-mail, network connectivity and instant messages. A variant is a small pop-up balloon in the bottom right of the screen. For this research these notification methods are considered the same, because they have similar location, size and use.

4.3 Survey Questions

The survey consists of three parts: the first part is the general part about current stress experience. The second part is about the opinion towards each of the measuring methods. The last part is about the opinion of the user on the notification methods. The general part uses a three point scale to assess the user stress level. Survey participants can choose one of three options: Rarely, Sometimes or Almost always. In the second and third part of the survey participants can answer the questions with a five point Likert scale with the following possible answers: Strongly disagree, disagree, neither agree nor disagree, agree, or strongly agree. Likert scale can be used for measuring self efficacy [30]. There was also a possibility for users to give suggestions.

3.3 Exercise
The exercise can be seen as a large version of a pop-up. There are different ways to present an exercise. For example an MSN pop-up can warn the user for stress, if the users clicks the MSN pop-up he/she will be invited to the exercise. For the survey a different version of presenting the exercise is used. The user will see the exercise in the same manner as a normal pop-up. Now the pop-up window shows an exercise a user can perform to reduce its stress level. This method can found on some RSI software.

3.4 Constant stress rate

Constant stress rate is permanent indication of a users stress level. On top of all applications, a small indicator will constantly show the stress rate of a user. This indicator will always be visible because it will be shown on top of other applications. The advantage is that users can determine when they want to stop or do an exercise to reduce stress and the user doesnt get a warning at an in appropriate moment.

4.3.1 Stress related questions

Stress related questions aim to find the correlation between experienced stress and stress indicators. Also the correlation between subjective stress and the amount of hours worked behind a computer are useful to find. The stress related questions are derived from a common used test. There are four questions about indicators of stress such as quality of sleep and frustration, they correlate with stress level. One question is added, that is the subjective feeling of stress. All could be answered with the discussed 3 point scale. Table 1: Stress questions Stress Questions I'm so busy I find it increasingly difficult to concentrate o\n the job in front of me. I always get a good night's sleep without worrying about work.

3.5 Speech
A computer user can get a notification via speech. A recorded message can be played when a user is under stress. This method does require a speaker set or headset. We expect that this method does not work in all office environments, because not all users have access to a sound system and this may be disturbing for other employees when working in a shared working area.

3.6 Music
Music, relaxing music can be played to calm the user or a user can select their preferred music, which than functions as a signal that he should relax. This method does require a speaker

I find it difficult to control my emotions at work. I feel tired during the day at work. I feel stress at work 2a. How many hours do you work behind a computer per working day?

once when I am stressed I would like to be notified more than once this way when I am stressed I would accept this at work

4.4 Target group

Two target groups are used. The first group is a group of IT students(student group), who often use the computer for their study. This group is grown up with computers and has many years experience. The average age of this group is not asked but estimated at about 23 years old. This group is interesting because they will be the workforce of tomorrow. The second group consists of Human-computer interaction experts of the university (professor group). All persons in this group are PhD students, assistant professors or professors, these users use the computer for their profession. Two groups are found, the first group, the professor group exists of 18 participants. The student group exists of 27 participants.

One question unrelated to stress or measuring is added, which is the amount of hours someone works behind a computer. This is used for two purposes: To correlate computer hours to stress level and to know if the survey participants use the computer often.

4.3.2 Measuring related questions

The measuring related question are questions that asses the users opinion on each of the measuring methods. For each of the four methods the same four questions from table 2 are assessed. The first question is about privacy intrusion. Privacy is an important concern to influence the willingness to use a device. Also if assessed if the users expect that it interferes with their physical comfort. For example the chest belt physical intrusion might be an issue. This also might correlate to/effect acceptance at work. The most important question for this research is if the users would accept the measuring method at work, because real application of the method is its ultimate goal. The measuring related questions could be scored on a 5 point Likert scale. Table 2: measuring related questions Measuring related question This intrudes privacy This intrudes physical comfort I like this I would accept this at work

5. SURVEY RESULTS
In this chapter the results of the survey are presented. The results are separated in five paragraphs. The first paragraph will discuss the target group. The second paragraph will present the stress related results. The third will present the measurement related results. Then the notification based results will be discussed. In the fifth paragraph other findings and correlations will be presented. In the last paragraph other suggestions that could be given in survey will be briefly presented. If no specific group is mentioned in the following paragraphs, the groups are put together; this is done for all averages in the tables below. For all scores it is a 1 to 5 scale where higher is more/better unless otherwise stated.

5.1 Stress related results

All participants of the target group work on the computer for a minimum of 4(only one participant) hours per day. Some participants from the professor group worked on average up to 10 hours per working day. All used the computer enough to use in the survey. All users use the computer a lot on average 7.2 hours per day (1,57sd). The result show that professors on average have a higher perceived stress level than students (2,05 versus 1,62 on a 3 points scale) although other indicators of stress such as controlling emotions and quality of sleep are more similar. Students feel more tired than a professor which is normally an indicator for stress, but this does not show for students, because they feel less stressed while they sleep worse than the professor group. Professors have a correlation of 0,579 (sig 0,012) on the perceived stress level and amount of hours they work. The more a professor works behind a computer the more stressed he is. This correlation is not found for students.

4.3.3 Notification related questions

The notification related question are asses the survey participants opinion on each of the notification methods. For each method the same five questions from table 3 are assessed. The first question: is about annoyance. Annoyance is an important concern to influence the willingness to accept such a notification at work. Users will not use the software if they think it doesnt work. Therefore it is important that the users think it is effective, this is the second question about the notification method. The question about notification is to know if people want to be notified at all in this way. If this is not the case, and users not trust this being effective, it should be considered not to be applied in real world application. For application purposes, the amount of notifications should be known. The most important question for this research is if the users accept it at work, because real application of the method is its ultimate goal. The measuring related questions could be scored on a 5 point Likert scale. Table 3: notification related questions Notification related questions This would annoy me I would trust this being effective I would like to be notified this way

5.2 Measuring related results

The most important factor for the measuring related results is the accepted at work result. The mouse is accepted by 72% (13 of the 18) of the professors. The mouse is accepted by 81% (22 of the 27) of the students. The average score for the mouse was 3,5 (out of 5) which is a lot higher than the second favorite (infrared webcam with 2,7). See table 1 for all average scores for the work related question. Table 4: Measuring method accept at work Option Infra Cam Belt Average SD score 2,7556 1.208 2,2000 1.099 2,4000 1.194

Mouse

3,5111

1.198

Popup msn Exercise Mouse Belt Cam 0 1 2 3 4 Continues Speech Music

Infra

Figure 3: Notification method accept at work visual Another important factor is the expected effectives (table 7). Expected effectiveness correlates in most cases with acceptance at work. The most effective notification method is the exercise. Although there is a correlation between expected effectiveness and acceptance at work (for webcam corr. 0,7 sig. < 0,01) is high. The most effective notification method is not the same as the most accepted at work. People expect that an exercise is the most effective; still they prefer the MSN pop-up more at work. Table 7: Expected notification effectiveness Options Pop-up MSN Exercise Continues Average score 2,5778 2,8667 3,111 2,8 2,2667 2,9111 SD 0.91 0.78 0.96 0.99 0.93 1.02

Figure 2: Measuring method accept at work visual The chest belt is physically most intruding. Although a webcam or infrared webcam do not physically touch a person, people feel that a webcam and infrared webcam intrude more than an adjusted computer mouse. Table 5: Measuring method intrudes physical comfort Option Infra Cam Belt Mouse Average score 2.7111 2.8889 3.6444 1.9333 SD 0.96 1.02 0.8 0.84

In the professor group, only in the case of the chest belt, comfort intrusion correlates with accept at work (corr. -,055 sig. 0,016). In the cases of the cameras and mouse no significant correlation is found between physical comfort and acceptance at work. Only if the intrusion is high, it seems to correlate with acceptance at work.

Speech Music

Popup MSN Exercise Continues Speech 0 1 2 3 4 Music

5.3 Notification related results

The most important factor for the notification results related results is the accepted at work results. The average score for the MSN box is 3,15 (out of 5) and with that score the most favorable. The notification method that scored second best is the pop-up with an stress reducing exercise. The score of the notification method MSN pop-up is lower than the score on the mouse (3,15 versus 3,5), which should implicate that more people would like the MSN pop-up at work, but actually more professors would accept the MSN pop-up at work than the mouse (the standard deviation is also higher). See table 6 for all average scores for the work related question. Table 6: Notification method accept at work Options Pop-up MSN Exercise Continues Speech Music Average score 2,6222 3,1556 2,8889 2,7556 2,0222 2,8889 SD 0.96 1.08 1.11 1.17 1.01 1.19

Figure 4: Expected notification effectiveness visual

5.4 Other results

Other results are about correlations that have been found between the other results. The first correlation found is that for professionals if they rate privacy intrusion high, they will not want it at work (Acceptance and privacy correlate: -,715 (sig < 0,05) for the webcam For the notification method, annoyance heavily correlates with (not) accepting at work and effectiveness correlates highly with accepting at work.

5.5 User suggestions

The survey contained a field for suggestions. Many suggestions are given, some suggestions are given multiple times and others are already useful by itself, those suggestions are discussed here. Many people suggested that they fear to lose their privacy. Measuring their stress levels was not the direct fear, but what happened with the information is. Users didnt want that

information about their stress level is stored or used for other purposes than directly using and disposing it. A second useful suggestion is to let users select their preferred notification method in the software. Also the combination of MSN pop-ups and exercises or music is suggested. An MSN pop-up that is clickable and when the user clicks the pop-up, then it gives them the soothing music or/and a stress reducing exercise Participants also suggested that the normal pop-up would make them more stressed or frustrated, they advice not to use too many pop-ups. Little participants wanted to be notified multiple times (the question: would you like to be notified once scored 1 point higher than the question would like to be notified multiple times on the 5 point Likert-scale).

Privacy issues should be a big concern when implementing a stress reducing system like the one described above. Users should feel that their privacy is not intruded, because this study suggests that this will raise the chance for users to agree with such a system at work. There is research in the field of privacy conservation in environments where computers register and monitor users activity. For example a framework is proposed to lower privacy intrusion in ubiquitous computing environments [38]. These findings can be used in practice to develop stress reducing software that will be accepted in a work environment. This will cause employees to be more healthy, productive and happy.

6. CONCLUSION & DISCUSSION

The research question of this paper is: What are preferred ways of measuring stress and notifying users about their stress level during computer work?. The main findings of this paper are the following. In regards to the measure of stress levels, people have found an adjusted computer mouse to be most acceptable at work. People have rated a MSN Pop-up most acceptable at work for notification about their stress-level. Finally, people have rated a pop-up with exercise to be most the most effective notification for their stress-level. Users suggest that a combination of a MSN pop-up which can be clicked to get exercises would be the optimal solution for least annoyance and high effectiveness. For practical use a mouse which measures a combination of skin conductivity and heart rate could be used. Multi modal measuring methods have shown to be more accurate then single modal methods [14][27]. Other interesting findings If people rate a device high on privacy intrusion; then it seems that they weigh privacy more into account when making the decision on accepting at work then when they weigh privacy low for a device, then they do not take privacy heavy in making their decision. If people think a notification is annoying, they will think it is less effective. This correlation is not found for the pop-up box. The high correlation between working hours behind computers and perceived stress level for professors shows that professors could work less to reduce their stress level. The correlation is not found in the student group; therefore I argue that the relation between working hours and stress is not universal and that it is possible to work long with a computer without getting stressed. Other research has shown that long working weeks correlate to bad health and stress [37]. A surprising result is the difference between the webcam and the infrared webcam. In the survey they were represented with the same picture, therefore the participants have the same visual perception of the device. Therefore I assumed that people would equally accept the webcam and infrared webcam at work. This is not the case (webcam is rated 2,2 and infrared scores 2,7). In the user suggestion field four participants from the professor group suggest that they feel watched if a camera is used. Apparently feeling watched lowers perceived physical comfort and lowers feelings of privacy. Similar is the big difference in perceived physical intrusion between the mouse and the cameras. An adjusted mouse or a webcam both doesnt physically change anything from normal computer use. But being watched by a camera makes people feel physically less comfortable, while a mouse hardly is (webcam 3,7, infrared 2,9 and mouse 1,9).

7. LIMITATIONS & FUTURE RESEARCH

The participants of the survey might not be representing. The two groups who participated in the survey might not represent the total workforce. Other companies then a university must be tested as well because (corporate) culture can have influence on the use of IT systems. For example an individualistic culture (versus a collective culture) in companies lowers knowledge sharing between employees via IT systems [32]. University employees and human computer interaction experts (participants from the survey) might have other concerns than employees in commercial companies. These factors can be tested in future research. This survey also did not test actual performance of the stress reducing software. The suggestions should be tested in a pilot setup to see if stress is actually reduced. The findings in this study can be used to setup the experiment. Smart surroundings, a research field where research is done on computers that are hidden in our environment and assist us by using sensors. In a smart surrounding environment the problem of measuring stress might be easier. I expect Smart surroundings and stress reduction will be an important research field in the near future. Because it is not to be expected to have our working environments changed to smart surroundings any time soon, therefore this way of measuring stress is not taken into account in this research [35].

8. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I want to thank everyone who reviewed and commented on this proposal. This feedback greatly contributed to improve the quality of this proposal. I want to thank Vincent Schot for his support and understanding. I especially want to thank Yujia Cao and Betsy van Dijk for their patience, support and guidance.

9. REFERENCES
[1] W. Boucsein, A. Haarmann, and F. Schaefer, "Combining Skin Conductance and Heart Rate Variability for Adaptive Automation During Simulated IFR Flight," Lecture notes in computer science, vol. 4562, pp. 639-647, 2007. R. McCraty, M. Atkinson, W.A. Tiller, G. Rein and A. D. Watkins, The effects of emotions on short-term power spectrum analysis of heart rate variability, American Journal of Cardiology, vol 76(14), pp. 1089-93, 1995 I. Pavlidis, J. Dowdall, N. Sun, C. Puri, J. Fei and M. Garbey, Interacting with human psychology, Computer Vision and Image Understanding, vol. 108, pp. 150170, 2006 D. W. Rowe, J. Sibert and D. Irwin, Heart Rate Variability: Indicator of User State as an Aid to

[2]

[3]

[4]

Human-Computer Interaction, Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 480-487, 1998 [5] D. Chen and R, Vertegaal, Using Mental Load for Managing Interruptions in Physiologically Attentive User Interfaces, Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 15131516, 2004 N. Hjortskov, D. Risse, A. Blanksted, N. Fallentin, U. Lundbergm and K. Sogaard, The effect of mental stress on heart rate variability and blood pressure during computer work, Eurpean Journal Applied Physiology, vol. 92, pp. 8489, 2004. A. H. Garde, B. Laursen, A. H. Jorgensen and B. R. Jensen, Effects of mental and physical demands on heart rate variability during computer work, European Journal applied psysiology, vol. 87, pp. 456-461, 2002 D. A. Dimitriev, E. V. Saperova and Y. D. Karpenko, Heart rate variability during real life stress, International Journal of Psychophysiology, vol. 69(3), pp. 286-287, 2008 M. Malik, J. T. Bigger, A. J. Camm, R. E. Kleiger, A. Malliani, A. J. Moss and P. J. Schwartz, Heart rate variability: Standards of measurement, physiological interpretation, and clinical use, European Heart Journal, vol. 17(3), pp. 354-381, 1996 M. Horsten, M. Ericson, A. Perski, S. Wamala, K. Schenck-Gustafsson and K. Orth-Gomr, Psychosocial Factors and Heart Rate Variability in Healthy Women, Psychosom med, vol. 61, pp. 48-57 R.P. Sloan, P. A. Shapiro, E, Bagiella, S. M. Boni, M. Paik, J. T. Bigger Jr, R.C. Steinman and J. M. Gorman JM., Effect of mental stress throughout the day on cardiac autonomic control, Biological psychology, vol. 37(2), pp. 89-99, 1994 C. Roda and J. Thomas, Attention aware systems: Theories, applications, and research agenda, Computers in Human Behavior, vol. 22, pp. 557587, 2006 R. T. Hockey, A. W. K. Gaillard and O. Burov, Operator Functional State, Ciocco, Italy, pp. 267, 2002 J. Scheirer, R. Fernandez, J. Klein and R. Picard, Frustrating the user on purpose: a step towards building an effective computer, Interacting with Computers, vol. 14(2), pp. 93-118, 2002 M. Csikszentmihalyi, and J. LeFevre, Optimal Experience in Work and Leisure, Journal of personality and social psychology, vol 56(5), pp. 815822, 1989 M. C. Whang, S. J. Lim, R. K. Park, Y. Cho and W. Boucein, Are computers capable of understanding our emotional states?, Lecture Note in Artificial intelligence, vol. 4562 pp. 204-222, 2007 M. J. Smith, F. T. Conway and B. Karsh, Occupational Stress in Human Computer Interaction, Industrial health, vol. 37, pp. 157-173, 1998 A. Jaimes and N. Sebe, Multimodal human computer interaction: A survey, Computer Vision and Image Understanding, vol. 108, pp. 116134, 2007

[19]

R. Cowie and E. Douglas-Cowie, Automatic statistical analysis of the signal and prosodic signs of emotion in speech, in Proc. International Conf. on Spoken Language Processing, pp. 19891992, 1996 K. R. Scherer, Adding the affective dimension: A new look in speech analysis and synthesis, in Proc. International Conf. on Spoken Language Processing, pp. 18081811, 1996 M. Pantic and L. J. M. Rothkrantz, Automatic analysis of facial expressions: The state of the art, IEEE Trans. on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, vol. 22(12), pp. 14241445, 2000 S. Ioannou, A. Raouzaiou, V. Tzouvaras, T. Mailis, K. Karpouzis, S. Kollias, Emotion recognition through facial expression analysis based on a neurofuzzy network, Neural Networks, vol. 18(4), pp. 423435, 2005 R. W. Picard, E. Vyzas and J. Healey, Toward machine emotional intelligence: Analysis of affective physiological state, IEEE Trans. on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, vol. 23(10), pp. 11751191, 2001 R. W. Picard, E. Vyzas, and J. Healey, Toward machine emotional intelligence: Analysis of affective physiological state, IEEE rans.Pattern Analysing Machine Intelligence, vol. 23, pp. 11751191, 2001 R. Kaliouby and P. Robinson, Generalization of a Vision-Based Computational Model of MindReading, Proceedings of First International Conference on Affective computing and Intelligent Interfaces, pp. 582589, 2005 T. Partalaa and V., Surakkaa, The effects of affective interventions in humancomputer interaction, Interacting with Computers, vol. 16, pp. 295309, 2004 G. Castellano1, L. Kessous and G. Caridakis, Emotion Recognition through Multiple Modalities: Face, Body Gesture, Speech, Affect and Emotion in HCI LNCS, vol. 4868, pp. 92103, 2008 R. M. Young and P. Barnard, The use of scenarios in human-computer interaction research: turbocharging the tortoise of cumulative science, ACM SIGCHI Bulletin archive, vol. 17, pp. 291296, 1986 G. Small and G. Vorgan, Ibrain, New York: Collins living, 2008, pp. 19 T. J. Maurer and H. R. Pierce, A comparison of Likert scale and traditional measures of self-efficacy, Journal of applied psychology, vol. 83, pp. 324-329, 1998 P. Ekman, H. Oster, Facial Expressions of Emotion, Annual Reviews in Psychology, vol. 30, pp. 527-554, 1979 S. Sarker, D. B. Nicholson and D. K. Joshi, "Knowledge Transfer in Virtual Systems Development Teams: An Exploratory Study of Four Key Enables," IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, vol. 48, pp. 201218, 2005. Front matter preface, Affective, Computing and Intelligent Interaction (LNCS), vol. 3784, pp. 4, 2005 Heart Tracker product information. Available:

[20]

[6]

[21]

[7]

[22]

[8]

[23]

[9]

[24]

[10]

[25]

[11]

[26]

[12]

[27]

[13]

[28]

[14]

[29] [30]

[15]

[16]

[31]

[32]

[17]

[18]

[33]

[34]

http://biomedical.com/product_info.cfm?inventory__imodel=H EARTTRCKR (Visited: 2009, January 12) [35] Smart surroundings. Available: http://www.smartsurroundings.org/ (visited: 2009, January 12) Workrave. Available: http://www.workrave.org/welcome/ (visited: 2009, January 12) A. Spurgeon, J. Harrington, C. Malcolm and L. Cary, Health and safety problems associated with long [38]

working hours: a review of the current position, Occupational & Environmental Medicine, vol. 54(6), pp. 367-375, 1997 V. Bellotti and A. Sellen, Design for Privacy in Ubiquitous, Proceedings of the third conference on European Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work, pp. 77- 92, 1993 Asus computer mouse news item. Available: http://www.trustedreviews.com/peripherals/news/200 8/08/11/Asus-Combines-Mouse--Heart-RateMonitor/p1 (Visited: 2009, January 12)

[36]

[39]

[37]