title: Real-time monitoring of behavioural parameters related to psychological stress.
abstract: We have developed a system, allowing real-time monitoring of human gestures, which can be used for the automatic recognition of behavioural correlates of psychological stress. The system is based on a low-cost camera (Microsoft Kinect), which provides video recordings capturing the subject's upper body activity. Motion History Images (MHIs) are calculated in real-time from these recordings. Appropriate algorithms are thereafter applied over the MHIs, enabling the real-time calculation of activity-related behavioural parameters. The system's efficiency in real-time calculation of behavioural parameters has been tested in a pilot trial, involving monitoring of behavioural parameters during the induction of mental stress. Results showed that our prototype is capable to effectively calculate simultaneously eight different behavioural parameters in real-time. Statistical analysis indicated significant correlations between five of these parameters and self-reported stress. The preliminary findings suggest that our approach could potentially prove useful within systems targeting automatic stress detection, through unobtrusive monitoring of subjects.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Research and Technology Hellas, Thermi, Thessaloniki, Greece. dgiakoum@iti.gr
authors.forename: Dimitris
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Giakoumis
authors.forename: Anastasios
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Drosou
authors.forename: Pietro
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Cipresso
authors.forename: Dimitrios
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Tzovaras
authors.forename: George
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Hassapis
authors.forename: Andrea
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Gaggioli
authors.forename: Giuseppe
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Riva
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D006801:Humans; D007697:Kinesics; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000175:diagnosis*; D013673:Technology Assessment, Biomedical; D014741:Video Recording