What is EmoWear?
EmoWear is the name of an upcoming dataset for emotion recognition via wearable sensor devices. Based on this dataset we will create smart systems that are capable of automatically inferring human emotions with simplest hardware and minimum power consumption. With this, EmoWear aims to move the machine intelligence one step forward towards efficient understanding of human emotions, context and interactions. Emo and Wear stand for the words Emotion and Wearable revealing the main focus of the EmoWear study: the use of simple wearable sensors to retrieve physiological signals that would later be processed for uncovering human emotions.
During the experiments
Participants are sufficiently informed about the purpose, duration, conditions and procedures of the study through information sheets and on-demand oral explanations. Their explicit consent is asked prior to the start of the experiments.
During the experiments, participants are asked to wear some physiological wearable sensors that measure thier body interactions. Some pre-selected short music videos are then shown to them after which they are asked to assess their own emotional state and also take a few steps in the room. Finally, they are offered a reception at the end of the experiments and receive a small memento gift!
What sensors are used?
Physiological data collected in EmoWear will be based on mobile wearable sensors rather than medical-grade sensors that are more suitable for clinical setups. We will be using portable commercial EEG device, wrist-band heart and skin monitoring device and chest-worn inertial sensors. They are all easy to use and there is no harm associated with them.
The ultimate aim is to investigate how far we can go to substitute a single simple, low-power, and easy-to-wear, chest-worn sensor with all the other aforementioned wearables and still get more or less the same inference.
Ethics and rights
This study has been reviewed by an independent ethics committee, the Ethics Committee for the Social Sciences and Humanities (EA SHW), which issued a favorable opinion on February 28, 2022. If you would like more information about the privacy policy applied to our institution, you can always visit the 'Privacy Policy' page of the University of Antwerp.
If you believe you have suffered study-related damage or if you have further questions about the content and/or results of the study or your rights as a study participant, now or during or after your participation, please do not hesitate to contact the executive researcher Mohammad Hasan Rahmani (tel.: 03.265.96.98 or email: mohammad.rahmani@uantwerpen.be ).