Physiological sensing for affective computing

Sensing affective states is a challenging undertaking and a variety of approaches exist. One of the oldest but yet often neglected way is to observe physiological processes related to sympathetic activity of the autonomic nervous system. A reason for physiological measurements not being used in emotionrelated HCI research or affective applications is the lack of appropriate sensing devices. Existing systems often don't live up to the high requirements of the real life such applications are to be used in. This paper starts with a short overview of physiological processes affective applications rely on today, and commonly used techniques to access them. After this, requirements of affective applications for physiological sensors are worked out. A design concept meeting the requirements is drawn and exemplary implementations including evaluation results are described.