Stress Detection using Galvanic Skin Response: An Android Application

Abstract

Stress is one of the factors that affect human health in many aspects. It is considered as one of the culprits in increasing the risk of getting sick that could probably lead to critical physical or mental illnesses. Stress can be experienced everywhere and in different circumstances. Hence, stress should be controlled and managed by monitoring its progress or regress. Physiological information can be used to determine stress levels. One of these is the Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) that utilizes skin conductance which is known to be directly involved in the emotional behavioural regulation in humans. In this study, a method on how to determine stress when a person is engaged in mobile communication is proposed. An Android application was developed that is capable of determining the stress level of a person while doing SMS composition. GSR data were utilized and the performance of the proposed method was found of no significant difference with a commercially available device. Factors like phone size and period of texting was investigated and were found out that these only contribute an extremely low level of stress. The developed App could be used to determine stress levels especially if emotional conversations are considered.