Robots Might Be Able To Sense Human Feelings Just By Touching Skin

Skin conductance is a measure of how well skin conducts electricity, which usually changes in response to sweat secretion and nerve activity, signifying different human emotional states.

Traditional emotion-detection technologies such as facial recognition and speech analysis, are often prone to error, especially in suboptimal audio-visual conditions. However, scientists believe that skin conductance offers a potential workaround, providing a non-invasive way to capture emotion in real-time.

For the study, the emotional responses of 33 participants were measured by showing them emotionally evocative videos and measuring their skin conductance. The findings revealed distinct patterns for different emotions: fear responses were the longest-lasting, suggesting an evolutionary alert mechanism; family bonding emotions, a blend of happiness and sadness, showed slower responses; and humour triggered quick but fleeting reactions.

"To date, few studies have examined how the dynamics of skin conductance responses differ among emotions, despite high responsiveness being a key feature of skin conductance," the scientists highlighted.

The results of this study are expected to contribute to the development of technologies that can be used to accurately estimate emotions, when combined with other physiological signals."

The study and the conductance technique rely on the fact that emotional response to any situation triggers the sweat glands, which in turn, alters the skin's electrical properties. Although the method is far from perfect, scientists argue that integrating it with measures like heart rate and brain activity could refine the accuracy of emotion detection.