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

Scientists have discovered that future robots might be able to gauge how you are feeling by just touching human skin. According to a new study published in the journal IEEE Access, researchers used skin conductance as a way to figure out how an individual was feeling. 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."

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Integrating skin conductance with other techniques

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.

"There is a growing demand for techniques to estimate individuals' subjective experiences based on their physiological signals to provide them with emotionally evocative services," the scientists wrote in the study.

"Therefore, further exploration of these physiological signals in this study, particularly skin conductance responses, can advance techniques for emotion recognition."

The study has far-reaching consequences as it could mean that future robots will not be able to just interact but also empathise with human users by understanding their emotional states through subtle physiological cues.