Working long hours in front of a computer can negatively affect the health of knowledge workers. In this regard, emotions can play a significant role. Emotional awareness can help people to recognize their emotions, to make sense out of them, and to (pro-)actively regulate them. For example, by switching to another, more exciting task or taking a break when being in a negative emotional state. However, recognizing and being aware of one’s own emotions can be challenging. We propose the EmotionalAwareness-Tool that tries to sense the emotional and cognitive state of a person sitting in front of a computer through a regular webcam. We aim to increase the users’ awareness by visualizing the sensed data in real-time on a glanceable, always on top display. A user study revealed that even though the sensing accuracy of the EmotionalAwareness-Tool is very limited, it helped users to be more aware of their emotional and cognitive state. Participants of the study perceived the accuracy of the tool as reasonably good, possibly because the glanceable display was biasing them.

Student: Remy Egloff

Supervisors: André Meyer, Dr., Roy Rutishauser, and Thomas Fritz, Prof. Dr.

Date: Feb-Aug 2021