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Heart Rate Variability for Stress Detection with Autistic Young Adults

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Adaptive Instructional Systems (HCII 2022)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 13332))

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Abstract

Physiology, such as heart rate viability (HRV), can give meaningful insights about autonomic response to stress. Autism Spectrum Disorder has been linked to atypical physiological responses and poor emotion regulation. Explorations of the differences in physiological response between autistic young adults and neurotypical young adults can provide meaningful information on stress responses in these populations and can be used to create adaptive systems. Stress detection is an important aspect of creating closed-loop systems that can respond and change based on the emotional state of the user. This paper aims to explore HRV as a means of obtaining stress information from physiological data and to explore differences in stress response between autistic young adults and their neurotypical peers using Kubios HRV Premium analysis software during the PASAT-C, a distress tolerance task. Unpaired t tests showed statistically significant (p < .05) differences in three stress related indexes: the parasympathetic nervous system index, the sympathetic nervous system index, and the stress index. Preliminary results show validity of HRV for stress insight and provides evidence for physiological differences in stress response between the two groups.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Recent surveys with autistic self-advocates suggest a preference for identify first language. In accordance have chosen to adopt identity first (autistic persons) language in place of person first (persons with autism) language [37].

  2. 2.

    Closed loop refers to a system in which an operation, process, or mechanism is regulated by feedback [38], in this case the feedback is stress.

  3. 3.

    www.kubios.com.

  4. 4.

    www.empatica.com.

  5. 5.

    www.millisecond.com.

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Acknowledgments

This project was funded by a Microsoft AI for Accessibility grant, by the National Science Foundation under awards 1936970 and 2033413 and by the National Science Foundation Research Traineeship DGE 19–22697. The authors would like to thank the participants for their time.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Robotics and Autonomous Systems Lab, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, 37212, USA

    Miroslava Migovich, Deeksha Adiani & Nilanjan Sarkar

  2. TRIAD, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, 37203, USA

    Amy Swanson

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  1. Miroslava Migovich
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  2. Deeksha Adiani
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  3. Amy Swanson
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  4. Nilanjan Sarkar
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Correspondence to Miroslava Migovich .

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  1. Soar Technology, Inc., Orlando, FL, USA

    Robert A. Sottilare

  2. Fraunhofer FKIE, Wachtberg, Germany

    Jessica Schwarz

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Migovich, M., Adiani, D., Swanson, A., Sarkar, N. (2022). Heart Rate Variability for Stress Detection with Autistic Young Adults. In: Sottilare, R.A., Schwarz, J. (eds) Adaptive Instructional Systems. HCII 2022. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 13332. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-05887-5_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-05887-5_1

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