Association between physiological signal from wearable device and alertness of office workers

Abstract

Through physiological signals, detecting the changes of occupants' physical and psychological aspects is possible, and wearable devices have enabled measurement in dailylife. In this study, to see whether the wearable device could be used for interpreting the state of the office workers, a field experiment was conducted.A wearable device was applied for monitoring the occupant, and productivity responses were collected inside a real office. As a result, when the productivity and alertness decreased, the room temperature was high, and the skin temperature and electrodermal activity were increased. A comparison between the group of alert and drowsy states was also made. The average and the gradient of skin temperature had a significant difference between the states. The result of skin temperature could be interpreted as suppressing the sympathetic nervous systems in the drowsy state, increasing blood flow, and increasing temperature at the terminal skin. Significant relation with the electrodermal activity can be explained through sweat secretion. The results showed the insight of understanding the occupants' alert state through wearable device measured data.