April 12, 2023, 20:30 PM
April 12, 2023, 20:30 PM
The way we move the mouse or type in front of the computer when we are in our work environment denotes if we are suffering from stressaccording to a study by the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology (ETH) in Zurich.
The research you publish Journal of Biomedical Informatics observed 90 people in a work environment reproduced in a lab and developed a model through machine learning.
Lower precision and higher number of errors
The stressed people move the mouse pointer more frequently and less precision and travel longer distances on the screen, explained ETH mathematician Mara Nägelin.
On the contrary, those who are relaxed use the mouse with shorter and more direct routes to reach their destination on the screen and they take more time to do it.
Regarding the use of the keyboard, people under stress in the office make more typing mistakesthey do it in fits and starts and with many short pauses, on the contrary, those who are relaxed write with fewer but longer pauses.
The connection between stress and typing and mouse behavior can be explained by what is known as neuromotor noise theory.
“Increased stress levels negatively impact our brain’s ability to process information. This also affects our motor skills,” explained study co-author Jasmine Kerr.
The team developed a stress model in which 90 people carried out realistic office tasks in a laboratory, such as planning appointments or recording and analyzing data.
The researchers recorded the participants’ behavior with the mouse and keyboard, as well as their heart rate and several times they were asked how they felt under stress.
Some of the participants were able to work without being disturbed, but the other part also had to participate in a job interview and, of these, some were repeatedly interrupted with chat messages.
“We were surprised that typing and mouse behavior were better predictors of how stressed subjects felt than heart rate,” Nägelin said.
The heart rates of participants in the two groups did not differ as much as in previous studies, and one reason may be that the control group was not idling, but continued to work, but without distractions, which is more realistic. from the workplace.
Prevent stress in the workplace
These discoveries, applied correctly, could be used in the future to early prevention of increased stress in the workplacesays the study.
The team continues to test the model they have developed, but now they do so in a real office, where volunteer participants allow their mouse and keyboard behavior and cardiac data to be recorded using an application that also periodically asks them for their subjective levels. of stress.
