Patient Monitoring Technologies for In-Situ Assessment of Emotional Processes In Naturalistic Settings

在自然环境中的就地和动态患者监测能够在受控的临床环境之外观察症状，最终增强评估和诊断过程。虽然已经提出了过多的系统来现场监测生理病理(例如心脏异常、癫痫发作)，但监测与精神和精神健康相关的症状的技术很少。这些技术可以补充和加强现有的评估方法，这些方法通常依赖于高度主观的自我和照顾者报告。在这一领域，对情绪过程的监测是特别感兴趣的，因为这些过程在精神病理学(例如，焦虑、抑郁、边缘人格障碍、双相情感障碍)中发挥着关键作用。拟议计划的长期目标是开发智能、移动和可穿戴计算系统，用于持续和现场监测与精神障碍相关的症状和相关背景因素。*在这项计划中，我们将重点关注基于生理信号的情绪监测，因为这些变量可以在各种环境中使用可穿戴传感器进行非侵入性测量。生理变化也是情绪体验的一个关键组成部分，而非典型生理学与精神病理学有关。现有的情绪过程生理监测系统是在人工诱导情绪体验的高度受控的实验室环境中开发和评估的。为了使这些系统能够在自然环境中进行动态和现场情绪监测，必须解决与建模个人间和个人内部变异性以及其他认知和身体过程的混杂影响相关的技术挑战。为了弥补这些差距，该计划的短期目标是：1)开发用于连续估计和适应时变生理基线的算法；2)开发分类算法以区分与情绪相关的生理变化与与认知和体力活动相关的变化；3)开发可穿戴和移动的系统，用于在现实生活条件下连续测量和标记与情绪相关的生理反应。*这项研究计划将建立创新的新方法，将情绪检测研究从受控的实验室环境推进到自然环境。最终，拟议方案的结果可以改善和提高对精神和精神健康障碍的诊断和评估。该研究项目开发的方法将直接转移到其他应用领域，包括情感计算和丰富的人机交互。**

In-situ and ambulatory patient monitoring in naturalistic settings enables symptom observation outside controlled clinical settings, ultimately enhancing assessment and diagnostic processes. While a plethora of systems have been proposed for in-situ monitoring of physiological pathologies (e.g., cardiac abnormalities, seizures), technologies that monitor psychiatric- and mental health-related symptoms are scarce. These technologies can complement and enhance existing assessment methods which generally rely on highly subjective self- and care-giver reports. In this domain, monitoring of emotional processes is of specific interest as these processes play a key role in psychopathology (e.g., anxiety, depression, borderline personality disorder, bipolar disorders). The long-term objective of the proposed program is to develop intelligent, mobile, and wearable computing systems for continuous and in-situ monitoring of symptoms associated with psychiatric disorders as well as the related contextual factors.***In this proposal, we will focus on emotion monitoring based on physiological signals as these variables can be non-invasively measured with wearable sensors in a variety of environments. Physiological change is also a key component of the emotional experience and atypical physiology has been associated with psychopathology. Existing systems for physiological monitoring of emotional processes have been developed and evaluated in highly controlled laboratory settings where emotional experiences are artificially induced. To allow the translation of these systems ambulatory and in-situ emotion monitoring in naturalistic settings, technical challenges related to modeling inter- and intra-personal variability as well as confounding affects of other cognitive and physical processes must be resolved. To address these gaps, the short-terms objectives of this program are to 1) develop algorithms for continuous estimation and adaptation of a time-varying physiological baseline, 2) develop classification algorithms for differentiating emotion-related physiological changes from those associated with cognitive and physical activity, and 3) develop a wearable and mobile system for continuous measurement and labeling of emotion-related physiological responses in real-life conditions. ***This research program will establish innovative new methods to advance emotion detection research from controlled laboratory settings to naturalistic environments. Ultimately, the outcomes of the proposed program can improve and enhance diagnosis and assessment of psychiatric and mental health disorders. The methods developed in this research program will be directly transferable to other application domains including affective computing and enriched human-computer interaction.**