On capturing older adults’ smartphone keyboard interaction as a means for behavioral change under emotional stimuli within i-PROGNOSIS framework

Abstract

The unobtrusive use of smartphone technology, as a facilitator and as a means of capturing the daily activities, can be seen as a great challenge in routine monitoring and in promoting behavioural change in older adults. In the present study, a protocol of a sequence of emotional stimuli database was combined with a sequence of emotion-free text typing using a dedicated keyboard of a smartphone and used for capturing the users’ patterns of typing, in terms of hold time (HT), alteration time (AT) and pressure (PR) of each key. Six older adults (three male/female) were employed in the study and sequences of images with facial expressions of Ekman’s six basic emotions (with the addition of the neutral one) were used as stimuli in a three-trial fashion. Statistical analysis of HT, AT and PR data revealed differences in the typing due to emotions alteration, setting a new domain for the analysis and behavioural modeling of older adults’ typing patterns under specific emotional stimuli. This combinatory approach amongst emotional and physical status could be adopted in the field of intelligent monitoring of the healthy ageing and could be extended to elderlies’ pathology cases, such as Parkinson’s disease, as approached by the i-PROGNOSIS initiative.