Towards detecting programmers' stress on the basis of keystroke dynamics

Abstract

The article describes the idea of detecting stress among programmers on the basis of keystroke dynamics. An experiment with a group of students of artificial intelligence classes was performed. Two samples of keystroke data were recorded for each case, the first while programming without stress, the second under time pressure. A number of timing and frequency parameters were calculated for each sample. Then statistical analysis was performed to evaluate the significance of keystroke parameters changes. It turned out that some of the defined features might be indicators of being stressed.