Using wearable devices for non-invasive, inexpensive physiological data collection

Abstract

Using sensors to gather physiological data about users can provide valuable insights for Information Systems (IS) research that are not availed through traditional measures. While useful in many laboratory settings, many of these physiological sensors (e.g., fMRI, EEG, EKG, etc.) are impractical and severely limited in other scenarios due to (1) prohibitive cost, (2) small sample size, (3) invasiveness, and (4) the difficulty to match psychological traits to physiological measures. In this study, we demonstrate how inexpensive consumer-grade wearable technologies overcome these first three limitations while we extend existing research on exploring the fourth limitation.