Wireless Biosensor to Measure Human Emotions - Affectiva's Q™ Sensor

Affectiva Launches Wearable Biosensor to Measure Human Emotions; MIT Media Lab Spin-Off's Q Sensor Now Available in Commercial Beta - Affectiva's Q™ Sensor biosensor is now commercially available in beta form the company said today at the Future Forward Executive Forum, where Affectiva is a featured company.

Affectiva is an MIT Media Lab spin-off developing multiple technologies to measure and communicate emotion. The Q Sensor is a wireless, wearable biosensor that quantifies emotional excitement by measuring physiological responses including skin conductance (also called Galvanic Skin Response or GSR), motion and temperature. It provides an objective biomarker for measuring emotion information that is difficult or impossible to capture otherwise.

The device can help people break through major barriers to communicating their emotions. Unlike traditional questionnaires and focus groups, the Q Sensor measures participants' actual emotional signals rather than their self-reported reactions. Unlike standard GSR devices, its wireless, wristwatch-like form-factor makes it usable in natural settings outside of specialized labs.

The Q Sensor comes with downloadable software for visualizing and analyzing data
. Next year, Affectiva plans to release a cloud-based version of the software so that people in common circumstances -- people with autism or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) for example -- can opt in to share data and insights anonymously.

Early customers are using the Q Sensor for clinical and market research.

"As a transducer and recorder, the Q is a real engineering triumph. It is vastly superior to the competition,” said Dr. Walton Roth, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral science at the Stanford School of Medicine and a staff member of the VA Health Care System Palo Alto. He is using the Q Sensors in a five-year study on how breathing exercises help patients suffering from PTSD.

"I'm optimistic the Q Sensor can help our kids with early detection so they can develop better problem-solving skills," said Monica Alder Werner, director of the Model Asperger Program at The Ivymount School in Rockville, MD, which is using the Q Sensors to help children better understand the antecedents to escalated behavior and help teachers create self-regulation strategies for the students based on hard data.

"I have reviewed all the competitors’ offerings. Affectiva has the most powerful decision-sciences analytic engine on the market today,” said John Ross, chief executive officer of Interpublic Group (IPG) Shopper Sciences, which is using Q Sensors and additional Affectiva technologies under development to measure customers' in-store shopping experience.

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