Distress Detection in VR environment using Empatica E4 wristband and Bittium Faros 360

Jelena Medarević ^1* Nadica Miljković ^1,2 Kristina Stojmenova Pečečnik ¹ Jaka Sodnik ¹

• ¹ Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia
• ² School of Electrical Engineering, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia

Distress detection in virtual reality systems offers a wealth of opportunities to improve user experiences, enhance therapeutic practices by catering to individual physiological and emotional states. This study evaluates the performance of two wearable devices, Empatica E4 wristband and Faros 360, in detecting distress in a motion-controlled interactive virtual reality environment. Subjects were exposed to a baseline measurement and two VR scenes, one non-interactive and one interactive, involving problem-solving and distractors. Utilizing heart rate measurements from both devices, mean heart rate, root mean square of successive differences, and subject-specific thresholds, distress intensity and frequency were explored. Both Faros and E4 sensors adequately captured physiological signals, with Faros demonstrating higher signal-to-noise ratio and consistency. While correlation coefficients were moderately positive between Faros and E4 data, indicating a linear relationship, small mean absolute error and root mean square error values suggested good agreement in measuring heart rate. Analysis of distress occurrence during the interactive scene revealed that both devices detect more high-and medium-level distress occurrences compared to the non-interactive scene. Device-specific factors in distress detection were emphasized due to differences in detected distress events between devices.