Time.news – The way people they type and use the computer mouse it could be an even better indicator of stress than their heart rate. Two Swiss researchers have come to this conclusion.
In an ad hoc report, researchers from the Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETHZ) noted 90 participants in a lab while performing real office tasks, such as scheduling appointments or recording and analyzing data.
They recorded the participants’ mouse and keyboard behavior, as well as their heart rate, and regularly asked the participants how stressed they were feeling.
While some participants were allowed to work undisturbed, half of the group was repeatedly interrupted by chat messages and was asked to attend a job interview.
The researchers found that stressed people type and move the mouse differently from relaxed people.
“Stressed people move the mouse more often and less accurately and cover greater distances on screen,” said study author Mara Nagelin.
Researchers have also found that people who are stressed out at the office commit multiple typos and tend to write intermittently, with many short pauses.
Relaxed people, on the other hand, take fewer breaks but longer when writing on the computer.
The link between stress and keyboard and mouse behavior can be explained by the so-called theory of neuromotor noise.
“Increased stress levels have a negative impact on our brain’s ability to process information. It also affects our motor skills,” explained the psychologist and co-author Jasmine Kerr.
The researchers said there was an urgent need to find reliable methods of detecting increased stress, noting that one in three employees in Switzerland suffers from stress at work.
“Those affected often don’t realize their physical and mental resources are dwindling until it’s too late,” they said.
They are currently testing their model using an app to log data from employees who have agreed to have mouse and keyboard use, as well as heart rate, recorded as they work. The goal, they specified, is “to help workers identify stress early, and not to create a monitoring tool for companies”.