Physiological data must remain confidential
TL;DR: In this paper, Fairclough et al. argue that electronic devices that track our emotions, heart rate or brain waves should be regulated to protect individual privacy, and propose a privacy-preserving approach.
Abstract: Electronic devices that track our emotions, heart rate or brain waves should be regulated to protect individual privacy, says Stephen Fairclough.
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TL;DR: A new generation of functional near infrared spectroscopy systems is described that are miniaturized, portable, and include wearable sensors that provide an opportunity to couple fNIRS with tDCS, consistent with a neuroergonomics approach for joint neuroimaging and neurostimulation investigations of cognition in complex tasks and in naturalistic conditions.
Abstract: Contemporary studies with transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) provide a growing base of evidence for enhancing cognition through the non-invasive delivery of weak electric currents to the brain. The main effect of tDCS is to modulate cortical excitability depending on the polarity of the applied current. However, the underlying mechanism of neuromodulation is not well understood. A new generation of functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) systems is described that are miniaturized, portable, and include wearable sensors. These developments provide an opportunity to couple fNIRS with tDCS, consistent with a neuroergonomics approach for joint neuroimaging and neurostimulation investigations of cognition in complex tasks and in naturalistic conditions. The effects of tDCS on complex task performance and the use of fNIRS for monitoring cognitive workload during task performance are described. Also explained is how fNIRS + tDCS can be used simultaneously for assessing spatial working memory. Mobile optical brain imaging is a promising neuroimaging tool that has the potential to complement tDCS for realistic applications in natural settings.
126 citations
Cites background from "Physiological data must remain conf..."
...Also, privacy has been a core concern (Nijboer et al., 2011; Fairclough, 2014) and mostly attributed to keeping ones’ physiological signals private....
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TL;DR: The authors hope that, although it is not a systematic review on the subject, this document can be a useful reference for researchers, clinicians, healthcare managers, policy-makers, and industry parties interested in personalized respiratory medicine.
Abstract: This Pulmonary Perspective summarizes the content and main conclusions of an international workshop on personalized respiratory medicine coorganized by the Barcelona Respiratory Network (www.brn.cat) and the AJRCCM in June 2014. It discusses (1) its definition and historical, social, legal, and ethical aspects; (2) the view from different disciplines, including basic science, epidemiology, bioinformatics, and network/systems medicine; (3) the bottlenecks and opportunities identified by some currently ongoing projects; and (4) the implications for the individual, the healthcare system and the pharmaceutical industry. The authors hope that, although it is not a systematic review on the subject, this document can be a useful reference for researchers, clinicians, healthcare managers, policy-makers, and industry parties interested in personalized respiratory medicine.
67 citations
01 Aug 2017
TL;DR: A design blueprint for stress-sensitive adaptive enterprise systems (SSAESes) is presented, with the goal that systems automatically adapt to the users’ stress levels, thereby improving human-computer interactions.
Abstract: Stress is a major problem in the human society, impairing the well-being, health, performance, and productivity of many people worldwide. Most notably, people increasingly experience stress during human-computer interactions because of the ubiquity of and permanent connection to information and communication technologies. This phenomenon is referred to as technostress. Enterprise systems, designed to improve the productivity of organizations, frequently contribute to this technostress and thereby counteract their objective. Based on theoretical foundations and input from exploratory interviews and focus group discussions, the paper presents a design blueprint for stress-sensitive adaptive enterprise systems (SSAESes). A major characteristic of SSAESes is that bio-signals (e.g., heart rate or skin conductance) are integrated as real-time stress measures, with the goal that systems automatically adapt to the users’ stress levels, thereby improving human-computer interactions. Various design interventions on the individual, technological, and organizational levels promise to directly affect stressors or moderate the impact of stressors on important negative effects (e.g., health or performance). However, designing and deploying SSAESes pose significant challenges with respect to technical feasibility, social and ethical acceptability, as well as adoption and use. Considering these challenges, the paper proposes a 4-stage step-by-step implementation approach. With this Research Note on technostress in organizations, the authors seek to stimulate the discussion about a timely and important phenomenon, particularly from a design science research perspective.
56 citations
Cites background from "Physiological data must remain conf..."
...(Fairclough 2014)....
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...As an example from the domain of ethical and legal issues related to our SSAES, a recent commentary paper on psychophysiological adaptation published in Nature raised important questions such as ‘‘Who owns the data?’’ and ‘‘Who should be allowed to gather and store this information?’’ (Fairclough 2014)....
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...As a downside, communication between the user device and the central service and the central data storage might lead to increased privacy and security issues (Fairclough 2014)....
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TL;DR: This tutorial provides guidelines to both implement, and critically discuss potential ethical implications of, novel cognitive probing applications and research endeavours.
Abstract: Objective The interpretation of neurophysiological measurements has a decades-long history, culminating in current real-time brain-computer interfacing (BCI) applications for both patient and healthy populations. Over the course of this history, one focus has been on the investigation of cortical responses to specific stimuli. Such responses can be informative with respect to the human user's mental state at the time of presentation. An ability to decode neurophysiological responses to stimuli in real time becomes particularly powerful when combined with a simultaneous ability to autonomously produce such stimuli. This allows a computer to gather stimulus-response samples and iteratively produce new stimuli based on the information gathered from previous samples, thus acquiring more, and more specific, information. This information can even be obtained without the explicit, voluntary involvement of the user. Approach We define cognitive and affective probing, referring to an application of active learning where repeated sampling is done by eliciting implicit brain responses. In this tutorial, we provide a definition of this method that unifies different past and current implementations based on common aspects. We then discuss a number of aspects that differentiate various possible implementations of cognitive probing. Main results We argue that a key element is the user model, which serves as both information storage and basis for subsequent probes. Cognitive probing can be used to continuously and autonomously update this model, refining the probes, and obtaining increasingly detailed or accurate information from the resulting brain activity. In contrast to a number of potential advantages of the method, cognitive probing may also pose a threat to informed consent, our privacy of thought, and our ability to assign responsibility to actions mediated by the system. Significance This tutorial provides guidelines to both implement, and critically discuss potential ethical implications of, novel cognitive probing applications and research endeavours.
31 citations
Cites background from "Physiological data must remain conf..."
...Therefore, care must be taken that the data is handled with proper care for the user’s privacy and the security and confidentiality of all gathered data (Fairclough, 2014)....
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...…the sensitive nature of such gathered information, f) procedures and guarantees regarding the ownership of data should be installed ensuring that users of cognitive probing applications remain in control of the data acquired, its storage, and its future use (Fairclough, 2014; Yuste et al., 2017)....
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TL;DR: It is shown that drops in attention could be successfully traced only by direct brainwave observation, using wireless electroencephalographic measurements, and the P300 amplitude is proposed for accurate attention monitoring in ergonomics research.
Abstract: Continuous and objective measurement of the user attention state still represents a major challenge in the ergonomics research. Recently available wearable electroencephalography (EEG) opens new opportunities for objective and continuous evaluation of operators' attention, which may provide a new paradigm in ergonomics. In this study, wearable EEG was recorded during simulated assembly operation, with the aim to analyse P300 event-related potential component, which provides reliable information on attention processing. In parallel, reaction times (RTs) were recorded and the correlation between these two attention-related modalities was investigated. Negative correlation between P300 amplitudes and RTs has been observed on the group level (p < .001). However, on the individual level, the obtained correlations were not consistent. As a result, we propose the P300 amplitude for accurate attention monitoring in ergonomics research. On the other hand, no significant correlation between RTs and P300 latency was found on group, neither on individual level. Practitioner Summary: Ergonomic studies of assembly operations mainly investigated physical aspects, while mental states of the assemblers were not sufficiently addressed. Presented study aims at attention tracking, using realistic workplace replica. It is shown that drops in attention could be successfully traced only by direct brainwave observation, using wireless electroencephalographic measurements.
29 citations
Cites background from "Physiological data must remain conf..."
...…the reliable EEG recordings still depend on the wet gel-based electrodes (Mihajlovic et al. 2015) and an ethical question of EEG recording arises, in sense that the supervisor could have information about the physiological signals obtained from employees, raising privacy concerns (Fairclough 2014)....
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