The way you move your mouse or type on your computer keyboard while working indicates your stress level, according to a study conducted by the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology (ETH) in Zurich.
The research, published this Tuesday in the Journal of Biomedical Informatics, observed 90 people in a work environment recreated in the laboratory and developed a model through algorithms.
Stressed people move the mouse pointer more frequently and with less precision and travel longer distances on the screen, explained Mara Nägelin, a mathematician at ETH.
On the other hand, those who are relaxed use the computer mouse in a shorter and more direct way to reach their destination on the screen, taking longer to do so.
Regarding the use of the keyboard, people who are stressed in the work environment make more errors when writing, doing it with ‘stumbling’ and with very short pauses, unlike those who are relaxed, who write with fewer but longer pauses. .
The association between stress and typing on the keyboard and the behavior of rats can be explained by what is known as the neuromotor noise theory.
“Increased stress levels negatively affect our brain’s ability to process information. It also affects our motor skills,” explained study co-author Jasmine Kerr.
The team developed a stress model in which 90 people performed realistic office tasks in the lab, such as scheduling appointments or recording and analyzing data.
The researchers recorded the participants’ mouse and keyboard behavior, as well as their heart rate, and repeatedly asked them how stressed they felt.
Some of the participants managed to work without being disturbed, but others also had to participate in a job interview, and of these, some were repeatedly interrupted with ‘chat’ messages.
“We were surprised that typing and mouse behavior were better predictors of how stressed people felt than heart rate,” Nägelin said.
The heart rates of the participants in the two groups did not differ as much as in previous studies, and one reason could be that the control group was not idle, continuing to work but without distractions, which is more realistic in a work environment.
These findings, applied correctly, could be used in the future to prevent early increases in stress in the workplace, the study researchers emphasize.
The team is continuing to test the model they developed, but now in a real-world working environment, where volunteer participants are allowed to record mouse and keyboard behavior and cardiac data through an app that also periodically asks them for their subjective levels of stress. .
Source: TSF
