Using Virtual Reality to validate wearable devices under stressful conditions
Supervisors: Matthijs Noordzij1, Magdalena Sikora2
Description:
As part of the Stress in Action project (see stress-in-action.nl), this thesis project focuses on validating wearable devices for measuring stress-related physiology during controlled stress-inducing scenarios in virtual reality (VR).
In this study, you will evaluate the performance of three different wearable devices (two smartwatches and one smart ring) by comparing their recorded signals and parameters (such as heart rate) to a gold standard laboratory measurement system. Participants will be exposed to immersive VR environments designed to induce psychological stress—such as public speaking or fear of heights. This controlled setup allows us to assess how well wearables capture physiological responses like heart rate or electrodermal activity under stress.
Throughout the VR session, we will also collect subjective stress ratings at multiple time points. This enables an important part of the project: investigating the alignment between physiological signals and participants’ self-reported stress. Understanding how closely these measures track each other across different phases of the VR experience (e.g., baselines, anticipation, math task, recovery) will help us determine if the physiological and self-reported stress levels overlap and if the validity statements are affected by different levels of self-reported stress.
If you're interested in stress research, wearable technology, physiological data analysis, or virtual reality, this thesis project offers a rich and hands-on research experience. There’s room for your own exploration, whether you’d like to dive more in depth into signal validation, focus on a single device or signal, or look at the relationship between subjective and physiological stress.