Shaundra Bryant Daily, Rosalind W. Picard

Abstract

This purpose of this paper is to present a journal-based system that provides a way for users to reconstruct their emotions around events in their lives, and to see how recall of these events affects their physiology. Expressive writing, a task in which the participant is asked to write about extremely emotional events, is presented as a means towards story construction. Previous use of expressive writing has found profound benefits for both psychological and physical health [8]. In this system, measures of skin conductivity, instantaneous heart rate, and heart stress entropy are used as indicators of activities occurring in the body. Users have the ability to view these signals after taking part in an expressive writing task.