NASA could monitor astronauts on long space missions using an automated method of indirectly analysing the stress levels in individuals using optical recognition algorithms.
Supported by NASA through the National Space Biomedical Research Institute, the technology turns three-dimensional videos of people's faces into two-dimensional images it can process.
Using 60 test subjects in high-workload conditions, 68% were found to exhibit mouth and eyebrow movements that presented asymmetries for the recognition software - stress is known to trigger facial asymmetry, such as frowning.
"It can do it with all races. Skin or hair differences don't change a thing. We are very close to real-time [processing].
"Humans can detect the correct emotions 80% of the time, the machine can do it 70%," says David Dinges, director of the University of Pennsylvania school of medicine's experimental psychiatry unit.
He says the 70% result was due to short video clips being presented to the computer and that with longer durations the machine might exceed human capabilities.
Monitored subjects that might try to deceive the system would not succeed, he says, as tests have shown that individuals undertaking tasks forget they are being watched after a while and also that facial expression control requires a lot of concentration.
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Source: FlightGlobal.com