CFP last date
21 April 2025
Reseach Article

Analysing and Predicting Acute Stress in Smartphone-based Online Activities using Keystroke Dynamics and Advanced Sensory Features

by Purba Banerjee, Soumen Roy, Utpal Roy
International Journal of Computer Applications
Foundation of Computer Science (FCS), NY, USA
Volume 186 - Number 71
Year of Publication: 2025
Authors: Purba Banerjee, Soumen Roy, Utpal Roy
10.5120/ijca2025924564

Purba Banerjee, Soumen Roy, Utpal Roy . Analysing and Predicting Acute Stress in Smartphone-based Online Activities using Keystroke Dynamics and Advanced Sensory Features. International Journal of Computer Applications. 186, 71 ( Mar 2025), 29-38. DOI=10.5120/ijca2025924564

@article{ 10.5120/ijca2025924564,
author = { Purba Banerjee, Soumen Roy, Utpal Roy },
title = { Analysing and Predicting Acute Stress in Smartphone-based Online Activities using Keystroke Dynamics and Advanced Sensory Features },
journal = { International Journal of Computer Applications },
issue_date = { Mar 2025 },
volume = { 186 },
number = { 71 },
month = { Mar },
year = { 2025 },
issn = { 0975-8887 },
pages = { 29-38 },
numpages = {9},
url = { https://ijcaonline.org/archives/volume186/number71/analysing-and-predicting-acute-stress-in-smartphone-based-online-activities-using-keystroke-dynamics-and-advanced-sensory-features/ },
doi = { 10.5120/ijca2025924564 },
publisher = {Foundation of Computer Science (FCS), NY, USA},
address = {New York, USA}
}
%0 Journal Article
%1 2025-03-06T21:09:24.907245+05:30
%A Purba Banerjee
%A Soumen Roy
%A Utpal Roy
%T Analysing and Predicting Acute Stress in Smartphone-based Online Activities using Keystroke Dynamics and Advanced Sensory Features
%J International Journal of Computer Applications
%@ 0975-8887
%V 186
%N 71
%P 29-38
%D 2025
%I Foundation of Computer Science (FCS), NY, USA
Abstract

Acute stress is a short-term cognitive burden. It impacts user engagement and performance during online activities such as meetings, classes, competitive exams, and more. This mental state can be predicted and analysed using Keystroke Dynamics (KD) attributes and the combination of advanced sensory features and Machine Learning (ML) techniques. The purpose of this study is to develop a benchmark dataset incorporating KD and sensory features through a web-based application to analyse acute stress in online settings. The dataset was collected from 103 participants across different demographic groups (e.g., age, gender, and qualification) in two sessions, each involving a minimum of three repetitions in a real-world environment. It includes timing and sensory features, such as gyroscope, accelerometer, and rotational information in various directions, recorded at 2 Hz. In the first session, participants were asked to complete four simple mental math tasks without any induced mental pressure. These samples were labelled as “Calm”. In the second session, the same participants were asked to perform three complex mental math tasks, designed to induce mental pressure, and these samples were labelled as “Stress”. This dataset provides KD patterns in both non-stress and stress conditions, enabling the design of a classification model to detect acute stress in real-time environments. The findings could be applied to implement more advanced online platforms for meetings, learning, and competitive exams.

References
  1. Barra, S., De Marsico, M., Nappi, M., Narducci, F., Riccio, D. 2019. A hand-based biometric system in visible light for mobile environments. *Information Sciences*, 479, 472–485. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.INS.2018.01.010
  2. Epp, C., Lippold, M., Mandryk, R.L. 2011. Identifying emotional states using keystroke dynamics. In: *Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems*, 715–724. https://doi.org/10.1145/1978942.1979046
  3. Grimes, G.M. 2015. Analysis of Human Computer Interaction Behavior for Assessment of Affect, Cognitive Load, and Credibility. Ph.D. thesis, *The University of Arizona*.
  4. Higuera, V. 2021. Everything You Need to Know About Depression (Major Depressive Disorder). https://www.healthline.com/health/depression
  5. Lim, Y.M., Ayesh, A., Stacey, M. 2015. The effects of typing demand on emotional stress, mouse and keystroke behaviours. In: Arai, K., Kapoor, S., Bhatia, R. (eds.), *Proceedings of the Intelligent Systems in Science and Information (SAI 2014)*, Studies in Computational Intelligence, Vol. 591, 209–225. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14654-6_13
  6. Lim, Y.M., Ayesh, A., Stacey, M. 2020. Continuous stress monitoring under varied demands using unobtrusive devices. *International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction*, 36(4), 326–340. https://doi.org/10.1080/10447318.2019.1642617
  7. Roy, S., Roy, U., Sinha, D. 2018. The probability of predicting personality traits by the way user types on touch screen. *Innovations in Systems and Software Engineering*, 15(1), 27–34. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11334-018-0317-6
  8. Roy, S., Roy, U., Sinha, D., Pal, R.K. 2022. AI for Stress Diagnosis at Home Environment. In: *Next Generation Healthcare Informatics*, Studies in Computational Intelligence, Vol. 1039, 173–195. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-2416-3_10
  9. Sağbaş, E.A., Korukoglu, S., Balli, S. 2020. Stress detection via keyboard typing behaviors by using smartphone sensors and machine learning techniques. *Journal of Medical Systems*, 44, 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10916-020-1530-z
  10. Stragapede, G., Vera-Rodriguez, R., Tolosana, R., Morales, A., Acien, A., El, G., Lan, L., Le Lan, G. 2022. Mobile behavioral biometrics for passive authentication. *Pattern Recognition Letters*, 157, 35–41. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.PATREC.2022.03.014
  11. Unni, S., Gowda, S.S., Smeaton, A.F., Sushma, S., Gowda, A.F. 2022. An investigation into keystroke dynamics and heart rate variability as indicators of stress. In: *International Conference on Multimedia Modeling*, 379–391. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98358-1_30
  12. Vizer, L.M. 2009. Detecting cognitive and physical stress through typing behavior. In: *Proceedings of the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems*, 3113–3116. https://doi.org/10.1145/1520340.1520440
  13. Zulueta, J., Piscitello, A., Rasic, M., Easter, R., Babu, P., Langenecker, S. A., McInnis, M., Ajilore, O., Nelson, P. C., Ryan, K., & Leow, A. (2017). Predicting mood disturbance severity in bipolar subjects with mobile phone keystroke dynamics and metadata. Biological Psychiatry, 20(7), e241. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2017.02.965
  14. Kalia, M. (2002). Assessing the economic impact of stress—The modern day hidden epidemic. Metabolism: Clinical and Experimental, 51(6), 49–53. https://doi.org/10.1053/meta.2002.33193
  15. Boyd, D. (2022, August 9). Workplace stress. American Institute of Stress. Retrieved from https://www.stress.org/workplace-stress
  16. World Health Organization. (2016, April 13). Investing in treatment for depression and anxiety leads to fourfold return. Retrieved August 9, 2022, from https://www.who.int/news/item/13-04-2016-investing-in-treatment-for-depression-and-anxiety-leads-to-fourfold-return
  17. Cannon, W. B. (1915). Bodily changes in pain, hunger, fear and rage: An account of recent researches into the function of emotional excitement. New York, NY: D. Appleton & Company. https://doi.org/10.1037/10013-000
  18. McCarty, R. (2016). The fight-or-flight response: A cornerstone of stress research. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Elsevier.
  19. Samson, C., & Koh, A. (2020). Stress monitoring and recent advancements in wearable biosensors. Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology, 8, 1037. https://doi.org/10.3389/fbioe.2020.01037
  20. Dalmeida, K. M., & Masala, G. L. (2021). HRV features as viable physiological markers for stress detection using wearable devices. Sensors, 21(9), 2873. https://doi.org/10.3390/s21092873
  21. Shaffer, F., & Ginsberg, J. P. (2017). An overview of heart rate variability metrics and norms. Frontiers in Public Health, 5, 258. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2017.00258
  22. Rodríguez-Arce, J., Lara-Flores, L., Portillo-Rodríguez, O., & Martínez-Méndez, R. (2020). Towards an anxiety and stress recognition system for academic environments based on physiological features. Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine, 190, 105408. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cmpb.2020.105408
  23. Greco, A., Valenza, G., Lázaro, J., Garzón-Rey, J. M., Aguiló, J., De-la Camara, C., Bailón, R., & Scilingo, E. P. (2021). Acute stress state classification based on electrodermal activity modeling. IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing, 14(3), 788–799. https://doi.org/10.1109/TAFFC.2021.3068825
  24. Pourmohammadi, S., & Maleki, A. (2020). Stress detection using ECG and EMG signals: A comprehensive study. Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine, 193, 105482. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cmpb.2020.105482
  25. Schneiderman, N., Ironson, G., & Siegel, S. D. (2005). Stress and health: Psychological, behavioral, and biological determinants. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 1, 607–628. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.clinpsy.1.102803.144141
  26. Sánchez-Reolid, R., Martínez-Rodrigo, A., López, M. T., & Fernández-Caballero, A. (2020). Deep support vector machines for the identification of stress condition from electrodermal activity. International Journal of Neural Systems, 30(8), 2050031. https://doi.org/10.1142/S0129065720500318
  27. Tanev, G., Saadi, D. B., Hoppe, K., & Sorensen, H. B. (2014). Classification of acute stress using linear and non-linear heart rate variability analysis derived from sternal ECG. In Proceedings of the 2014 36th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (pp. 3386–3389). Chicago, IL, USA: IEEE.
  28. Caminal, P., Sola, F., Gomis, P., Guasch, E., Perera, A., Soriano, N., & Mont, L. (2018). Validity of the Polar V800 monitor for measuring heart rate variability in mountain running route conditions. European Journal of Applied Physiology, 118(4), 669–677. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00421-018-3818-6
  29. Salahuddin, L., Cho, J., Jeong, M. G., & Kim, D. (2007). Ultra-short-term analysis of heart rate variability for monitoring mental stress in mobile settings. In Proceedings of the 2007 29th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (pp. 4656–4659). Lyon, France: IEEE.
  30. Giles, D., Draper, N., & Neil, W. (2016). Validity of the Polar V800 heart rate monitor to measure RR intervals at rest. European Journal of Applied Physiology, 116(3), 563–571. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00421-015-3303-9
  31. Chen, Y., Rao, M., Feng, K., & Niu, G. (2023). Modified varying index coefficient autoregression model for representation of the nonstationary vibration from a planetary gearbox. IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement, 72, 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1109/TIM.2023.3246546
  32. Shahid, M. M., Agada, G. E., Kayyali, M., Ihianle, I. K., & Machado, P. (2023). Towards enhanced well-being: Monitoring stress and health with smart sensor systems. In Proceedings of the 2023 International Conference Automatics and Informatics (ICAI) (pp. 432–437). Varna, Bulgaria: IEEE.
  33. Ihianle, I. K., Machado, P., Owa, K., Adama, D. A., Otuka, R., & Lotfi, A. (2024). Minimising redundancy, maximising relevance: HRV feature selection for stress classification. Expert Systems with Applications, 239, 122490. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2023.122490
  34. Benezeth, Y., Bobbia, S., Nakamura, K., Gomez, R., & Dubois, J. (2019). Probabilistic signal quality metric for reduced complexity unsupervised remote photoplethysmography. In Proceedings of the 2019 13th International Symposium on Medical Information and Communication Technology (ISMICT) (pp. 1–5). Oslo, Norway: IEEE.
  35. Hassan, M., Malik, A., Fofi, D., Saad, N., & Meriaudeau, F. (2017). Novel health monitoring method using an RGB camera. Biomedical Optics Express, 8(11), 4838–4854. https://doi.org/10.1364/BOE.8.004838
  36. Sabour, R. M., Benezeth, Y., De Oliveira, P., Chappe, J., & Yang, F. (2021). UBFC-PHYS: A multimodal database for psychophysiological studies of social stress. IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing, 14(2), 622–636. https://doi.org/10.1109/TAFFC.2021.305584
  37. Shing-hon, Lau. (2018). 1. Stress Detection for Keystroke Dynamics. doi: 10.1184/R1/6723227.V3
  38. (2022). 2. Dynamic Cat-Boost Enabled Keystroke Analysis for User Stress Level Detection. doi: 10.1109/cises54857.2022.9844331
  39. Lucia, Pepa., Antonio, Sabatelli., Lucio, Ciabattoni., Andrea, Monteriù., Fabrizio, Lamberti., Lia, Morra. (2021). 4. Stress Detection in Computer Users From Keyboard and Mouse Dynamics. IEEE Transactions on Consumer Electronics, doi: 10.1109/TCE.2020.3045228
  40. Suranga, D., W., Gunawardhane., Pasan, M., De, Silva., Dayan, S., B., Kulathunga., Shiromi, Arunatileka. (2013). 5. Non invasive human stress detection using key stroke dynamics and pattern variations. doi: 10.1109/ICTER.2013.6761185
  41. Dhanalakshmi, P., Jyoshna, N. N., Eswar, P., Ashiq, P., & Vardhan, M. H. (2024). Multi-class stress detection using physiological sensor data. In 2024 International Conference on Intelligent Systems for Cybersecurity (ISCS) (pp. 1–6). Gurugram, India. https://doi.org/10.1109/ISCS61804.2024.10581331
  42. Agarwal, P., & Others. (2024). Navigating the mind: Analysis of stress and mental well-being. In 2024 International Conference on Innovations and Challenges in Emerging Technologies (ICICET) (pp. 1–6). Nagpur, India. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICICET59348.2024.10616359
  43. Fontes, L., Machado, P., Vinkemeier, D., Yahaya, S., Bird, J. J., & Ihianle, I. K. (2024). Enhancing stress detection: A comprehensive approach through rPPG analysis and deep learning techniques. Sensors, 24(4), 1096. https://doi.org/10.3390/s24041096
  44. Stress Management and Psychological Aspects of Workforces – Causes, Consequences, and Management Strategies. (2024, March). GLS KALP: Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies, 1(1), 30–50. https://doi.org/10.69974/glskalp.01.01.48
  45. Lisa, M., Vizer., Lina, Zhou., Andrew, Sears. (2009). 6. Automated stress detection using keystroke and linguistic features: An exploratory study. International Journal of Human-computer Studies \/ International Journal of Man-machine Studies, doi:10.1016/J.IJHCS.2009.07.005
  46. (2023). 7. Towards Participant-Independent Stress Detection Using Instrumented Peripherals. IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing, doi: 10.1109/taffc.2021.3061417
  47. Yee, Mei, Lim., Aladdin, Ayesh., Martin, Stacey. (2015). 8. Using Mouse and Keyboard Dynamics to Detect Cognitive Stress During Mental Arithmetic. doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-14654-6_21
  48. Tran, C. T. H., Tran, H. T. M., Nguyen, H. T. M., & Mach, D. N. (2020). Stress management in the modern workplace and the role of human resource professionals. Business Ethics and Leadership, 4(2), 26-40. https://doi.org/10.21272/bel(2).26-40.2020
  49. Katic, I., Knezevic, T., Berber, N., et al. (2019). The impact of stress on life, working, and management styles: How to make an organization healthier. Sustainability, 11(4026), 1-19. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11154026
  50. Rawal, A., & Mhatre, S. (2018). A study on work stress and its impacts on employees’ productivity with respect to teachers (Self-financing). IOSR Journal of Business and Management, 20(9), 1-7. ISSN: 2319-7668.
  51. Bhui, K., Dinos, S., Galant, M., Miecznikowska, et al. (2016). Perception of work stress causes and effective interventions in employees working in public, private, and non-governmental organizations: A qualitative study. BJPsych Bulletin, 40(6), 318-325. https://doi.org/10.1192/pb.bp.115.050823
  52. Vandana. (2016). Stress management: Effects and coping strategies at workplace among employees. Indian Journal of Applied Research, 6(1), 1-4.
  53. Sahoo, S. R. (2016). Management of stress at workplace. Global Journal of Management and Business Research: Administration and Management, 16(6), 1-8. ISSN: 0975-5853.
  54. Kumari, G. K., & Devi, S. (2016). A study on stress management of working women in Twin Cities. International Journal of Scientific Development and Research (IJSDR), 1(4), 35-41. ISSN: 2455-2631.
  55. Ismail, A., Saudin, N., Ismail, Y., et al. (2015). Effect of workplace stress on job performance. Economic Review - Journal of Economic and Business, 13(1), 1-7.
  56. Kushwaha, S. (2014). Stress management at workplace. Global Journal of Finance and Management, 6(5), 469-472. ISSN: 0975-6477.
  57. Nekzada, N., & Tekesta, S. F. (2013). Stress causes and its management at the workplace – A qualitative study on the causes of stress and management mechanisms at Volvo Trucks, AB, Umea, Umea University. Unpublished thesis, Umea University.
  58. Rosie, Allen., Kevin, D., Hochard., Chathurika, Kannangara., Jerome, Carson. (2024). 2. The Road to Recovery: A Two-Year Longitudinal Analysis of Mental Health Among University Students During and After the Covid-19 Pandemic. doi: 10.20944/preprints202410.0217.v1
  59. Baharuddin., Meutia, Yusuf., Ibrahim. (2022). 3. Introduction To Stress Management In Students In The Covid-19 Pandemic. Science Midwifery, doi: 10.35335/midwifery.v10i5.1088
  60. Della, Tri, Damayamti., Alviyatun, Masitoh. (2020). 4. Strategi koping siswa dalam menghadapi stres akademik di era pandemi covid-19.
  61. Nur, Mega, Aris, Saputra., Ramli, Ramli., Fitri, Wahyuni. (2024). 5. Counseling approaches and techniques for managing academic stress in students: a literature review. Deleted Journal, doi: 10.59397/edu.v2i1.22
  62. Francisco, Pérez, Moreno. (2022). 1. Stress Management A Study in Covid 19 Era. International Journal of Advanced Research in Science, Communication and Technology, doi: 10.48175/ijarsct-3301
  63. News-Medical. (2022, August). Corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH). Retrieved from https://www.news-medical.net/health/Corticotropin-Releasing-Hormone.aspx
Index Terms

Computer Science
Information Sciences
Biometrics
Online learning platform
Cognitive load
Mental Health
Stress Management Strategies

Keywords

Acute Stress Benchmark Dataset Keystroke Dynamics Smartphone Sensors Web-based Applications