TY - JOUR
T1 - Explainable stress type classification captures physiologically relevant responses in the Maastricht Acute Stress Test
AU - Tervonen, Jaakko
AU - Närväinen, Johanna
AU - Mäntyjärvi, Jani
AU - Pettersson, Kati
N1 - 788783
PY - 2023/12/5
Y1 - 2023/12/5
N2 - Introduction: Current stress detection methods concentrate on identification of stress and non-stress states despite the existence of various stress types. The present study performs a more specific, explainable stress classification, which could provide valuable information on the physiological stress reactions. Methods: Physiological responses were measured in the Maastricht Acute Stress Test (MAST), comprising alternating trials of cold pressor (inducing physiological stress and pain) and mental arithmetics (eliciting cognitive and social-evaluative stress). The responses in these subtasks were compared to each other and to the baseline through mixed model analysis. Subsequently, stress type detection was conducted with a comprehensive analysis of several machine learning components affecting classification. Finally, explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) methods were applied to analyze the influence of physiological features on model behavior. Results: Most of the investigated physiological reactions were specific to the stressors, and the subtasks could be distinguished from baseline with up to 86.5 % balanced accuracy. The choice of the physiological signals to measure (up to 25 %-point difference in balanced accuracy) and the selection of features (up to 7 %-point difference) were the two key components in classification. Reflection of the XAI analysis to mixed model results and human physiology revealed that the stress detection model concentrated on physiological features relevant for the two stressors. Discussion: The findings confirm that multimodal machine learning classification can detect different types of stress reactions from baseline while focusing on physiologically sensible changes. Since the measured signals and feature selection affected classification performance the most, data analytic choices left limited input information uncompensated.
AB - Introduction: Current stress detection methods concentrate on identification of stress and non-stress states despite the existence of various stress types. The present study performs a more specific, explainable stress classification, which could provide valuable information on the physiological stress reactions. Methods: Physiological responses were measured in the Maastricht Acute Stress Test (MAST), comprising alternating trials of cold pressor (inducing physiological stress and pain) and mental arithmetics (eliciting cognitive and social-evaluative stress). The responses in these subtasks were compared to each other and to the baseline through mixed model analysis. Subsequently, stress type detection was conducted with a comprehensive analysis of several machine learning components affecting classification. Finally, explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) methods were applied to analyze the influence of physiological features on model behavior. Results: Most of the investigated physiological reactions were specific to the stressors, and the subtasks could be distinguished from baseline with up to 86.5 % balanced accuracy. The choice of the physiological signals to measure (up to 25 %-point difference in balanced accuracy) and the selection of features (up to 7 %-point difference) were the two key components in classification. Reflection of the XAI analysis to mixed model results and human physiology revealed that the stress detection model concentrated on physiological features relevant for the two stressors. Discussion: The findings confirm that multimodal machine learning classification can detect different types of stress reactions from baseline while focusing on physiologically sensible changes. Since the measured signals and feature selection affected classification performance the most, data analytic choices left limited input information uncompensated.
KW - acute stress detection
KW - interpretable artificial intelligence
KW - machine learning
KW - physiology
KW - stress
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85192809215&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3389/fnrgo.2023.1294286
DO - 10.3389/fnrgo.2023.1294286
M3 - Article
SN - 2673-6195
VL - 4
JO - Frontiers in Neuroergonomics
JF - Frontiers in Neuroergonomics
M1 - 1294286
ER -