Heart Rate Variability for Stress Detection with Autistic Young Adults
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Physiology, such as heart rate viability (HRV), can give meaningful insights about autonomic response to stress. Autism Spectrum Disorder has been linked to atypical physiological responses and poor emotion regulation. Explorations of the differences in physiological response between autistic young adults and neurotypical young adults can provide meaningful information on stress responses in these populations and can be used to create adaptive systems. Stress detection is an important aspect of creating closed-loop systems that can respond and change based on the emotional state of the user. This paper aims to explore HRV as a means of obtaining stress information from physiological data and to explore differences in stress response between autistic young adults and their neurotypical peers using Kubios HRV Premium analysis software during the PASAT-C, a distress tolerance task. Unpaired t tests showed statistically significant (p < .05) differences in three stress related indexes: the parasympathetic nervous system index, the sympathetic nervous system index, and the stress index. Preliminary results show validity of HRV for stress insight and provides evidence for physiological differences in stress response between the two groups.