Analysis of Practical Results

Abstract

This chapter describes both the performance of the several practical approaches described in the last chapters and the results of the studies conducted to assess individual’s behavior under stress. The chapter starts with an evaluation of the performance of the several information retrieval methods implemented in terms of its efficiency (how fast they perform) and their efficacy (how well they perform). Afterwards it presents some results on the relationship between stress and personal conflict handling style. A significant part of the chapter is then devoted to detailing the results of the studies conducted on stress and its effect on interaction patterns, focusing on several especially interesting features. The performance of the classifiers developed, used to quantify a level of stress in real time, is also detailed. At this point it is still not a critical analysis of the results, which is performed in the following chapter, but rather an objective and statistical view on the data collected. It is concluded that the most affected features are the ones that people do not conscientiously control, such as the acceleration of our gestures or the intensity of the touch. On the other hand, the parameters that are more rational are not influenced in such a significant manner. This can be seen as positive, in the sense that unconscious behaviors and reactions are more difficult to forge and are usually true reactions of the human body. Thus, the results that stem from their analysis are more reliable.