Computer to detect if you are overworked, under-worked or not working at all

The mind reading actually involves measuring the volume and oxygen level of the blood around the subject’s brain, using technology called functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS).

The user wears a sort of futuristic headband that sends light in that spectrum into the tissues of the head where it is absorbed by active, blood-filled tissues. The headband then measures how much light was not absorbed, letting the computer gauge the metabolic demands that the brain is making.

The results are often compared to an MRI, but can be gathered with lightweight, non-invasive equipment.

Detecting overwork

Wearing the fNIRS sensor, experimental subjects were asked to count the number of squares on a rotating onscreen cube and to perform other tasks. The subjects were then asked to rate the difficulty of the tasks, and their ratings agreed with the work intensity detected by the fNIRS system up to 83 percent of the time.

“We don’t know how specific we can be about identifying users’ different emotional states,” cautioned Sergio Fantini, a biomedical engineering professor at Tufts. “However, the particular area of the brain where the blood-flow change occurs should provide indications of the brain’s metabolic changes and by extension workload, which could be a proxy for emotions like frustration.”