This paper describes an Acquisition System for signals representing the human
ElectroDermal Activity (EDA). The developed system is composed of a hardware
component and a software interface that allow to acquire, process and save a
voltage signal representing the Skin Conductance Response (SCR) of a human
subject. A specific design objective was the ability to use the standard soundcard
input of a personal computer and thus avoid extra complexity for the acquisition
hardware. The EDA is controlled by the autonomic nervous system in the human
body. This organ property can be measured by variations in the conductance of
the skin, which can in turn be related to the psychological and emotional state of
the person [1]. We tested our acquisition system using a small set of five subjects
when viewing relaxing videos interrupted by unexpected horror and accident
scenes. Our final objective is to be able to monitor the evolution of the emotional
state in the educational environment and act to maximize the study efficiency.
For this purpose, the software must evolve to classify typical response patterns.
This paper focus on the first part - the hardware and software acquisition system.