Introduction to the symposium on Ambulatory Skin Conductance

Ambulatory skin conductance as we see it now emerging on the market with products like the Affectiva Qsensor and the Basis B1, was promoted already in 1997 by Picard and Healey [1]. Also prototype devices such as the Empatica E3, the Smartband, and the Philips DTI-2 ([3] and figure 1) typically measure skin conductance at the base of the wrist, since this is a convenient measurement position. However, traditionally skin conductance (electrodermal activity, or galvanic skin response) is measured on the fingers, the palmar region of the palms, or on the soles of the feet. A traditional skin conductance measurement usually is also corrected with a baseline measurement, while for ambulatory measurements this needs to be self-calibrating. These differences in measurement position and procedure are among the factors that cause differences in measurement results.