New Frontiers for Applications of Thermal Infrared Imaging Devices: Computational Psychopshysiology in the Neurosciences

Thermal infrared imaging has been proposed, and is now used, as a tool for the non-contact and non-invasive computational assessment of human autonomic nervous activity and psychophysiological states. Thanks to a new generation of high sensitivity infrared thermal detectors and the development of computational models of the autonomic control of the facial cutaneous temperature, several autonomic variables can be computed through thermal infrared imaging, including localized blood perfusion rate, cardiac pulse rate, breath rate, sudomotor and stress responses. In fact, all of these parameters impact on the control of the cutaneous temperature. The physiological information obtained through this approach, could then be used to infer about a variety of psychophysiological or emotional states, as proved by the increasing number of psychophysiology or neurosciences studies that use thermal infrared imaging. This paper presents a review of the principal achievements of thermal infrared imaging in computational psychophysiology, focusing on the capability of the technique for providing ubiquitous and unwired monitoring of psychophysiological activity and affective states. It also presents a summary on the modern, up-to-date infrared sensors technology.