How to detect emotions remotely with wireless signals

MIT researchers from have developed "EQ-Radio," a device that can detect a person's emotions using wireless signals. By measuring subtle changes in breathing and heart rhythms, EQ-Radio is 87 percent accurate at detecting if a person is excited, happy, angry or sad -- and can do so without on-body sensors, according to the researchers. MIT professor and project lead Dina Katabi of MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) envisions the system being used in health care and testing viewers' reactions to ads or movies in real time. Using wireless signals reflected off people's bodies, the device measures heartbeats as accurately as an ECG monitor, with a margin of error of approximately 0.3 percent, according to the researchers. It then studies the waveforms within each heartbeat to match a person's behavior to how they previously acted in one of the four emotion-states.