ArticleBehavior research methods2024
From lab to life: Evaluating the reliability and validity of psychophysiological data from wearable devices in laboratory and ambulatory settings.
Article in Behavior research methods, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Consumer-oriented (wearable) sleep technology: a systematic SWOT analysis and recommendations for athletes and fitness enthusiasts.Frontiers in sports and active living · 2026Pooled it
- Ambulatory Heart Rate Variability Monitoring in Depressed and Suicidal Adolescents Receiving Intensive Outpatient Treatment: Feasibility Study.JMIR formative research · 2026Article
- Pulse-based photoplethysmography quality assessment improves wearable seizure detection performance.Epilepsia open · 2026Article
- The Impact of Self-Managed Virtual Reality Relaxation on Non-invasive Ambulatory Physiological Markers in Home-Based Psychiatric Care.Applied psychophysiology and biofeedback · 2026Article
- Physiology of everyday sleep and physical activity: An exploratory mixed-methods study of multi-sensor wearables for infants and toddlers.Behavior research methods · 2026Article
- From signal to construct evidence: multimodal consumer-wearable sensing in real general-aviation flight.Frontiers in neuroergonomics · 2026Article
- A Dual In-Person and Remote Assessment Approach to Developing Digital End Points Relevant to Autism and Co-Occurring Conditions: Protocol for a Multisite Observational Study.JMIR research protocols · 2025Article
- Ambulatory physiological measures obtained under naturalistic urban mobility conditions have acceptable reliability.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Quality in Question: Assessing the Accuracy of Four Heart Rate Wearables and the Implications for Psychophysiological Research.Psychophysiology · 2025Article
- A Framework for Selecting and Assessing Wearable Sensors Deployed in Safety Critical Scenarios.Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Review
- ECG-based Emotion Prediction in Real Life: Tackling Heterogeneity Through a Hybrid Personalization Method.IEEE transactions on affective computingArticle
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6 authors.
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Abstract
Despite the increasing popularity of ambulatory assessment, the reliability and validity of psychophysiological signals from wearable devices is unproven in daily life settings. We evaluated the reliability and validity of physiological signals (electrocardiogram, ECG; photoplethysmography, PPG; electrodermal activity, EDA) collected from two wearable devices (Movisens EcgMove4 and Empatica E4) in the lab (N = 67) and daily life (N = 20) among adults aged 18-64 with Mindware as the laboratory gold standard. Results revealed that both wearable devices' valid data rates in daily life were lower than in the laboratory (Movisens ECG 82.94 vs. 93.10%, Empatica PPG 8.79 vs. 26.14%, and Empatica EDA 41.16 vs. 42.67%, respectively). The poor valid data rates of Empatica PPG signals in the laboratory could be partially attributed to participants' hand movements (r = - .27, p = .03). In laboratory settings, heart rate (HR) derived from both wearable devices exhibited higher concurrent validity than heart rate variability (HRV) metrics (ICCs 0.98-1.00 vs. 0.75-0.97). The number of skin conductance responses (SCRs) derived from Empatica showed higher concurrent validity than skin conductance level (SCL, ICCs 0.38 vs. 0.09). Movisens EcgMove4 provided more reliable and valid HRV measurements than Empatica E4 in both laboratory (split-half reliability: 0.95-0.99 vs. 0.85-0.98; concurrent validity: 0.95-1.00 vs. 0.75-0.98; valid data rate: 93.10 vs. 26.14%) and ambulatory settings (split-half reliability: 0.99-1.00 vs. 0.89-0.98; valid data rate: 82.94 vs. 8.79%). Although the reliability and validity of wearable devices are improving, findings suggest researchers should select devices that yield consistently robust and valid data for their measures of interest.
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