Selecting optimal wearables for measuring physiological arousal in robot-delivered mindfulness-based exercises.

While social robots show promise for therapeutic interventions, accurate assessments of (vulnerable) participants' affective outcomes require attention. The careful selection of devices for recording autonomic processes in response to stress-inducing and relaxing exercises is essential to ensure data quality recordings and participants' comfort. This foundational study assessed two commonly utilized devices to record electrodermal activity (EDA), indexed through skin conductance, concerning their sensitivity to stress-relaxation manipulations and social validity during a robot intervention: a sock with a Shimmer device and a wrist-worn Empatica E4.