The Effect of Music and Light-Color as a Machine Empathic Response on Stress in Occupational Health

Abstract

In a world where technological advancements are progressing at a vertiginous pace, social networks, online games, virtual worlds, streaming services, and remote work are part of everyday life. This is the case for the work environment, with the use of technological tools and home offices. In contrast, harmful aspects have been amplified, such as stress that affects occupational health. Lately, considerable interest has been gained in the affective domain in improving the occupational situation using empathic responses. In this work, we study the effect of machine empathic responses such as blue light, relaxing music, and the combination of light and music on people performing stressful tasks in an occupational environment. Thirty five participants tested different stimuli, eleven tested the music condition, twelve the light effect, and another twelve the combination of light and music. The monitoring of the heart rate variability along with psychological measures show that empathic responses can help reduce humans stress levels.