Cited by 251Emotion and Mood RecognitionContext-Aware Activity Recognition SystemsMental Health Research Topics

Personalized Multitask Learning for Predicting Tomorrow's Mood, Stress, and Health

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Taylor, Sara, Jaques, Natasha, Nosakhare, Ehimwenma, Sano, Akane, Picard, Rosalind·2020·IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing

Abstract

While accurately predicting mood and wellbeing could have a number of important clinical benefits, traditional machine learning (ML) methods frequently yield low performance in this domain. We posit that this is because a one-size-fits-all machine learning model is inherently ill-suited to predicting outcomes like mood and stress, which vary greatly due to individual differences. Therefore, we employ Multitask Learning (MTL) techniques to train personalized ML models which are customized to the needs of each individual, but still leverage data from across the population. Three formulations of MTL are compared: i) MTL deep neural networks, which share several hidden layers but have final layers unique to each task; ii) Multi-task Multi-Kernel learning, which feeds information across tasks through kernel weights on feature types; and iii) a Hierarchical Bayesian model in which tasks share a common Dirichlet Process prior. We offer the code for this work in open source. These techniques are investigated in the context of predicting future mood, stress, and health using data collected from surveys, wearable sensors, smartphone logs, and the weather. Empirical results demonstrate that using MTL to account for individual differences provides large performance improvements over traditional machine learning methods and provides personalized, actionable insights.

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Crossref · 10.1109/taffc.2017.2784832

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  • StudentLife combined sensing and self-reports to assess the impact of student workload on stress, whereas Snapshot tracked their mood and sleep.

    “For instance, StudentLife [63] combined sensing and self-reports to assess the impact of student workload on stress, whereas Snapshot [160] tracked their mood and sleep.”
  • Some recent works employ recurrent neural networks, feed-forward layers, multi-task learning and autoencoders to fill in missing sensor data, or to learn better representations.

    “Some recent works employ recurrent neural networks [20], feed-forward layers [159], multi-task learning [160] and autoencoders to fill in missing sensor data [161], or to learn better representations [162].”
  • Individual fairness arises in several tasks where the target manifests itself differently in distinct human subjects, including fatigue in runners, stress and emotion in voice, and mood prediction from wearable sensors.

    “In addition to group-level fairness, individual fairness arises in several tasks where the target manifests itself differently in distinct (human) subjects. This ranges from the expression of fatigue in runners (54), to stress and emotion in voice (55, 56), and, crucially, mood prediction from wearable sensors (46).”
  • Taylor et al. reported that personalized Multitask Learning improved prediction accuracies by 11-21% over non-personalized models.

    “Our findings also corroborate the results of Taylor et al. (46), who report that personalized Multitask Learning (shared common layers neural network, multi-kernel learning using support vector machines, and hierarchical Bayesian models with a common Dirichlet process prior) improved prediction accuracies by 11–21% over non-personalized models.”

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2 of the 45 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Research works printed but not linked: 2

  1. [10]Jaques N Multi-task, multi-kernel learning for estimating individual wellbeing NIPS 2015 Workshop on Multimodal ML 898 2015
  2. [34]Sano A Measuring college students sleep, stress and mental health with wearable sensors and mobile phones Ph D dissertation MIT 2015

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Authors
Taylor, S., Jaques, N., Nosakhare, E., Sano, A., & Picard, R.
Affiliations
MIT Media Lab (US)
Venue
IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing
Published
2020-04-01
Volume
11
Issue
2
Pages
200-213
ISSN
  • 1949-3045 (ISSN-L)
  • 2371-9850
OpenAlex
W2779582454
Cited by
251
References
45
Citations by year
2026: 15 · 2025: 24 · 2024: 37 · 2023: 36 · 2022: 55 · 2021: 30 · 2020: 28 · 2019: 17 · 2018: 7 · 2017: 1 · 2016: 1
FWCI
18.74
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
  • DSpace@MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-sa)
Funders
  • MIT Media Lab Consortium
  • National Institutes of Health (R01GM105018)
  • Samsung
  • NEC Corporation
  • Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Emotion and Mood Recognition
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition › Context-Aware Activity Recognition Systems
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Mental Health Research Topics
Keywords
mood prediction, stress prediction, health prediction, multi-task learning, personalized machine learning, individual differences, Bayesian hierarchical model, Dirichlet process, wearable sensors, meteorological observations, well-being

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