Cited by 802Digital Mental Health InterventionsMental Health Research TopicsContext-Aware Activity Recognition Systems

Personal Sensing: Understanding Mental Health Using Ubiquitous Sensors and Machine Learning

Open access
Mohr, David C., Zhang, Mi, Schueller, Stephen M.·2017·Annual Review of Clinical Psychology

Abstract

Sensors in everyday devices, such as our phones, wearables, and computers, leave a stream of digital traces. Personal sensing refers to collecting and analyzing data from sensors embedded in the context of daily life with the aim of identifying human behaviors, thoughts, feelings, and traits. This article provides a critical review of personal sensing research related to mental health, focused principally on smartphones, but also including studies of wearables, social media, and computers. We provide a layered, hierarchical model for translating raw sensor data into markers of behaviors and states related to mental health. Also discussed are research methods as well as challenges, including privacy and problems of dimensionality. Although personal sensing is still in its infancy, it holds great promise as a method for conducting mental health research and as a clinical tool for monitoring at-risk populations and providing the foundation for the next generation of mobile health (or mHealth) interventions.

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  • Multimodal and intensive sampling data streams might be particularly promising inputs for machine learning models because these models can often handle many correlated predictors.

    “Multimodal and intensive sampling data streams (for example, experience sampling and passive measures gathered through smartphones and other electronic devices) used in some MBI studies133 and mental health research broadly134,135 might be particularly promising inputs for machine learning models, given that these models can often handle many correlated predictors136.”
  • Close interrelationships between everyday behavior, physiology, and mental well-being make digital phenotyping with wearables attractive for detection of mental disorders.

    “Close interrelationships between everyday behavior, physiology, and mental well-being makes digital phenotyping with wearables especially attractive for detection of mental disorders and discovering respective digital biomarkers [8-11].”
  • Smartphone embedded sensors make it possible to indirectly collect data about patients' behaviours and habits, such as social media use, physical activity, or social interactions.

    “Unobtrusive wearable biosensors can continuously monitor physiological parameters throughout the day with high precision [17], whereas smartphone embedded sensors make it possible to indirectly collect data about patients’ behaviours and habits, such as their social media use, physical activity, or social interactions [18,19].”
  • The hierarchical sensing model proposed by Mohr highlights the revolution that new sensors and biosensors can bring to mental health, making it possible to collect raw sensor data that can be converted into behavioural markers through machine learning and data mining.

    “the hierarchical sensing model proposed by Mohr highlights the great revolution that new sensors and biosensors can bring to the field of mental health [85], making it possible to collect raw sensor data (i.e., the lower level of the hierarchy) that can be converted into “behavioural markers” through machine learning and data mining methods [18]”

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Research works printed but not linked: 13

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  5. Murnane EL, Abdullah S, Matthews M, Choudhury T, Gay G. 2015 Social (media) jet lab: how usage of social technology can modulate and reflect circadian rhythms Proc. UbiComp ‘15: 2015 ACM Int. Joint Conf. Pervasive Ubiquitous Comput., Osaka, Jpn, pp. 843– 54. New York: Assoc. Comput. Mach.
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  7. Pham H, Shahabi C, Liu Y. 2013 EBM: an entropy-based model to infer social strength from spatiotemporal data SIGNMOD ‘13: Proc. 2013 ACM SIGMOD Int. Conf. Manag. Data, New York, pp. 265– 76. New York: Assoc. Comput. Mach.
  8. Rachuri KK, Musolesi M, Mascolo C, Rentfrow PJ, Longworth C, Aucinas A. 2010 Emotion sense: a mobile phones based adaptive platform for experimental social psychology research Proc. UbiComp ‘10: 2010 ACM Conf. Ubiquitous Comput., Copenhagen, Denmark, pp. 281– 90. New York: Assoc. Comput. Mach.
  9. Rahman T, Adams AT, Zhang M, Cherry E, Zhou B, 2014 BodyBeat: a mobile system for sensing non-speech body sounds MobiSys ‘14: Proc. 12th Annu. Int. Conf. Mob. Syst. Appl. Serv., Bretton Woods, NH, pp. 2– 13. New York: Assoc. Comput. Mach.
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  12. Wiese J, Hong JI, Zimmerman J. 2014 Challenges and opportunites in data mining contact lists for inferring relationships Proc. UbiComp ‘14: 2014 ACM Int. Joint Conf. Pervasive Ubiquitous Comput., Seattle, WA, Sept. 13–17, pp. 643– 647. New York: Assoc. Comput. Mach.
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Authors
Mohr, D. C., Zhang, M., & Schueller, S. M.
Affiliations
  • Northwestern University (US)
  • Michigan State University (US)
Venue
Annual Review of Clinical Psychology
Published
2017-05-08
Volume
13
Issue
1
Pages
23-47
ISSN
  • 1548-5943 (ISSN-L)
  • 1548-5951
OpenAlex
W2520441859
Cited by
802
References
90
Citations by year
2026: 102 · 2025: 103 · 2024: 105 · 2023: 92 · 2022: 94 · 2021: 99 · 2020: 89 · 2019: 73 · 2018: 32 · 2017: 12 · 2016: 1
FWCI
6.52
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Annual Review of Clinical Psychology (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
  • eScholarship (California Digital Library) (submittedVersion)
Funders
  • National Institutes of Health
  • National Institute of Mental Health (P20MH090318, R01MH111610, R01MH100482, R01MH095753, K08MH102336)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Applied Psychology › Digital Mental Health Interventions
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Mental Health Research Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition › Context-Aware Activity Recognition Systems
Keywords
digital phenotyping, mental health, ubiquitous sensors, smartphones, wearable sensors, social media, digital traces, privacy, dimensionality, mobile health, mobile health intervention, mental health monitoring
MeSH terms
Machine Learning, Mental Disorders, Humans, Telemedicine, Neurophysiological Monitoring

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