# Physiological and Affective Computing through Thermal Imaging: A Survey

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1908.10307 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.10307/

## Key facts

- Cited by 3 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 27 Aug 2019.

## Built on by (most cited first, 3 of 3)

- [A Review of Affective Generation Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.10763/) (2022)
- [Self-adversarial Multi-scale Contrastive Learning for Semantic Segmentation of Thermal Facial Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.10700/) (2022)
- ["Reading Between the Heat": Co-Teaching Body Thermal Signatures for Non-intrusive Stress Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.09932/) (2023)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Thermal imaging-based physiological and affective computing is an emerging research area enabling technologies to monitor our bodily functions and understand psychological and affective needs in a contactless manner. However, up to recently, research has been mainly carried out in very controlled lab settings. As small size and even low-cost versions of thermal video cameras have started to appear on the market, mobile thermal imaging is opening its door to ubiquitous and real-world applications. Here we review the literature on the use of thermal imaging to track changes in physiological cues relevant to affective computing and the technological requirements set so far. In doing so, we aim to establish computational and methodological pipelines from thermal images of the human skin to affective states and outline the research opportunities and challenges to be tackled to make ubiquitous real-life thermal imaging-based affect monitoring a possibility.