Technological Innovations Enabling Automatic, Context-Sensitive Ecological Momentary Assessment

Abstract

Health-related behavior, subjective states, cognitions, and interpersonal experiences are inextricably linked to context. Context includes information about location, time, past activities, interaction with other people and objects, and mental, physiological, and emotional states. Most real-time data collection methodologies require that subjects self-report information about contextual influences, notwithstanding the difficulty they have identifying the contextual factors that are influencing their behavior and subjective states. Often these assessment methodologies ask subjects to report on their activities or thoughts long after the actual events, thereby relying on retrospective recall and introducing memory biases. The “gold standard” alternative to these self-report instruments is direct observation. Direct observation in a laboratory setting, however, artificially constrains behavior. Direct observation is also typically too costly and invasive for long-term, large-sample-size studies of people in their natural environments.