The application of Transdermal Optical Imaging in Primary Educational settings

What is Transdermal Optical Imaging?

Transdermal optical imaging (TOI) is a system, which comprises of an image-processing unit, which determines a set of bitplanes of images in the captured sequence that show, the changes in concentration of hemoglobin in the subject. It provides information on the subject’s emotional states based on the changes of concentration of hemoglobin (Lee & Zheng, 2015).

The application of TOI in society

When looking into Transdermal Optical Imaging, there is one issue that we need to address immediately. There are too many variables to gain a completely accurate result; such as the variation from child to child, heat, and ultimately external variables such as home life.

The body is both a natural being and a social being. So much so, that the scientific paradigm of contesting childhood, however powerful, will not be an accurate representation of all beings. This is why social sciences rarely use quantitative measures. It cannot be denied however, that there is a clear application for TOI in society. This may be in political debates (detection of lying and stress levels), legal trials, and even in health care (pre-empting health issues). This would mean that you could see your peer’s physical wellbeing whilst on a video call.

The application of TOI in Primary Educational settings

There are many issues in education. One of these issues being, that children are not always taught in ways in which they learn. With the use of TOI, practitioners would be able to gain an understanding on each individual child by using process of elimination in order to determine stress levels when using different teaching methods.

TOI also has possible application into safeguarding. The practitioner would be able to see reoccurring moods in children in order to gain a better idea on what the child may be experiencing at home.

Ethical issues of TOI in PES

Contemporary ethics were adopted after World War II, predominantly due to the experimental atrocities that were conducted (Farrell, 2005). In order to keep ethical guidelines high in ecological and concurrent validity, we must only look at TOI with reference to these contemporary ethics.

Ethical issues of the application of TOI in PES include:

-       - Right to hide emotion

-      -  Invasion of privacy

-       - Could cause more stress

-       - Would need consent from parents and children

Farrell, A. (2005) Ethical research with children. Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill International (UK).

Lee, K. and Zheng, P., The Governing Council Of The University Of Toronto, 2015. System and method for detecting invisible human emotion. U.S. Patent Application 14/868,601.