# Determinants of Emotion Recognition System Adoption: Empirical Evidence from Malaysia
###### Abstract
It has attracted significant interest from researchers, as evidenced by the increasing trend in studies related to ERS over the past decade, as shown in Figure 1. This underscores the importance of the research area. For the development of complex systems such as human-interacting robots, a sub-system capable of understanding and expressing human emotions has been proposed [6]. Previous studies indicate that ERS holds promise as a significant technology, offering advantages to individuals, societies, organizations, businesses, and industries across various platforms or applications. Examples include ERS in healthcare [12], driving assistance [13], and enhancing teaching and learning technologies in the education sector [14]. However, over the last decade of ERS development, the research focus has mainly been in the area of developing and establishing the applications and modalities of ERS from  
Figure 1: ERS trend ([[https://link.lens.org/MjQS1](https://link.lens.org/MjQS1) wQaWkj]([https://link.lens.org/MjQS1](https://link.lens.org/MjQS1) wQaWkj)), accessed on 10 June 2023.  
the perspective of engineers and scientists. There is a limited number of studies in the field of social science that consider the level of readiness of potential users to adopt ERS. This influenced the research interest for this study on users' adoption readiness towards ERS. Locally, the Malaysian government is driving the IR 4.0 agenda. This can be seen with the introduction of the National IR 4.0 policy 2021, the National AI Roadmap 2021-2025, and the allocation of a budget for IR 4.0 initiatives in the Twelfth Malaysia Plan (12 MP) 2021-2025. One of the key factors that can ensure the success of the agenda is to ensure that young people are ready to adopt IR 4.0 technologies, which include ERS, a key technology for both IR 4.0 and IR 5.0. There is a wide range of potential innovative solutions that we can produce with ERS, but innovators need to have a better understanding of the factors affecting users' adoption of ERS. This study aims to explore the adoption and readiness of users towards ERS. By investigating their sentiments towards ERS and the factors influencing users' adoption readiness for ERS, this research seeks to provide insights into whether individuals are prepared to integrate ERS into their lives. Drawing from established technology adoption theories, this study pinpoints key factors that will determine whether users are ready to embrace ERS as a valuable component of technological advancement. Specifically, this study was designed to identify and understand the determinants of ERS adoption in the context of Malaysian youth. According to the new Malaysian youth policy, the age range for this group is between 18 and 30 years old3. Referred to as digital natives [15], the youth cohorts that were born in the 1980s and later are characterized as possessing sophisticated knowledge and skills regarding technology compared to the older generations. Young people are a key technology adopter group in society as they are characteristically more technology savvy. As suggested by previous studies, technology and youth can be seen as complementary to each other because young people are key influencers of technology trajectories based on their usage [15; 16]. Thus, there is a need to identify and understand the determinants of ERS adoption in the context of youth in general and Malaysian youth specifically. The insights will enable ERS practitioners to develop more impactful ERS to benefit societies, businesses, industries, and the country. Policymakers would be able to propose enhancements towards relevant policies and launch new initiatives that accelerate the adoption of ERS specifically and AI technologies in general. Moreover, the findings of this study will offer valuable insights into the determinants of ERS adoption readiness that can help in preparing society for emerging technologies such as ERS.