The invention relates to a system and a method in which an electrophysiological signal is sensed capacitively with at least two closely spaced electrodes such that the electrodes experience strongly correlated skin-electrode distance variations. To be able to derive a motion artifact signal, the capacitive coupling between the electrodes and skin is made intentionally different. With a signal processing means the motion artifact signal can be removed from the measured signal to leave only the desired electrophysiological signal. Since the measured quantity is dependant on the electrode-skin distance itself, the system and method do not need to rely on the constancy of a transfer function. Hereby, they give reliable motion artifact free output signals.