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BioResonant interfaces : tangible, subliminal biofeedback to regulate physiological states
Abstract
This thesis introduces BioResonant interfaces, which bidirectionally communicate with the user's body to provide information on their physiological state. This facilitates regulation of their stress levels and ultimately a more mindful daily life. Based on the principle of respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) and physiological synchronization, the BioResonant interface is designed to stimulate at the subconscious level using subliminal tactile biofeedback. Through this process, the user's physiological state can be aligned with their desired state. I present three different forms of the BioResonant Interface, a wearable device, a cushion, and a kinetic display, which utilize either heart rate (HR) or breathing rate (BR), or both. I present their fabrication, design, and evaluation method in the following interaction scale order: local interaction with the skin; general interaction with the body; and embodied interaction with the environment.
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reSpire lets people bring tangibility to their invisible physiological state through shape-changing fabric deformed by airflow. We explore a way to support mental wellness via improving a self-interaction and interpersonal connectedness. reSpire encourages not only people to focus on their connection to inner body but also to interact with others through playful tangible interactions in the same location and develop a empathy. We created a non-machine like interface responsive to users' respiration patterns and hand gestures using a fabric and its deformation by airflow control. We also introduce a computational model to simulate the deformation of fabric by the variance of airflow pres-sure and direction. Various interaction scenarios highlight its applications not only to health but also to interactive art installation.
Background
The Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) is involved in the response to various emotional stimuli like anxiety, stress, and the sense of wellbeing.
As a control system the ANS plays a variety of roles in humans, including regulation of the cardiac function, which can be studied by analyzing heart rate variability (HRV). HRV coherence has been associated with a sense of wellbeing, along with enhanced cognitive, social, and physical performance.
Extremely low frequency electromagnetic fields (ELF-EMF) are used in a variety of clinical areas, however very little is known to date about the functional mechanisms involved in vivo.
An interaction with the ANS is one of the possible ways in which the effects of ELF-EMF therapy are modulated in living systems.
In this single-blind study the effects on the ANS of 5 different electromagnetic configurations were analysed by measuring the HRV using a HeartMath® EmWave® Pro device.
Materials and methods
46 healthy subjects of 20 to 30 years in age were recruited and divided into two groups (treatment group µ and control group λ). After measuring the baseline HRV coherence state (ω) the subjects in group µ were assessed during administration of 5 different ELF-EMF configurations from a SEQEX® device, all at the same intensity of 20 μT (the name attributed to the configuration is in brackets) for a duration of 3 min. each: 1-3 Hz (δ), 4-8 Hz (θ), 9-13 Hz (α), 15-29 Hz (β), and 31-56 Hz (γ). The subjects in group λ were measured in the same way and the same number of times.
Results
The initial coherence values ω were comparable between the two groups (µ: 36%, λ: 36.39%). Under the 1-3 Hz (δ) and 15-29 Hz (β) treatment configurations, group µ had an average HRV coherence of 46.26% and 47.26% respectively, while group λ had 38.13% and 37.39% respectively, representing a significant increase in HRV coherence under treatment (pδ = 0.035 and pβ = 0.046).
Conclusions
The ANS appears to be sensitive in a frequency dependent manner to treatment with ELF-EMF. This is very important, if confirmed in further studies, not only for better understanding the mechanism of action of ELF-EMF on complex biological systems, but more importantly for therapeutic purposes under different levels of psychopathological discomfort like stress and anxiety, as well as for modulating perceived pain and organ dysregulation.
In this paper, we explore the delivery of fast breathing interventions in a driving context, given the proven effects of high-paced breathing on autonomic arousal. Through in-lab simulator studies, we demonstrate the feasibility of using haptic guidance to increase breathing rate, intensity, and heart rate as well as subjective perceptions of alertness and focus. We also assess usability and user receptivity towards the approach across various simulated driving scenarios (highway, city), times of day (day, night), and traffic levels (low, heavy, fast). In doing so, we outline specific use cases where fast breathing interventions are more or less appropriate and beneficial (e.g., during long, monotonous drives on the highway or at night vs. complex or tense driving scenarios), and we offer fertile future directions for the continued development of breathing systems for health and well-being.
Motivated by the idea that slow breathing practices could transform the automobile commute from a depleting, mindless activity into a calming, mindful experience, we introduce the first guided slow breathing intervention for drivers. We describe a controlled in-lab experiment (N=24) that contrasts the effectiveness and impact of haptic and voice guidance modalities at slowing drivers' breathing pace, which is a known modulator of stress. The experiment was conducted in two simulated driving environments (city, highway) while driving in one of two driving modes (autonomous, manual). Results show that both haptic and voice guidance systems can reduce drivers' breathing rate and provide a sustained post-intervention effect without affecting driving safety. Subjectively, most participants (19/24) preferred the haptic stimuli as they found it more natural to follow, less distracting, and easier to engage and disengage from, compared to the voice stimuli. Finally, while most participants found guided breathing to be a positive experience, a few participants in the autonomous driving condition found slow breathing to be an unusual activity inside the car. In this paper, we discuss such considerations, offer guidelines for designing in-car breathing interventions, and propose future research that extends our work to on-road studies. Altogether, this paper serves as foundational work on guided breathing interventions for automobile drivers.
Objective:
Physical or mental imbalance caused by harmful stimuli can induce stress to maintain homeostasis. During chronic stress, the sympathetic nervous system is hyperactivated, causing physical, psychological, and behavioral abnormalities. At present, there is no accepted standard for stress evaluation. This review aimed to survey studies providing a rationale for selecting heart rate variability (HRV) as a psychological stress indicator.
Methods:
Term searches in the Web of Science®, National Library of Medicine (PubMed), and Google Scholar databases yielded 37 publications meeting our criteria. The inclusion criteria were involvement of human participants, HRV as an objective psychological stress measure, and measured HRV reactivity.
Results:
In most studies, HRV variables changed in response to stress induced by various methods. The most frequently reported factor associated with variation in HRV variables was low parasympathetic activity, which is characterized by a decrease in the high-frequency band and an increase in the low-frequency band. Neuroimaging studies suggested that HRV may be linked to cortical regions (e.g., the ventromedial prefrontal cortex) that are involved in stressful situation appraisal.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, the current neurobiological evidence suggests that HRV is impacted by stress and supports its use for the objective assessment of psychological health and stress.
Interoception refers to the process by which the nervous system senses, interprets, and integrates signals originating from within the body, providing a moment-by-moment mapping of the body’s internal landscape across conscious and unconscious levels. Interoceptive signaling has been considered a component process of reflexes, urges, feelings, drives, adaptive responses, cognitive and emotional experiences, highlighting its contributions to the maintenance of homeostatic functioning, body regulation, and survival. Dysfunction of interoception is increasingly recognized as an important component of different mental health conditions including anxiety disorders, mood disorders, eating disorders, addictive disorders, somatic symptom disorders, and others. However, a number of conceptual and methodological challenges have made it difficult for interoceptive constructs to be broadly applied in mental health research and treatment settings. In November 2016, the Laureate Institute for Brain Research organized the first Interoception Summit, a gathering of interoception experts from around the world, with the goal of accelerating progress in understanding the role of interoception in mental health. The discussions at the meeting were organized around four themes: interoceptive assessment, interoceptive integration, interoceptive psychopathology, and the generation of a roadmap that could serve as a guide for future endeavors. This article presents an overview of the emerging consensus generated by the meeting.
Spontaneous interpersonal synchronization of rhythmic behavior such as gait or clapping is a ubiquitous phenomenon in human interactions, and is potentially important for social relationships and action understanding. Although several authors have suggested a role of the mirror neuron system in interpersonal coupling, the underlying brain mechanisms are not well understood. Here we argue that more general theories of neural computations, namely predictive coding and the Free Energy Principle, could explain interpersonal coordination dynamics. Each brain minimizes coding costs by reducing the mismatch between the representations of observed and own motor behavior. Continuous mutual prediction and alignment result in an overall minimization of free energy, thus forming a stable attractor state.
Concepts embraced by the term coherence have been identified as central to fields such as quantum physics, physiology, and social science. There are different types of coherence, although the term always implies a harmonious relationship, correlations and connections between the various parts of a system. A specific measure derived from heart rate variability (HRV) provides a measure of physiological coherence. Another type of coherence, social coherence, relates to the harmonious alignment between couples or pairs, family units, small groups, or larger organizations in which a network of relationships exists among individuals who share common interests and objectives. A high degree of social coherence is reflected by stable and harmonious relationships, which allows for the efficient flow and utilization of energy and communication required for optimal collective cohesion and action. Social coherence requires that group members are attuned and are emotionally connected with each other, and that the group’s emotional energy is organized and regulated by the group as a whole. A number of studies are reviewed which have explored various types of synchronization in infants, pairs and groups, indicating that feelings of cooperation, trust, compassion and increased prosocial behaviors depends largely on the establishment of a spontaneous synchronization of various physiological rhythms between individuals. This article discusses a new application using HRV monitoring in social coherence research and the importance of physiological synchronization in group developmental processes and dynamics. Building on the extensive body of research showing that providing feedback of HRV coherence level at the individual level can improve self-regulation, we suggest the following hypotheses: (1) providing feedback of individual and collective HRV coherence and the degree of heart rhythm synchronization will increase group coherence, and heart rhythm synchronization among group members. (2) Training in techniques to increase group coherence and heart rhythm synchronization will correlate with increased prosocial behaviors, such as kindness and cooperation among individuals, improved communication, and decreases in social discord and adversarial interactions. (3) Biomagnetic fields produced by the heart may be a primary mechanism in mediating HRV synchronization among group members. Data supporting each of the hypothesis is discussed.
Healthy biological systems exhibit complex patterns of variability that can be described by mathematical chaos. Heart rate variability (HRV) consists of changes in the time intervals between consecutive heartbeats called interbeat intervals (IBIs). A healthy heart is not a metronome. The oscillations of a healthy heart are complex and constantly changing, which allow the cardiovascular system to rapidly adjust to sudden physical and psychological challenges to homeostasis. This article briefly reviews current perspectives on the mechanisms that generate 24 h, short-term (~5 min), and ultra-short-term (<5 min) HRV, the importance of HRV, and its implications for health and performance. The authors provide an overview of widely-used HRV time-domain, frequency-domain, and non-linear metrics. Time-domain indices quantify the amount of HRV observed during monitoring periods that may range from ~2 min to 24 h. Frequency-domain values calculate the absolute or relative amount of signal energy within component bands. Non-linear measurements quantify the unpredictability and complexity of a series of IBIs. The authors survey published normative values for clinical, healthy, and optimal performance populations. They stress the importance of measurement context, including recording period length, subject age, and sex, on baseline HRV values. They caution that 24 h, short-term, and ultra-short-term normative values are not interchangeable. They encourage professionals to supplement published norms with findings from their own specialized populations. Finally, the authors provide an overview of HRV assessment strategies for clinical and optimal performance interventions.
Repeated mechanical failure due to accidental impact is one of the main reasons why people with upper-limb amputations abandon commercially-available prosthetic hands. To address this problem, we present the design and evaluation of a compliant four-bar linkage mechanism that makes the fingers of a prosthetic hand more impact resistant. Our design replaces both the rigid input and coupler links with a monolithic compliant bone, and replaces the follower link with three layers of pre-stressed spring steel. This design behaves like a conventional four-bar linkage but adds lateral compliance and eliminates a pin joint, which is a main site of failure on impact. Results from free-end and fixed-end impact tests show that, compared to those made with a conventional four-bar linkage, fingers made with our design absorb up to 11% more energy on impact with no mechanical failure. We also show the integration of these fingers in a prosthetic hand that is low-cost, light-weight, and easy to assemble, and that has grasping performance comparable to commercially-available hands.
The human ability to synchronize with other individuals is critical for the development of social behavior. Recent research has shown that physiological inter-personal synchronization may underlie behavioral synchrony. Nevertheless, the factors that modulate physiological coupling are still largely unknown. Here we suggest that social touch and empathy for pain may enhance interpersonal physiological coupling. Twenty-two romantic couples were assigned the roles of target (pain receiver) and observer (pain observer) under pain/no-pain and touch/no-touch conditions, and their ECG and respiration rates were recorded. The results indicate that the partner touch increased interpersonal respiration coupling under both pain and no-pain conditions and increased heart rate coupling under pain conditions. In addition, physiological coupling was diminished by pain in the absence of the partner’s touch. Critically, we found that high partner’s empathy and high levels of analgesia enhanced coupling during the partner’s touch. Collectively, the evidence indicates that social touch increases interpersonal physiological coupling during pain. Furthermore, the effects of touch on cardio-respiratory inter-partner coupling may contribute to the analgesic effects of touch via the autonomic nervous system.
During social interactions, people tend to automatically align with or mimic their interactor's facial expressions, vocalizations, postures, and other bodily states. Automatic mimicry might be implicated in empathy, affiliation, and empathy, and is impaired in several pathologies. Despite a growing body of literature on its phenomenology, the function and underlying mechanisms of mimicry remain poorly understood. The current review puts forward a new Neurocognitive Model of Emotional Contagion (NMEC) demonstrating how basic automatic mimicry can give rise to emotional contagion. We combine neurological, developmental, and evolutionary insights to argue that automatic mimicry is a precursor to healthy social development. We show that i) strong synchronization exists between people, ii) that this resonates on different levels of processing and iii) demonstrate how mimicry translates into the emotional contagion. We conclude that our synthesized model, build on integrating knowledge from various fields provides a promising avenue for future research on the role of mimicry in human mental health and social development.
While technology is usually associated with causing stress, technology also has the potential to bring about calm. In particular, breathing usually speeds up with higher stress, but it can be slowed through a manipulation, and in so doing, it can help the person lower their stress and improve their focus. This paper introduces BrightBeat, a set of seamless visual and auditory interventions that look like respiratory biofeedback, rhythmically oscillating, but that are tuned to appear with a slower speed, with the aim of slowing a stressed computer user's breathing and, consequently, bringing a sense of focus and calmness. These interventions were designed to run easily on commonplace personal electronic devices and to not require any focused attention in order to be effective. We have run a randomized placebo-controlled trial and examined both objective and subjective measures of impact with N=32 users undergoing work tasks. BrightBeat significantly influenced slower breathing, had a lasting effect, improved self-reported calmness and focus, and was highly preferred for future use.
In this study, we present a modular worm-like robot, which utilizes voice coils as a new paradigm in soft robot actuation. Drive electronics are incorporated into the actuators, providing a significant improvement in self-sufficiency when compared with existing soft robot actuation modes such as pneumatics or hydraulics. The body plan of this robot is inspired by the phylum Annelida and consists of three-dimensional printed voice coil actuators, which are connected by flexible silicone membranes. Each electromagnetic actuator engages with its neighbor to compress or extend the membrane of each segment, and the sequence in which they are actuated results in an earthworm-inspired peristaltic motion. We find that a minimum of three segments is required for locomotion, but due to our modular design, robots of any length can be quickly and easily assembled. In addition to actuation, voice coils provide audio input and output capabilities. We demonstrate transmission of data between segments by high-frequency carrier waves and, using a similar mechanism, we note that the passing of power between coupled coils in neighboring modules—or from an external power source—is also possible. Voice coils are a convenient multifunctional alternative to existing soft robot actuators. Their self-contained nature and ability to communicate with each other are ideal for modular robotics, and the additional functionality of sound input/output and power transfer will become increasingly useful as soft robots begin the transition from early proof-of-concept systems toward fully functional and highly integrated robotic systems.
In this paper we demonstrate that it is possible to help individuals regulate their emotions with mobile interventions that leverage the way we naturally react to our bodily signals. Previous studies demonstrate that the awareness of our bodily signals, such as our heart rate, directly influences the way we feel. By leveraging these findings we designed a wearable device to regulate user's anxiety by providing a false feedback of a slow heart rate. The results of an experiment with 67 participants show that the device kept the anxiety of the individuals in low levels when compared to the control group and the other conditions. We discuss the implications of our findings and present some promising directions for designing and developing this type of intervention for emotion regulation.
Interoception can be broadly defined as the sense of signals originating within the body. As such, interoception is critical for our sense of embodiment, motivation and well-being. And yet, despite its importance, interoception remains poorly understood within modern science. This paper reviews interdisciplinary perspectives on interoception, with the goal of presenting a unified perspective from diverse fields such as neuroscience, clinical practice, and contemplative studies. It is hoped that this integrative effort will advance our understanding of how interoception determines well-being, and identify the central challenges to such understanding. To this end, we introduce an expanded taxonomy of interoceptive processes, arguing that many of these processes can be understood through an emerging predictive coding model for mind-body integration. The model, which describes the tension between expected and felt body sensation, parallels contemplative theories, and implicates interoception in a variety of affective and psychosomatic disorders. We conclude that maladaptive construal of bodily sensations may lie at the heart of many contemporary maladies, and that contemplative practices may attenuate these interpretative biases, restoring a person’s sense of presence and agency in the world.
This paper will focus on electromagnetic fields
generated by the heart that permeate every cell and
may act as a synchronizing signal for the body in a
manner analogous to information carried by radio
waves. Particular emphasis will be devoted to evidence
demonstrating that this energy is not only
transmitted internally to the brain but is also detectable
by others within its range of communication.
Finally, data will be discussed indicating that
cells studied in vitro are also responsive to the heart’s
bioelectromagnetic field.
As we face an increasingly heterogeneous collection of computational devices, there is a need to develop a general approach to what it is that we design as we create computa-tional things. One such basic approach is to consider computational technology to be a design material . In the present paper, we describe how a traditional material – textiles – can be used to investigate aspects of the expres-siveness and aesthetics of computational technology as design material. As an example of this approach, we use an experimental design project made for an art museum. We describe a series of conceptual sketches of how textile artefacts can be used to re-interpret elementary acts of information technology use and the experiences from working with the final installation of one of them. Finally, we discuss properties of textiles and computational technology, such as expressions related to vagueness, unpredictability and slowness.
The use of haptics as a complement to verbal and visual communication across digital media is becoming well understood. Good arguments have also been made for the adoption of this modality for the communication of emotive, affective information. This article proposes an additional purpose for the consideration of the haptic community: the possibility of storing individually recognizable touch. In this manner, the comforting touch of a loved one could be recorded for access at a distance from the original event, whether that distance is in space or time. This is not the familiar attempt to re-create perfectly the tactile impression of a generic human action such as a hug or a hand clasp. Furthermore, this is far from the attempts to mechanically re-create sexual intimacy. Rather the article proposes the preservation of just enough information about a pattern of touch to make it preattentively recognizable as a “ghost touch” from a loved one who is, temporarily or permanently, beyond one’s reach. The article proposes that current technology should already make it possible to record and replay a single pattern of movement or a series of interrelated movements—where the technology triggers reactions from the user as they would be triggered by their loved one. It is time to consider focusing this developing technology on the purely emotional, entirely human desire to be touched again by a remembered love.
This study examined the effectiveness of heart rate variability (HRV) biofeedback intervention for reduction of psychological stress in women in the early postpartum period. On postpartum day 4, 55 healthy subjects received a brief explanation about HRV biofeedback using a portable device. Among them, 25 mothers who agreed to implement HRV biofeedback at home were grouped as the biofeedback group, and other 30 mothers were grouped as the control group. At 1 month postpartum, there was a significant decrease in total Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale score (P < 0.001) in the biofeedback group; this change was brought about mainly by decreases in items related to anxiety or difficulty sleeping. There was also a significant increase in standard deviation of the normal heartbeat interval (P < 0.01) of the resting HRV measures in the biofeedback group after adjusting for potential covariates. In conclusion, postpartum women who implemented HRV biofeedback after delivery were relatively free from anxiety and complained less of difficulties sleeping at 1 month postpartum. Although the positive effects of HRV biofeedback may be partly attributable to intervention effects, due to its clinical outcome, HRV biofeedback appears to be recommendable for many postpartum women as a feasible health-promoting measure after childbirth.
In recent years there has been substantial support for heart rate variability biofeedback (HRVB) as a treatment for a variety of disorders and for performance enhancement (Gevirtz, 2013). Since conditions as widely varied as asthma and depression seem to respond to this form of cardiorespiratory feedback training, the issue of possible mechanisms becomes more salient. The most supported possible mechanism is the strengthening of homeostasis in the baroreceptor (Vaschillo et al., 2002; Lehrer et al., 2003). Recently, the effect on the vagal afferent pathway to the frontal cortical areas has been proposed. In this article, we review these and other possible mechanisms that might explain the positive effects of HRVB.
The monitoring of human respiratory rate is essential in many clinical applications including the detection and monitoring of sleep disorders, the monitoring of newborns for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), and identifying patients at high risk up to 24 hours before an adverse event like stroke and cardiac arrest [1]. Traditional noninvasive respiratory rate measurements in a hospital setting rely on clinical staff to visually track a patient's chest movement for a period of time to derive the respiratory rate from the number of movements observed. Failure to perform continuous and quantified measurements of respiratory rate could result in an inability to rescue a patient exhibiting respiratory distress. Severe after effects hinder recovery and result in loss of time, cost, or even life. This paper proposes an e-textile pressure sensitive bed sheet to non-invasively and accurately measure respiratory rate by analyzing time-stamped pressure distribution sequences. The bed sheet provides a 24/7 quantified on-bed respiratory rate monitoring service. It is made of e-textile and is similar to a regular bed sheet in comfort. As a result, it can seamlessly fit in common clinical or home environments, reducing the possible interference with a patient's regular sleeping habits and resulting in a type of inconspicuous monitoring.
Objective
Tactile spatial acuity is routinely tested in neurology to assess the state of the dorsal column system. In contrast, spatial acuity for pain is not assessed, having never been systematically characterized. More than a century after the initial description of tactile acuity across the body, we provide the first systematic whole-body mapping of spatial acuity for pain.
Methods
We evaluated the 2-point discrimination thresholds for both nociceptive-selective and tactile stimuli across several skin regions. Thresholds were estimated using pairs of simultaneous stimuli, and also using successive stimuli.
Results and interpretation
These two approaches produced convergent results. The fingertip was the area of highest spatial acuity, for both pain and touch. On the glabrous skin of the hand, the gradient of spatial acuity for pain followed that observed for touch. On the hairy skin of the upper limb, spatial acuity for pain and touch followed opposite proximal–distal gradients, consistent with the known innervation density of this body territory. Finally, by testing spatial acuity for pain in a rare participant completely lacking Aβ fibers, we demonstrate that spatial acuity for pain does not rely on a functioning system of tactile primary afferents. This study represents the first systematic characterization of spatial acuity for pain across multiple regions of the body surface. Ann Neurol 2014;75:917–924
The purpose of this study was to examine multiple psychosocial factors (social support, negative affect, coping skills, and perceived health status) as moderators of perceived stress on illness behavior. College students re-cruited from undergraduate psychology courses completed measures in an on-line survey. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses indicated that commonly investigated psychosocial factors such as affectivity, coping, and social support moderated the relationship between perceived stress and one illness behavior (report of illness without visits to the doctor). However, other moderator variables less investigated, such as perceived health status had a significant effect on both illness behaviors (self-reported incidents of illness with and without visits to the doctor). Our findings highlight the role of behavioral health in primary care and the importance of educat-ing individuals on the relationship between psychosocial factors and health.
Interpersonal touch is of paramount importance in human social bonding and close relationships, allowing a unique channel for affect communication. So far the effect of touch on human physiology has been studied at an individual level. The present study aims at extending the study of affective touch from isolated individuals to truly interacting dyads. We have designed an ecological paradigm where romantic partners interact only via touch and we manipulate their empathic states. Simultaneously, we collected their autonomic activity (skin conductance, pulse, respiration). Fourteen couples participated to the experiment. We found that interpersonal touch increased coupling of electrodermal activity between the interacting partners, regardless the intensity and valence of the emotion felt. In addition, physical touch induced strong and reliable changes in physiological states within individuals. These results support an instrumental role of interpersonal touch for affective support in close relationships. Furthermore, they suggest that touch alone allows the emergence of a somatovisceral resonance between interacting individuals, which in turn is likely to form the prerequisites for emotional contagion and empathy.
Caregiving touch has been shown to be essential for the growth and development of human infants. However, the physiological and behavioral mechanisms that underpin infants' sensitivity to pleasant touch are still poorly understood. In human adults, a subclass of unmyelinated peripheral nerve fibers has been shown to respond preferentially to medium-velocity soft brushing. It has been theorized that this privileged pathway for pleasant touch is used for close affiliative interactions with conspecific individuals, especially between caregivers and infants. To test whether human infants are sensitive to pleasant touch, we examined arousal (heart rate) and attentional engagement (gaze shifts and duration of looks) to varying velocities of brushing (slow, medium, and fast) in 9-month-old infants. Our results provide physiological and behavioral evidence that sensitivity to pleasant touch emerges early in development and therefore plays an important role in regulating human social interactions.
The concept of the brain as a prediction machine has enjoyed a resurgence in the context of the Bayesian brain and predictive coding approaches within cognitive science. To date, this perspective has been applied primarily to exteroceptive perception (e.g., vision, audition), and action. Here, I describe a predictive, inferential perspective on interoception: 'interoceptive inference' conceives of subjective feeling states (emotions) as arising from actively-inferred generative (predictive) models of the causes of interoceptive afferents. The model generalizes 'appraisal' theories that view emotions as emerging from cognitive evaluations of physiological changes, and it sheds new light on the neurocognitive mechanisms that underlie the experience of body ownership and conscious selfhood in health and in neuropsychiatric illness.
Prominent theories highlight the importance of bodily perception for self-consciousness, but it is currently not known whether bodily perception is based on interoceptive or exteroceptive signals or on integrated signals from these anatomically distinct systems. In the research reported here, we combined both types of signals by surreptitiously providing participants with visual exteroceptive information about their heartbeat: A real-time video image of a periodically illuminated silhouette outlined participants' (projected, "virtual") bodies and flashed in synchrony with their heartbeats. We investigated whether these "cardio-visual" signals could modulate bodily self-consciousness and tactile perception. We report two main findings. First, synchronous cardio-visual signals increased self-identification with and self-location toward the virtual body, and second, they altered the perception of tactile stimuli applied to participants' backs so that touch was mislocalized toward the virtual body. We argue that the integration of signals from the inside and the outside of the human body is a fundamental neurobiological process underlying self-consciousness.
Identifying with a body is a central to being a conscious self. The now classic "rubber hand illusion" demonstrates that the experience of body-ownership can be modulated by manipulating the timing of exteroceptive (visual and tactile) body-related feedback. Moreover, the strength of this modulation is related to individual differences in sensitivity to internal bodily signals (interoception). However the interaction of exteroceptive and interoceptive signals in determining the experience of body-ownership within an individual remains poorly understood. Here, we demonstrate that this depends on the on-line integration of exteroceptive and interoceptive signals by implementing an innovative 'cardiac rubber hand illusion' that combined computer-generated augmented-reality with feedback of interoceptive (cardiac) information. We show that both subjective and objective measures of virtual-hand ownership are enhanced by cardio-visual feedback in-time with the actual heartbeat, as compared to asynchronous feedback. We further show these measures correlate with individual differences in interoceptive sensitivity, and are also modulated by the integration of proprioceptive signals instantiated using real-time visual remapping of finger movements to the virtual hand. Our results demonstrate that interoceptive signals directly influence the experience of body ownership via multisensory integration, and they lend support to models of conscious selfhood based on interoceptive predictive coding.
The aim of this study was to examine the effect of resonant breathing biofeedback training for reducing stress among manufacturing operators. Resonant breathing biofeedback works by teaching people to recognize their involuntary heart rate variability and to control patterns of this physiological response. Thirty-six female operators from an electronic manufacturing factory were randomly assigned as the experimental group (n = 19) and the control group (n = 17). The participants of the intervention received 5 weekly sessions of biofeedback training. Physiological stress profiles and self-perceived depression, anxiety, and stress scale (DASS) were assessed at pre- and post-intervention. Results indicated that depression, anxiety, and stress significantly decreased after the training in the experimental group; they were supported by a significant increase in physiological measures. Overall, these results support the potential application of resonant biofeedback training to reduce negative emotional symptoms among industrial workers.
The meaning of spontaneous skin conductance activity, and its relevance to appraisal theory, are examined. Spontaneous skin conductance activity is hypothesised to reflect task engagement, and thus to be correlated with appraisals of problem-focused coping potential. In a within-subjects design, subjects solved anagrams in which task difficulty was manipulated by varying both the difficulty of the anagrams and the amount of time available to solve them. In the most difficult condition, appraisals of coping potential were expected, and observed, to be especially low, and these appraisals were predicted to produce selective disengagement from the task, yielding reduced skin conductance activity. Within trials, skin conductance activity increased at the start of the trials in all conditions, but decreased by the end of the trials in the most difficult condition only. At the end of the trials, both spontaneous response rate and maximum response amplitude were positively correlated, within-subjects, with appraisals of coping potential, and, even after controlling for task difficulty, with solving the anagram. These findings support the hypothesised relation between appraised coping potential and spontaneous skin conductance activity, and the interpretation of this activity as reflecting task engagement.
Cognition materializes in an interpersonal space. The emergence of complex behaviors requires the coordination of actions among individuals according to a shared set of rules. Despite the central role of other individuals in shaping one's mind, most cognitive studies focus on processes that occur within a single individual. We call for a shift from a single-brain to a multi-brain frame of reference. We argue that in many cases the neural processes in one brain are coupled to the neural processes in another brain via the transmission of a signal through the environment. Brain-to-brain coupling constrains and shapes the actions of each individual in a social network, leading to complex joint behaviors that could not have emerged in isolation.
This paper describes design explorations for stress mitigation on mobile devices based on three types of interventions: haptic feedback, games and social networks. The paper offers a qualitative assessment of the usability of these three types of interventions together with an initial analysis of their potential efficacy. Social networking and games show great potential for stress relief. Lastly, the paper discusses key findings and considerations for long-term studies of stress mitigation in HCI, as well as a list of aspects to be considered when designing calming interventions.
Dyadic and collective activities requiring temporally coordinated action are likely to be associated with cardiac and respiratory patterns that synchronize within and between people. However, the extent and functional significance of cardiac and respiratory between-person couplings have not been investigated thus far. Here, we report interpersonal oscillatory couplings among eleven singers and one conductor engaged in choir singing. We find that: (a) phase synchronization both in respiration and heart rate variability increase significantly during singing relative to a rest condition; (b) phase synchronization is higher when singing in unison than when singing pieces with multiple voice parts; (c) directed coupling measures are consistent with the presence of causal effects of the conductor on the singers at high modulation frequencies; (d) the different voices of the choir are reflected in network analyses of cardiac and respiratory activity based on graph theory. Our results suggest that oscillatory coupling of cardiac and respiratory patterns provide a physiological basis for interpersonal action coordination.
Given the pervasiveness of stress and anxiety in our culture it is important to develop and implement interventions that can be easily utilized by large numbers of people that are readily available, inexpensive and have minimal side effects. Two studies explored the effectiveness of a computer-based heart rate variability biofeedback program on reducing anxiety and negative mood in college students. A pilot project (n = 9) of highly anxious students revealed sizable decreases in anxiety and negative mood following utilizing the program for 4 weeks. A second study (n = 35) employing an immediate versus delayed treatment design replicated the results, although the magnitude of the impact was not quite as strong. Despite observing decreases in anxiety, the expected changes in psychophysiological coherence were not observed.
One of the attractions of Gibson’s concept of ecological perception is that it seems to provide a basic awareness of the bodily self that can serve as the core of a comprehensive account of full-fledged self-consciousness in thought and action. On the ecological understanding of perception, sensitivity to self-specifying information is built into the very structure of perception in such a way that, as Gibson famously put it, all perception involves co-perception of the (bodily) self and the environment. This paper shows how Gibson’s ecological account is not itself sufficient for self-awareness, even of a primitive form, but suggests what needs to be added to it in order to yield the basic awareness of the bodily self that I term possessing a nonconceptual point of view.
In this study, we propose the method to control the rhythm of breathing for relaxation by overwriting somatic sensation. Breathing way has an essential role in controlling the state of mind and body. Thus, lots of studies tried to instruct the breathing rhythm using lights, sounds, vibrations, and so on. However, these approaches require prior training to adjust a user's breathing rhythm to the system. To improve the effectiveness of controlling the breathing rhythm, we focus on the approach of overwriting somatic sensation. We hypothesized that we could modify the breathing rhythm if users get a device's motion confused with their breathing motion. Thus, we constructed the cushion type device "Relaxushion" which presents the breathing motion. When we embrace this breathing cushion, we feel like putting our hands on our stomachs. A brief user study shows our method can control the rhythm of breathing without prior training and consciousness to the device.
Cognitive neuroscience investigations of self-experiencehave mainly focused on the mental attribution of features to the self (self-related processing). In this paper, we highlight another fundamental ,yet neglected, aspect of self-experience, that of being an agent.We propose that this aspect of self-experience depends on self-specifying processes, ones that implicitly specify the self by implementing a functional self/non-self distinction inperception, action, cognition and emotion. We describe two paradigmatic cases – sensorimotor integration andhomeostatic regulation – and use the principles from these cases to show how cognitive control, including emotion regulation, is also self-specifying. We argue that externally directed, attention-demanding tasks, rather than suppressing self-experience, give rise to the self-experience of being a cognitive–affective agent. We conclude with directions for experimental work based onour framework.
Respiratory rate and body position are two major physiological parameters in sleep study, and monitoring them during sleep can provide helpful information for health care. In this paper, we present SleepMonitor, a smartwatch based system which leverages the built-in accelerometer to monitor the respiratory rate and body position. To calculate respiratory rate, we design a filter to extract the weak respiratory signal from the noisy accelerometer data collected on the wrist, and use frequency analysis to estimate the respiratory rate from the data along each axis. Further, we design a multi-axis fusion approach which can adaptively adjust the estimates from the three axes and then significantly improve the estimation accuracy. To detect the body position, we apply machine learning techniques based on the features extracted from the accelerometer data. We have implemented our system on Android Wear based smartwatches and evaluated its performance in real experiments. The results show that our system can monitor respiratory rate and body position during sleep with high accuracy under various conditions.
We meta-analytically investigated the strength of synchrony on four dimensions of response: (1) prosocial behavior, (2) perceived social bonding, (2) social cognition, and (3) positive affect. A total of 42 independent studies (N = 4327) were analyzed in which experimentally manipulated synchronous actions were compared to control conditions in healthy non-clinical samples. Our random effects model indicated that synchronous actions affected all four dimensions of response. Synchrony had a medium-sized positive effect on prosocial behaviors, a small-to-medium-sized positive effect on both perceived social bonding and social cognition, and a small-sized positive effect on positive affect. Notably, synchrony in larger groups increased prosocial behavior and positive affect, but group size did not moderate the relationship between synchrony and perceived social bonding and social cognition. This pattern suggests that distinct process mechanisms (neurocognitive versus affective) might underpin synchrony's effects on dimensions of response as a function of group size.
Background:
The current popularity of mindfulness-based practices has coincided with the increase in access to mobile technology. This has led to many mindfulness apps and programs becoming available, some specifically for children. However, little is known about the experience of engaging with mindfulness through these mediums.
Aims:
To explore children's experience of mindfulness delivered both face-to-face and through a computer game to highlight any differences or similarities.
Method:
A two-armed qualitative focus groups design was used to explore children's experiences. The first arm offered mindfulness exercises in a traditional face-to-face setting with guided meditations. The second arm offered mindfulness exercises through a computer game avatar.
Results:
Themes of relaxation, engagement, awareness, thinking, practice and directing attention emerged from both arms of focus groups. Subthematic codes highlight key differences as well as similarities in the experience of mindfulness.
Conclusions:
These results indicate that mindfulness delivered via technology can offer a rich experience.
Background: Pain is a global public health problem affecting the lives of large numbers of patients and their families. Touch therapies (Healing Touch (HT), Therapeutic Touch (TT) and Reiki) have been found to relieve pain, but some reviews have suggested there is insufficient evidence to support their use. Objectives: To evaluate the effectiveness of touch therapies (including HT, TT, and Reiki) on relieving both acute and chronic pain; to determine any adverse effect of touch therapies. Search methods: Various electronic databases, including The Cochrane Library, MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, AMED and others from their inception to June 2008 were searched. Reference lists and bibliographies of relevant articles and organizations were checked. Experts in touch therapies were contacted. Selection criteria: Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) or Controlled Clinical Trials (CCTs) evaluating the effect of touch on any type of pain were included. Similarly, only studies using a sham placebo or a 'no treatment' control was included. Data collection and analysis: Data was extracted and quality assessment was conducted by two independent review authors. The mean pain intensity for completing all treatment sessions was extracted. Pain intensity from different pain measurement scales were standardized into a single scale. Comparisons between the effects of treatment groups and that of control groups were made. Main results: Twenty four studies involving 1153 participants met the inclusion criteria. There were five, sixteen and three studies on HT, TT and Reiki respectively. Participants exposed to touch had on average of 0.83 units (on a 0 to ten scale) lower pain intensity than unexposed participants (95% Confidence Interval: -1.16 to -0.50). Results of trials conducted by more experienced practitioners appeared to yield greater effects in pain reduction. It is also apparent that these trials yielding greater effects were from the Reiki studies. Whether more experienced practitioners or certain types of touch therapy brought better pain reduction should be further investigated. Two of the five studies evaluating analgesic usage supported the claim that touch therapies minimized analgesic usage. The placebo effect was also explored. No statistically significant (P = 0.29) placebo effect was identified. Authors' conclusions: Touch therapies may have a modest effect in pain relief. More studies on HT and Reiki in relieving pain are needed. More studies including children are also required to evaluate the effect of touch on children.
Focusing on the leisure practice of scuba diving, I examine how ’touch’ works as a sense experienced through material engagement with the aquatic world for both physical and metaphorical effect. Technologically facilitated and environmentally positioned, scuba diving brings together the distal and the proximate to produce a particular experience of space and a particular mobilisation of emotion. The paper positions itself within the conceptual context of embodiment in order to consider corporeality in terms of its visceral and material capacities that effect and direct movement, as well as the experience of the sensuous via an engagement with the diving environment. In doing so, it draws upon work within the social sciences that has acknowledged the importance of an embodied engagement with environments that are seen as therapeutic or restorative for their ability to instil a sense of well-being and calm through a re-centering of the self. Drawing out the meditative capacities of scuba diving, the paper considers the aquatic world as, for some divers, a therapeutic landscape.
Therapeutic Touch (TT) is being proposed as a nursing intervention. Its proponents claim that it is integral to the art of nursing practice and can facilitate comfort and healing in a wide range of patients. However, the practice of TT is also controversial, primarily because it does not usually involve physical contact and is based on energy field theoretical frameworks. The development of TT and its conceptualization as an energy field interaction are reviewed, and points of controversy discussed. The method of practice is described. Review of controlled efficacy studies indicates limited and inconclusive scientific support for its proposed effects. The intrinsic relationship between TT and the placebo phenomenon is discussed. The potential of TT to enhance the placebo effect requires further exploration but should not be discounted in seeking to relieve discomfort and distress and facilitate healing. For some patients, TT may serve as a beneficial adjuvant nursing intervention.
We are investigating actuators that are able to provide different types of haptic sensations and that can be wrapped around a wide range of surfaces and objects. Our first prototype, BubbleWrap, consists of a matrix of electromagnetic actuators, enclosed in fabric, with individually controllable cells that expand and contract. It provides both active haptic feedback, using vibration, as well passive haptic feedback, using shape and firmness. An initial experiment demonstrated that users could reliably discriminate among the three firmness levels displayed on our prototype.
Cognitive neuroscience investigations of self-experience have mainly focused on the mental attribution of features to the self (self-related processing). In this paper, we highlight another fundamental, yet neglected, aspect of self-experience, that of being an agent. We propose that this aspect of self-experience depends on self-specifying processes, ones that implicitly specify the self by implementing a functional self/non-self distinction in perception, action, cognition and emotion. We describe two paradigmatic cases - sensorimotor integration and homeostatic regulation - and use the principles from these cases to show how cognitive control, including emotion regulation, is also self-specifying. We argue that externally directed, attention-demanding tasks, rather than suppressing self-experience, give rise to the self-experience of being a cognitive-affective agent. We conclude with directions for experimental work based on our framework.
Physiological bodily states play an important role in affective experiences. This study investigated whether the neural processing of internal body state (interoception) is associated with empathy, the understanding of the affective states of others. We used the 'heartbeat-evoked potential' (HEP), a surface electroencephalography (EEG) pattern, as a neural index of interoceptive processing. The HEP is contingent on the most prominent peak (R-wave) of the electrocardiogram (ECG) and is thought to reflect cortical processing of cardiac afferent input. Twenty-one healthy adults performed empathy and control tasks while EEG and ECG were recorded, where they made judgments based on either the affective or physical aspects of images of human eyes. HEP, ECG and heart rate in each task block were calculated and compared. Results showed that cardiac activity was not significantly different between tasks. In contrast, HEP showed a significant task difference, exhibited as an increased negativity during the empathy task over frontocentral sites at a latency of approximately 250-430 ms. Furthermore, a self-reported measure of empathy was associated with mean HEP amplitude during the period of task-related differentiation. These results suggest that afferent feedback from visceral activity may contribute to inferences about the affective state of others.