ABSTRACT
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.
- Adams, A. T., Costa, J., Jung, M. F., and Choudhury, T. Mindless computing: designing technologies to subtly influence behavior. In Proceedings of the 2015 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing, ACM (2015), 719--730. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Association, A. P. Anxiety, 2016.Google Scholar
- Birkett, M. A. The trier social stress test protocol for inducing psychological stress. Journal of visualized experiments: JoVE, 56 (2011).Google Scholar
- Cavazza, M., Charles, F., Aranyi, G., Porteous, J., Gilroy, S. W., Raz, G., Keynan, N. J., Cohen, A., Jackont, G., Jacob, Y., et al. Towards emotional regulation through neurofeedback. In Proceedings of the 5th Augmented Human International Conference, ACM (2014), 42. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Chung, J.-w., and Vercoe, G. S. The affective remixer: Personalized music arranging. In CHI'06 extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems, ACM (2006), 393--398. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Colman, A. M. A dictionary of psychology. Oxford University Press, USA, 2015.Google Scholar
- Critchley, H. D., Wiens, S., Rotshtein, P., Öhman, A., and Dolan, R. J. Neural systems supporting interoceptive awareness. Nature neuroscience 7, 2 (2004), 189--195.Google Scholar
- Damasio, A. R., Everitt, B. J., and Bishop, D. The somatic marker hypothesis and the possible functions of the prefrontal cortex {and discussion}. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences 351, 1346 (1996), 1413--1420.Google Scholar
- Desmet, P. M. Design for mood: Twenty activity-based opportunities to design for mood regulation. International Journal of Design, 9 (2), 2015 (2015).Google Scholar
- Dunn, B. D., Stefanovitch, I., Evans, D., Oliver, C., Hawkins, A., and Dalgleish, T. Can you feel the beat? interoceptive awareness is an interactive function of anxiety-and depression-specific symptom dimensions. Behaviour research and therapy 48, 11 (2010), 1133--1138.Google Scholar
- First, M. B. Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders. DSM IV-4th edition. APA (1994), 1994.Google Scholar
- Füstös, J., Gramann, K., Herbert, B. M., and Pollatos, O. On the embodiment of emotion regulation: interoceptive awareness facilitates reappraisal. Social cognitive and affective neuroscience 8, 8 (2013), 911--917.Google Scholar
- Gross, J. J. The emerging field of emotion regulation: an integrative review. Review of general psychology 2, 3 (1998), 271.Google Scholar
- Gross, J. J. Emotion regulation: taking stock and moving forward. Emotion 13, 3 (2013), 359.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Gross, J. J. Emotion regulation: Current status and future prospects. Psychological Inquiry 26, 1 (2015), 1--26.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Gyurak, A., Gross, J. J., and Etkin, A. Explicit and implicit emotion regulation: a dual-process framework. Cognition and Emotion 25, 3 (2011), 400--412.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Harris, H., and Nass, C. Emotion regulation for frustrating driving contexts. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, ACM (2011), 749--752. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Huang, Y., Tang, Y., and Wang, Y. Emotion map: A location-based mobile social system for improving emotion awareness and regulation. In Proceedings of the 18th ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing, ACM (2015), 130--142. Google ScholarDigital Library
- James, W. Ii.---what is an emotion? Mind, 34 (1884), 188--205.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Jung, M. F., Martelaro, N., and Hinds, P. J. Using robots to moderate team conflict: the case of repairing violations. In Proceedings of the Tenth Annual ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, ACM (2015), 229--236. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Khalsa, S. S., Rudrauf, D., and Tranel, D. Interoceptive awareness declines with age. Psychophysiology 46, 6 (2009), 1130--1136.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Kirschbaum, C., Pirke, K.-M., and Hellhammer, D. H. The 'trier social stress test'--a tool for investigating psychobiological stress responses in a laboratory setting. Neuropsychobiology 28, 1-2 (1993), 76--81.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Koko. Getting you to a good place. a social network that actually calms your mind, 2016.Google Scholar
- Konrad, A., Bellotti, V., Crenshaw, N., Tucker, S., Nelson, L., Du, H., Pirolli, P., and Whittaker, S. Finding the adaptive sweet spot: Balancing compliance and achievement in automated stress reduction. In Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, ACM (2015), 3829--3838. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Koole, S. L. The psychology of emotion regulation: An integrative review. Cognition and Emotion 23, 1 (2009), 4--41.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Koole, S. L., and Rothermund, K. "i feel better but i don't know why": The psychology of implicit emotion regulation. Cognition and Emotion 25, 3 (2011), 389--399.Google ScholarCross Ref
- MacLean, D., Roseway, A., and Czerwinski, M. Moodwings: a wearable biofeedback device for real-time stress intervention. In Proceedings of the 6th international conference on PErvasive Technologies Related to Assistive Environments, ACM (2013), 66. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Matthews, M., Snyder, J., Reynolds, L., Chien, J. T., Shih, A., Lee, J. W., and Gay, G. Real-time representation versus response elicitation in biosensor data. In Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, ACM (2015), 605--608. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Mauss, I. B., Cook, C. L., and Gross, J. J. Automatic emotion regulation during anger provocation. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 43, 5 (2007), 698--711.Google ScholarCross Ref
- McDuff, D., Karlson, A., Kapoor, A., Roseway, A., and Czerwinski, M. Affectaura: an intelligent system for emotional memory. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, ACM (2012), 849--858. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Moraveji, N., Olson, B., Nguyen, T., Saadat, M., Khalighi, Y., Pea, R., and Heer, J. Peripheral paced respiration: influencing user physiology during information work. In Proceedings of the 24th annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology, ACM (2011), 423--428. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Morris, M., and Guilak, F. Mobile heart health: project highlight. Pervasive Computing, IEEE 8, 2 (2009), 57--61. Google ScholarDigital Library
- of Florida Conseling, U., and Center, W. Anxiety: How to cope with it, 2016.Google Scholar
- Olsson, A., and Öhman, A. The affective neuroscience of emotion: Automatic activation, interoception, and emotion regulation. Handbook of neuroscience for the behavioral sciences (2009).Google Scholar
- Paredes, P., and Chan, M. Calmmenow: exploratory research and design of stress mitigating mobile interventions. In CHI'11 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems, ACM (2011), 1699--1704. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Plaza, I., Demarzo, M. M. P., Herrera-Mercadal, P., and García-Campayo, J. Mindfulness-based mobile applications: Literature review and analysis of current features. JMIR mHealth and uHealth 1, 2 (2013), e24.Google Scholar
- Pollatos, O., Herbert, B. M., Matthias, E., and Schandry, R. Heart rate response after emotional picture presentation is modulated by interoceptive awareness. International Journal of Psychophysiology 63, 1 (2007), 117--124.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Pollatos, O., Kirsch, W., and Schandry, R. On the relationship between interoceptive awareness, emotional experience, and brain processes. Cognitive Brain Research 25, 3 (2005), 948--962.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Pollatos, O., Traut-Mattausch, E., Schroeder, H., and Schandry, R. Interoceptive awareness mediates the relationship between anxiety and the intensity of unpleasant feelings. Journal of anxiety disorders 21, 7 (2007), 931--943.Google Scholar
- Riva, G., Mantovani, F., Capideville, C. S., Preziosa, A., Morganti, F., Villani, D., Gaggioli, A., Botella, C., and Alcañiz, M. Affective interactions using virtual reality: the link between presence and emotions. CyberPsychology & Behavior 10, 1 (2007), 45--56.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Snyder, J., Matthews, M., Chien, J., Chang, P. F., Sun, E., Abdullah, S., and Gay, G. Moodlight: Exploring personal and social implications of ambient display of biosensor data. In Proceedings of the 18th ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing, ACM (2015), 143--153. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Spielberger, C. D. State-Trait anxiety inventory. Wiley Online Library, 2010.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Split. Time to split - avoid unwanted encounters, 2016.Google Scholar
- Valins, S. Cognitive effects of false heart-rate feedback. Journal of personality and social psychology 4, 4 (1966), 400.Google Scholar
- Vidyarthi, J., and Riecke, B. E. Interactively mediating experiences of mindfulness meditation. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies 72, 8 (2014), 674--688. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Voida, S., Matthews, M., Abdullah, S., Xi, M. C., Green, M., Jang, W. J., Hu, D., Weinrich, J., Patil, P., Rabbi, M., et al. Moodrhythm: tracking and supporting daily rhythms. In Proceedings of the 2013 ACM conference on Pervasive and ubiquitous computing adjunct publication, ACM (2013), 67--70. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Waller, R., and Gilbody, S. Barriers to the uptake of computerized cognitive behavioural therapy: a systematic review of the quantitative and qualitative evidence. Psychological medicine 39, 05 (2009), 705--712.Google Scholar
- Watts, S., Mackenzie, A., Thomas, C., Griskaitis, A., Mewton, L., Williams, A., and Andrews, G. Cbt for depression: a pilot rct comparing mobile phone vs. computer. BMC psychiatry 13, 1 (2013), 1.Google Scholar
- Weiser, M., and Brown, J. S. The coming age of calm technology. In Beyond calculation. Springer, 1997, 75--85. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Wiens, S., Mezzacappa, E. S., and Katkin, E. S. Heartbeat detection and the experience of emotions. Cognition & Emotion 14, 3 (2000), 417--427.Google ScholarCross Ref
Index Terms
EmotionCheck: leveraging bodily signals and false feedback to regulate our emotions
Recommendations
Regulating Feelings During Interpersonal Conflicts by Changing Voice Self-perception
CHI '18: Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing SystemsEmotions play a major role in how interpersonal conflicts unfold. Although several strategies and technological approaches have been proposed for emotion regulation, they often require conscious attention and effort. This often limits their efficacy in ...
BoostMeUp: Improving Cognitive Performance in the Moment by Unobtrusively Regulating Emotions with a Smartwatch
A person's emotional state can strongly influence their ability to achieve optimal task performance. Aiming to help individuals manage their feelings, different emotion regulation technologies have been proposed. However, despite the well-known ...
On Being Told How We Feel: How Algorithmic Sensor Feedback Influences Emotion Perception
Algorithms and sensors are increasingly deployed for highly personal aspects of our everyday lives. Recent work suggests people have imperfect understanding of system outputs, often assuming sophisticated capabilities and deferring to feedback. We ...
Comments