Breeze

Abstract

Digitally presenting physiological signals as biofeedback to users raises awareness of both body and mind. This paper describes the effectiveness of conveying a physiological signal often overlooked for communication: breathing. We present the design and development of digital breathing patterns and their evaluation along three output modalities: visual, audio, and haptic. We also present Breeze, a wearable pendant placed around the neck that measures breathing and sends biofeedback in real-time. We evaluated how the breathing patterns were interpreted in a fixed environment and gathered qualitative data on the wearable device's design. We found that participants intentionally modified their own breathing to match the biofeedback, as a technique for understanding the underlying emotion. Our results describe how the features of the breathing patterns and the feedback modalities influenced participants' perception. We include guidelines and suggested use cases, such as Breeze being used by loved ones to increase connectedness and empathy.Signals such as heart rate and electrodermal activity (EDA), which measures perspiration, can also serve as proxies for social interactions [37]. Breathing presents an advantage over such signals because it can easily be modulated. In the field of human-computer interaction (HCI), breathing and other physiological signals have been used mainly as input [35,39]. Instead, we employ these technologies to support humanhuman communication as advocated by [13].We envision a future where interfaces can "connect" people at a distance, enforcing a bond between close ones through shared wearable biofeedback. While trying to develop such an arXiv:1802.04995v1 [cs.HC]

Smart City and High-Tech Urban Interventions Targeting Human Health: An Equity-Focused Systematic Review

“…Types of citizen social interactions taking place within urban green areas [77], contextual awareness and social interaction [92], social activity monitoring in healthcare settings [88], social isolation [93], and social cohesion and socially active lifestyles during the aging process [7] were all documented. More specific accounts of social inclusion were seen in some of the implications expounded on, specifically those explaining how smart technologies could potentially help to convey emotional states and better connect individuals [94], create more opportunities for people to make significant social connections with each other [95], and help build better support for caregivers [96].…”

Physio-Stacks: Supporting Communication with Ourselves and Others via Tangible, Modular Physiological Devices

“…While the current subset of physiological sensors implemented in this specific project is limited to breathing and heart rate, two sensors that are already sufficient to explore the system in social setting and see the emergence of rich interactions [28,29], we are in the process of adding electrodermal activity, muscle activity and brain activity (through existing headware) as additional input. Combined with new output (heat, scents), these developments can be use to broaden the range of applications -e.g.…”

“…Examples of devices combining Physiology and Tangiblility include tangible puppets to share heart-beats [4,5], explore brain activity [26,27], or customizable physiological representations [29]. Another alternative includes the usage of wearables, such as BodyVis, a body suit exposing physiological information [61], or Breeze [28], a connected pendant that supports communication via shared breathing as vibration. There are also toys such as Biofidgets [48], instrumented fidget spinners with their spin-rate linked to breathing and heart-rate variability.…”

“…This flexibility also fosters the communication beyond the device, as verbal/nonverbal communication takes place of how and when the information shared changes. It is easy to envision a version of the system comprised of two symmetrical devices that send the physiological activity to the remote counterpart, as we did in [28], allowing to display both the local and remote signals in any desired fashion, or to combine them via merge bricks. Figure 10: A person uses a brick stack to explore their heart activity via vibration (left) while also streaming the information to a light via Bluetooth (right orb).…”

Pen-pen

“…One way to address stress is mindfulness-based stress reduction therapy (e.g., [12]). Fellow researchers have investigated how biofeedback and technology design can be utilized for mindfulness practices (e.g., [1,10,13]). In contrast Niksirat et al [14] developed a framework using the attentionregulation process.…”