Tag Archives: ecg

What kind of Meaningful Interaction would you like to have? Pt 1

A couple of years ago we organised this CHI workshop on meaningful interaction in physiological computing.  As much as I felt this was an important area for investigation, I also found the topic very hard to get a handle on.  I recently revisited this problem in working on a co-authored book chapter with Kiel on our forthcoming collection for Springer entitled ‘Advances in Physiological Computing’ due out next May.

On reflection, much of my difficulty revolved around the complexity of defining meaningful interaction in context.  For systems like BCI or ocular control, where input control is the key function, the meaningfulness of the HCI is self-evident.  If I want an avatar to move forward, I expect my BCI to translate that intention into analogous action at the interface.   But biocybernetic systems, where spontaneous psychophysiology is monitored, analysed and classified, are a different story.  The goal of this system is to adapt in a timely and appropriate fashion and evaluating the literal meaning of that kind of interaction is complex for a host of reasons.

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REFLECT Project Promo Video

Some months ago, I wrote this post about the REFLECT project that we participated in for the last three years.  In short, the REFLECT project was concerned with research and development of three different kinds of biocybernetic loops: (1) detection of emotion, (2) diagnosis of mental workload, and (3) assessment of physical comfort.  Psychophysiological measures were used to assess (1) and (2) whilst physical movement (fidgeting) in a seated position was used for the latter.  And this was integrated into the ‘cockpit’ of a  Ferrari.

The idea behind the emotional loop was to have the music change in response to emotion (to alleviate negative mood states).  The cognitive loop would block incoming calls if the driver was in a state of high mental workload and air-filled bladders in the seat would adjust to promote physical comfort.  You can read all about the project here.  Above you’ll find a promotional video that I’ve only just discovered – the reason for my delayed response in posting this is probably vanity, the filming was over before I got to the Ferrari site in Maranello.  The upside of my absence is that you can watch the much more articulate and handsome Dick de Waard explain about the cognitive loop in the film, which was our main involvement in the project.

Mobile Monitors and Apps for Physiological Computing

I always harbored two assumptions about the development of physiological computing systems that have only become apparent (to me at least) as technological innovation seems to contradict them.  First of all, I thought nascent forms of physiological computing systems would be developed for desktop system where the user stays in a stationary and more-or-less sedentary position, thus minimising the probability of movement artifacts.  Also, I assumed that physiological computing devices would only ever be achieved as coordinated holistic systems.  In other words, specific sensors linked to a dedicated controller that provides input to adaptive software, all designed as a seamless chain of information flow.

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Pre-E3: Thoughts on the Wii Vitality

With only hours left until Nintendo’s E3 press event I’ve once again been pondering what we’ll see from the Wii Vitality. At last year’s E3 the device’s announcement didn’t exactly wow the audience. It’s not surprising as Nintendo didn’t provide a demonstration of the device which might have bought gamers into the concept.  Nintendo have remained tight lipped ever since revealing absolutely nothing about what we might expect from the device.  Over the past year it has been suggested the Vitality will be used to monitor the scare factor in games, alter game difficulty, be used as an input for relaxation and exercise games as well as in lie-detection of which I discussed one particular method of implementation here.

Implementing these types of games are indeed possible using physiological measures and you can see versions of these games in the biofeedback and academic game communities for example: –

  1. The Journey to Wild Divine: series of relaxation mini-games controlled using heartbeat rate and skin conductance.
  2. A Fitness Game Reflecting Heart Rate:  boxing game which adapts the gameplay in order to move you towards a target heartbeat rate. Enemy characters require a different physical movement to destroy them, depending on the player’s current heartbeat rate and the goal an appropriate enemy will be selected.
  3. Fairies: target acquisition game which alters the player’s perception of the games difficulty according to the player’s level of arousal as denoted by heartbeat rate.

There are many ways you can use physiological data in gameplay, it’s all a question of how you make the input meaningful for the player (e.g. if the player’s relaxation level is used to switch between character states, those states have to be somewhat representative of the change, so if the player is controlling an avatar with a pyrotechnic ability then a shift from a relaxed state to an agitated state could be used to trigger their fire ability and vice versa, this would be a meaningful relationship).

The problem I have with the Vitality is in their choice of sensor:  a finger based pulse oximeter.  A pulse oximeter uses infra-red to track the changes in the volume of blood in the extremities and from this derive heartbeat rate. If you want to support a wide selection of different play styles (e.g. relaxation, exercise, affective) a finger based sensor would not have been my first choice considering the following issues: –

  1. A finger based sensor limits the player’s freedom of movement. Any physical activity will move the sensor from its recording position and may even possibly become disconnected, both events of which will create data errors. And depending on how responsive the game is to the player’s physiology it can easily lead to erroneous game behaviour.  This will limit how the data can be used in a given context (e.g. a game responsive to emotional physiological responses is not suited to a game involving gestures, this example is more prelevant for the Wii as the system sells itself on physical interaction as the standard input method).  Also the physicality of the sensor attachment to the player’s finger restricts player movement so physical actions may become uncomfortable (e.g. imagine playing Red Steel with a cable attached to your finger). This is not to say games involving physical actions will be taboo using the Vitality (e.g. a calorie counter in an exercise game), it just makes it harder.
  2. With a finger based sensor use of the second Nunchuk is liable to become awkward possibly eliminating it as an input device.

Ideally Nintendo should have gone with either an earlobe based pulse oximeter thereby freeing up the hands (though physical actions still have to be limited as that sensor is not the most secure under intense movement) or ideally a chest-strap*. A chest-strap sensor provides the most secure method of measuring a player’s heartbeat rate as the centre of the body is pretty stable under movement, this is especially true from my perspective given I’ve been wearing one for the last several months collecting data.

At this point these issues are pretty much moot (more like irritations in my noggin I can’t dispell) as I suspect Nintendo will launch the system with a series of relaxation games which the Vitality is clearly geared for**. Or perhaps a lie-detection game as I’ve talked about before.

* The problem inherent in using a chest-strap is in how the player may perceive it invading their personal space.  The chest-strap is an up-and-close personal wearable device, and I imagine given the new wireless heart monitor EA Sports Active 2.0 is using (an armband based heart monitor), there development staff thought so too. The finger attachment does not invade the player’s space so there is no unease in wearing the device.  Having just seen EA’s E3 press conference, the Vitality is already looking obsolete.

**The sensor used by The Journey to Wild Divine has been used in a multitude of different game genres, my favourite being the Half-Life 2 mod Please Don’t Feed the BioZombies. However the sensor is used in conjunction with a mouse and keyboard and this setup doesn’t suffer from player movement to the same degree the Vitality will given the nature of the input device doesn’t require much. Also unlike Vitality a mouse and keyboard is placed on a flat providing support for the hand the sensor is on.

Who's afraid of Ghost Stories?

Last Saturday Steve and I went to see Ghost Stories over at the Playhouse theatre in Liverpool. The performance acts out a series of ghost stories a paranormal investigator has collected during his research into the supernatural. As one can imagine the aim of such an experience is to provide the audience with a good scare. To make things a little more interesting we decided to wire ourselves up and monitor the changes in our heartbeat during the performance thereby allowing us to compare our subjective experiences with our own physiological reactions. The results provide an interesting look into how our expectations of the event met with its reality as demonstrated by the recorded changes in our heartbeat.

Before continuing, consider this your SPOILER warning. If you haven’t seen Ghost Stories and intend to see it at the Lyric I suggest you hold off for now as I am going to have to give away some of the plot in order to explain events in their proper context. If you’ve already seen Ghost Stories or don’t intend to then continue on and see who indeed was afraid of the Ghost Stories.
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Who’s afraid of Ghost Stories?

Last Saturday Steve and I went to see Ghost Stories over at the Playhouse theatre in Liverpool. The performance acts out a series of ghost stories a paranormal investigator has collected during his research into the supernatural. As one can imagine the aim of such an experience is to provide the audience with a good scare. To make things a little more interesting we decided to wire ourselves up and monitor the changes in our heartbeat during the performance thereby allowing us to compare our subjective experiences with our own physiological reactions. The results provide an interesting look into how our expectations of the event met with its reality as demonstrated by the recorded changes in our heartbeat.

Before continuing, consider this your SPOILER warning. If you haven’t seen Ghost Stories and intend to see it at the Lyric I suggest you hold off for now as I am going to have to give away some of the plot in order to explain events in their proper context. If you’ve already seen Ghost Stories or don’t intend to then continue on and see who indeed was afraid of the Ghost Stories.
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Wireless Heart Monitoring Trials

I’m currently working on a project over at LJMU (among other things) involving wireless heart monitoring. The project goes live later this month so I’ll talk more about it then but for the time here are some snapshots of my physiology in situations I don’t normally get to record with the “wired to my desktop” setup

In figures 1 and 2 each plot represents one minute of averaged heartbeat rate. Just as a side note my heartbeat rate at rest is typically in the 60-70 bpm range.

Figure 1– Sleep Cycle: Heartbeat rate from 12am to 9am on 07-02-10

Figure 2 – Sleep Cycle: Heartbeat rate from 2am to 9am on 08-02-10

Figure 3 – Travel from the Office to Home

In Figure 3 each plot represents 10 seconds of average heartbeat rate. As you can see when I leave the office I start with a HR of ~70 bpm. But then it skyrockets to ~120 bpm as I walk home. Walking being the subjective term here. I guess the monitor would say I’m more jogging than running. As I reach the train station at 17:35 my heart rate returns to its rest state until I get off the train at 17:45.

EDIT:

The wireless heart monitoring project can be found at The Body Blogger. The project involves the 24×7 recording of my physiological changes which are shared in real-time with this website and twitter. I recently did a talk at Quantified Self London about my experiences as The Body Blogger for which we now have a video.

Cross-posted at http://justkiel.blogspot.com