In my view, physiological computing has at least two contributions to make in this domain.\u00a0 First of all, to unmask changes in physiology due to negative emotion that may take occur subconsciously.\u00a0 Also, to quantify the level or magnitude of physiological change that associated with an emotional stimulus or ongoing situation.\u00a0 This process of revelation and quantification is almost identical to the process of biofeedback, which works as a therapeutic intervention by informing the development of strategies for coping and self-regulation.\u00a0 It has been hypothesised (by Prof. Rosalind Picard) that affective feedback from computer technology has similar potential to promote positive strategies for self-regulation, i.e. reducing the impact of negative emotion on health.\u00a0 I would also argue that physiological computer systems are the best means to achieve this end result; like biofeedback technology, this approach captures anger and other negative emotions via the physiological activity that is at the root of any detrimental effects on health.\u00a0 See this<\/a> earlier post for more on that theme and this<\/a> one for an example of a system designed to reduce stress by providing biofeedback to a mobile device.<\/p>\n My basic point is this – we all know what it feels like to be angry but we have no idea how our current level of anger may be affecting the autonomic nervous system (and our health in the longer term).\u00a0 Perhaps if we have some quantification of this experience, it might change the way we choose to manage our anger.\u00a0 A current PhD student of mine, Elena Spiridon, has been looking at cardiovascular and EEG correlates of anger with this basic hypothesis in mind.\u00a0 The first thing we learned was that it is really tough to (ethically) induce genuine anger in the laboratory – we used a combination of a rude experimenter plus a malfunctioning computer to irritate people but this was not as effective as we had hoped.\u00a0 We went back to the drawing board and came up with a different approach.\u00a0 We reasoned that our lab task was too sterile and there were no real consequences of poor performance due to the malfunction.\u00a0 Therefore, we went to our driving simulator, reasoning that this was a more realistic type of task and came up with the following scenario.\u00a0 You are asked to complete a 15min journey in the simulator, the purpose of this journey is to collect a child from school so you cannot be late.\u00a0 We told our participants that they would lose their payment for taking part in the study if they did not complete the journey in time (to add some real-world consequences).\u00a0 Then we stuck two traffic jams in the simulated drive – the first occurred early in the journey (i.e. it was a delay but the driver could still make up for lost time) and another one just before the end (i.e. it was now impossible to make the journey on time).\u00a0 Our simulator scenario was much more effective at inducing anger based on the subjective questionnaires we used.\u00a0 We also found significant and substantial increases in systolic blood pressure when people were stuck in the traffic jam.\u00a0 The figure below shows a bar chart for 20 male participants at baseline (before the drive) and at the early traffic jam (1) and the late traffic jam (2).<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/physiologicalcomputing.net\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/SBP-1024x767.png\" "\\"Systolic")
<\/a>As you can see,\u00a0 increased blood pressure during the traffic jams was substantial – obviously this was a simulated environment, so we might expect even larger increases in the field.\u00a0 If we could see how everyday stresses and hassles, like traffic jams, affected our cardiovascular health via technology – would this alter how we cope with these situations?\u00a0 Would we be able to take a deep breath and calm down?\u00a0 I think this approach has real possibilities for alleviating the impact of anger and stress on long-term health.<\/p>\n