Immersive Interactive Technologies for Positive Change: A Scoping Review and Design Considerations

Practices such as mindfulness, introspection, and self-reflection are known to have positive short and long-term effects on health and well-being. However, in today\u27s modern, fast-paced, technological world tempted by distractions these practices are often hard to access and relate to a broader audience. Consequently, technologies have emerged that mediate personal experiences, which is reflected in the high number of available applications designed to elicit positive changes. These technologies elicit positive changes by bringing users\u27 attention to the self—from technologies that show representation of quantified personal data, to technologies that provide experiences that guide the user closer in understanding the self. However, while many designs available today are either built to support or are informed by these aforementioned practices, the question remains: how can we most effectively employ different design elements and interaction strategies to support positive change? Moreover, what types of input and output modalities contribute to eliciting positive states? To address these questions, we present here a state of the art scoping review of immersive interactive technologies that serve in a role of a mediator for positive change in users. We performed a literature search using ACM Digital Library, Web of Science, IEEE Xplore, and Design and Applied Arts Index (beginning of literature—January 1, 2018). We retrieved English-language articles for review, and we searched for published and unpublished studies. Risk of bias was assessed with Downs and Black 26-item QAT scale. We included 34 articles as relevant to the literature, and the analysis of the articles resulted in 38 instances of 33 immersive, interactive experiences relating to positive human functioning. Our contribution is three-fold: First we provide a scoping review of immersive interactive technologies for positive change; Second, we propose both a framework for future designs of positive interactive technologies and design consideration informed by the comparative analysis of the designs; Third, we provide design considerations for immersive, interactive technologies to elicit positive states and support positive change

Attending to inner self: Designing and unfolding breath-based VR experiences through micro-phenomenology

This thesis contributes to human-computer interaction (HCI) research with a focus on the design of virtual reality (VR) applications that support and elicit the experience of breath awareness. Within HCI, advocating for technology-supported well-being has resulted in a large body of interactive systems informed by the quantified self paradigm. While these technologies elicit positive health outcomes, they also sometimes reduce access to a greater range of experiences that promote self-regulation and well-being. A growing interest in HCI is moving beyond the quantified self to designing technologies ``as experiences\u27\u27 based upon embodied and first-person reflective practices. In this research, we are specifically interested in the experiences that arise through technologies that elicit breath awareness. However, in reviewing prior HCI research in designing for breath awareness, we have found that the differing epistemological commitments and theoretical frameworks determine very different sets of systems’ values, expectations and methods. This is an under-explored design space within HCI that necessitates a deeper understanding of disambiguation of how epistemological commitments shape not only our systems, but our experiences and how we consider methodologies that support the rich and meaningful explication of those experiences. While we contribute primarily to HCI, our work is positioned in the broader intersection of art, science, and technology. We structure our research around two main foci. First focus is on the design and evaluation of VR applications built upon first-person practices of eliciting breath awareness. We engage in disambiguating theoretical underpinnings of the systems that perceptually extend breath awareness to understand how epistemological commitments of different theoretical frameworks inform system design to support breath awareness. Then, we present the iterative process of design and evaluation of two breath-based VR systems: Pulse Breath Water and Respire. Second focus is on methodological strategies that clarify not only fine-grained descriptions of the experience but its very own structure. We have applied micro-phenomenology in HCI to design and evaluate two immersive VR systems for eliciting breath awareness. We contribute to understanding how micro-phenomenology can be used in the context of VR systems for articulating the nuances, complexity, and diversity of a user\u27s experience beyond surface descriptions

Table_1_Immersive Interactive Technologies for Positive Change: A Scoping Review and Design Considerations.PDF

<p>Practices such as mindfulness, introspection, and self-reflection are known to have positive short and long-term effects on health and well-being. However, in today's modern, fast-paced, technological world tempted by distractions these practices are often hard to access and relate to a broader audience. Consequently, technologies have emerged that mediate personal experiences, which is reflected in the high number of available applications designed to elicit positive changes. These technologies elicit positive changes by bringing users' attention to the self—from technologies that show representation of quantified personal data, to technologies that provide experiences that guide the user closer in understanding the self. However, while many designs available today are either built to support or are informed by these aforementioned practices, the question remains: how can we most effectively employ different design elements and interaction strategies to support positive change? Moreover, what types of input and output modalities contribute to eliciting positive states? To address these questions, we present here a state of the art scoping review of immersive interactive technologies that serve in a role of a mediator for positive change in users. We performed a literature search using ACM Digital Library, Web of Science, IEEE Xplore, and Design and Applied Arts Index (beginning of literature—January 1, 2018). We retrieved English-language articles for review, and we searched for published and unpublished studies. Risk of bias was assessed with Downs and Black 26-item QAT scale. We included 34 articles as relevant to the literature, and the analysis of the articles resulted in 38 instances of 33 immersive, interactive experiences relating to positive human functioning. Our contribution is three-fold: First we provide a scoping review of immersive interactive technologies for positive change; Second, we propose both a framework for future designs of positive interactive technologies and design consideration informed by the comparative analysis of the designs; Third, we provide design considerations for immersive, interactive technologies to elicit positive states and support positive change.</p

Attending to Breath: Exploring How the Cues in Virtual Environment Guide the Attention to Breath and Shape the Quality of Experience to Support Mindfulness

International audienceThe third wave of HCI research has interest in understanding how technologies can mediate personal experiences and improve life quality. In particular, immersive environments combined with the practices of mindfulness meditation have a strong potential to increase the user's attention to the self. Often, people feel disconnected from their bodies and experiences, and guided attention to self can alleviate this disconnect as in focused-attention meditation. In focused-attention meditation, breathing often constitutes the primary object on which to focus attention. In this context, sustained breath awareness plays a crucial role in the emergence of the meditation experience. Hence, we designed a virtual environment for head-mounted display that supports sustained attention on breathing by employing users' breathing in interaction. The virtual environment depicts an abstract ocean in which one is immersed, accompanied with a generative soundtrack. Both sounds and visuals are directly mapped to the user breathing patterns, thus bringing the awareness researched. We conducted micro-phenomenology interviews to unfold the process in which breath awareness can be induced and sustained in this environment. The findings revealed the mechanisms by which audio and visual cues in VR can elicit and foster breath-awareness, and unfolded the nuances of this process through subjective experiences of the study participants. Finally, the results emphasize the important role that a sense of agency and control have in shaping the overall quality of the experience. This can in turn inform the design specifications of future mindfulness-based designs focused on breath awareness