As light as your scent: effects of smell and sound on body image perception

How people mentally represent their body appearance (i.e., body image perception - BIP) does not always match their actual body. BIP distortions can lead to a detriment in physical and emotional health. Recent works in HCI have shown that technology can be used to change people’s BIP through visual, tactile, proprioceptive, and auditory stimulation. This paper investigates, for the first time, the effect of olfactory stimuli, by looking at a possible enhancement of a known auditory effect on BIP.We present two studies building on emerging knowledge in the field of crossmodal correspondences. First, we explored the correspondences between scents and body shapes. Then, we investigated the impact of combined scents and sounds on one’s own BIP. Our results show that scent stimuli can be used to make participants feel lighter or heavier (i.e., using lemon or vanilla) and to enhance the effect of sound on perceived body lightness. We discuss how these findings can inform future research and design directions to overcome body misperception and create novel augmented and embodied experiences

Head-mounted display-based virtual reality as a tool to reduce disruptive behavior in a student diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder

In this paper, we present a study investigating the feasibility of using Virtual Reality (VR) to reduce disruptive classroom behavior of a child diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The child shows extensive, aggressive behavior in the classroom, making it hard for the teacher to teach him and his classmates. Even when receiving one-to-one lectures by a professional teacher, without the presence of other students, the child shows disruptive behavior. However, when receiving lectures in a virtual environment by a teacher, the child was calm, focused, and capable of working on his assignments without showing any disruptive behaviors. Even if the study has been applied to one single child, the promising results can be extended to more children showing similar behaviors

Anthropometry and Scan: A Computational Exploration on Measuring and Imaging

New developments in the field of technology have led to the use of scanners in order to obtain anthropometric measurements. As a matter of fact, anthropometry finds its roots in the seventeenth century, currently its usage has been strengthened by the employment of scanners. 3D whole-body scanners allow to collect reliable data and to visualise the exact human body shape. Thus, this paper aims at exploring the combination of these topics, anthropometry and scan, through an innovative tool, the scientometrics analysis. This technique provides a clear overview of the existing literature in the field investigated. In our study we examined 1\u2019652 papers from the Web of Science Core Collection database. Network analyses have shown an interesting scenario, emphasising the research evolution over time. Specifically, endocrinology and metabolism emerged as the most active publication domains. Accordingly, the two most high-impact journals and the most cited paper regard nutrition issues and metabolic risk factors respectively. However, the predominance of the USA for number of publications has not been confirmed by the institution\u2019s analysis, which has shown the University of Copenhagen as the most influential one. On the other hand, Yumei Zhang currently appears as the main authority in the field and Leslie G. Farkas as the most influential author over the entire time span analysed. The relevant implications of the findings are discussed in terms of future research lines