FERARI: Feedback system for a more engaging, rewarding and activiting rhythmic interaction

FERARI: Feedback system for a more engaging, rewarding and activiting rhythmic interaction (2018-2022)

This project aims to find possible ways to improve our interaction with digital environments, by stimulating the brain with a rhythmic sound. Such a tool would make the interaction more activating, engaging and rewarding. The tool that we envision is very innovative because it automatically adapts the rhythmic sound based on signals directly measured from the brain. In a first step we need to identify the physiological signals, called biomarkers, that are best suited to measure how people perceive the activating, engaging and rewarding aspects of interaction. We will use EEG, a method to measure the electric activity in the brain, and fNIRS, a method that measures the activity of brain regions based on the amount of oxygen in the blood. Next to these, studying the pupil will teach us whether we enjoy the interaction or not. In a next step, we need to relate these measurements to the details of the rhythmic sound. It is then possible to influence the signals that we measure in the brain by changing the rhythmic sound. A third step looks into the interaction between two people. The goal of this step is to learn what makes this interaction activating, engaging and rewarding and how it is different from the first step. This enables us to mimic a human-human interaction in our envisioned tool. Finally, a proof of concept will be developed, supported by the achieved results and a small user experiment, to proof that such a tool is possible.

Promotors: Marc Leman, Paul Devos, Dick Botteldooren