As light as your footsteps: Altering walking sounds to change perceived body weight, emotional state and gait

Research output: Contribution to book/conference proceedings/anthology/reportConference contributionContributedpeer-review

Contributors

  • Ana Tajadura-Jiménez - , University College London (Author)
  • Maria Basia - , University College London (Author)
  • Ophelia Deroy - , University of London (Author)
  • Merle Fairhurst - , University of London (Author)
  • Nicolai Marquardt - , University College London (Author)
  • Nadia Bianchi-Berthouze - , University College London (Author)

Abstract

An ever more sedentary lifestyle is a serious problem in our society. Enhancing people's exercise adherence through technology remains an important research challenge. We propose a novel approach for a system supporting walking that draws from basic findings in neuroscience research. Our shoe-based prototype senses a person's footsteps and alters in real-time the frequency spectra of the sound they produce while walking. The resulting sounds are consistent with those produced by either a lighter or heavier body. Our user study showed that modified walking sounds change one's own perceived body weight and lead to a related gait pattern. In particular, augmenting the high frequencies of the sound leads to the perception of having a thinner body and enhances the motivation for physical activity inducing a more dynamic swing and a shorter heel strike. We here discuss the opportunities and the questions our findings open.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationCHI 2015 - Proceedings of the 33rd Annual CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery
Pages2943-2952
Number of pages10
ISBN (electronic)978-1-4503-3145-6
Publication statusPublished - 18 Apr 2015
Peer-reviewedYes
Externally publishedYes

Publication series

SeriesConference on Human Factors in Computing Systems : Proceedings of the ... annual conference on Human factors in computing systems
ISSN1062-9432

Conference

Title33rd Annual CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI 2015
Duration18 - 23 April 2015
CitySeoul
CountryKorea, Republic of

External IDs

ORCID /0000-0001-6540-5891/work/150883509

Keywords

Keywords

  • Auditory body perception, Emotion, Evaluation method, Interaction styles, Multimodal interfaces, Sonification