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Sensors and Wearable Technologies for Cognitive Aid

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A special issue of Sensors (ISSN 1424-8220). This special issue belongs to the section "Electronic Sensors".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 August 2022) | Viewed by 12637

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Tilman Dingler

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Guest Editor

School of Computing and Information Systems, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC 3052, Australia
Interests: cognition-aware computing; cognitive biases; ubiquitous computing

Dr. Francisco Kiss

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Guest Editor

Institute for Visualization and Interactive Systems, University of Stuttgart, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany
Interests: sensory augmentation; ubiquitous computing; design for mindful interaction

Dr. Benjamin Tag

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Guest Editor

School of Computing and Information Systems, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC 3052, Australia
Interests: physiological sensing; ubiquitous computing; digital emotion regulation

Prof. Dr. Koichi Kise

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Guest Editor

Department of Computer Science and Intelligent Systems, Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka Prefecture University, Osaka 599-8531, Japan
Interests: information retrieval; document image analysis; computer vision

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

When it comes to nutritional science and sports activities, we tend to have a pretty good understanding of how to manage and optimize our bodies. The same is not necessarily true for our cognitive abilities, such as alertness, focus, and memory. “You can’t manage what you can’t measure”, so goes the famous managerial quote by Peter Drucker. While tracking activities, such as step counting, are relatively straightforward, surrogate measures are required to detect and quantify cognitive states.

Awareness of current, in situ, and more systematic fluctuations of cognitive states is a prerequisite for understanding, changing, and managing our cognitive resources. For a long time, we have used aids to outsource cognitive tasks and compensate for the fallacies of our own perceptual and cognitive abilities: Optical lenses have been used to sharpen the blurry and transpire the invisible. Calendars help us to organize our lives, alarms remind us of chores, and pictures let us dwell on past experiences. These aids are widely used and socially accepted. They are customizable yet not individually tailored to their users’ cognitive abilities.

Continuous progress has been made in utilizing medical-grade as well as low-cost sensors to quantify a more wholesome image of our physical and cognitive activities. This includes a wide range of sensors people already carry with them. They sense the environment, including time, temperature, and noise levels and collect information from their users, such as motion, heart-rate, and emotion. These developments present a range of opportunities for researchers and application developers to explore the realm of cognitive aid technology.

We invite manuscripts for this forthcoming Special Issue on research and applications that drive the development of technologies to assist and augment human perception, cognition, and memory. We seek contributions in quantifying cognitive functions through sensors and wearable technologies built to enhance memory, boost alertness, augment perception, and support learning, just to name a few. We are interested in cutting-edge sensing approaches that provide a window into our cognitive processes, new applications of emerging technologies that foster cognitive well-being, and devices that support cognition in unobtrusive and continuous ways.

Dr. Tilman Dingler
Dr. Francisco Kiss
Dr. Benjamin Tag
Prof. Dr. Koichi Kise
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Keywords

Cognition-aware systems
Cognitive sensing
Cognitive aid
Context-awareness
Circadian computing
Wearables
Ubiquitous computing
Pervasive

Published Papers (6 papers)

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Research

21 pages, 1643 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Unconscious Other’s Impression Changer: A Method to Manipulate Cognitive Biases That Subtly Change Others’ Impressions Positively/Negatively by Making AI Bias in Emotion Estimation AI

by Kyosuke Futami, Sadahiro Yanase, Kazuya Murao and Tsutomu Terada

Sensors 2022, 22(24), 9961; https://doi.org/10.3390/s22249961 - 17 Dec 2022

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2114

Abstract

Artificial Intelligence (AI) for human emotion estimation, such as facial emotion estimation, has been actively studied. On the other hand, there has been little research on unconscious phenomena in cognition and psychology (i.e., cognitive biases) caused by viewing AI emotion estimation information. Therefore, this study verifies RQ “Do people have a cognitive bias in which impressions of others (i.e., how to see and feel about others) are changed by viewing biased AI’s emotion estimation information? If it exists, can impression manipulation methods that intentionally use this cognitive bias be realized?” The proposed method for verification makes the emotion estimation system biased so as to estimate emotion more positively/negatively than AI without bias. A prototype system was implemented. Evaluation using video showed that the presentation of biased emotion estimation information causes a phenomenon that quickly and unconsciously changes the way people see and feel others’ impressions, which supported the RQ. Specifically, viewing information that estimated others’ emotions more positively/negatively caused the phenomenon in which the user’s self-judgment was overridden and others’ impressions of emotions, words, and actions were perceived more positively/negatively. The existence of this phenomenon and method indicates that biased emotion estimation AI has the potential to both cause adverse effects on people and support people for good purposes through the manipulation of their impressions. This study provides helpful insights for the design and use of emotion estimation AI considering cognitive biases. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors and Wearable Technologies for Cognitive Aid)

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20 pages, 585 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Exploring Tactile Stimuli from a Wrist-Worn Device to Manipulate Subjective Time Based on the Filled-Duration Illusion

by Kiichi Shirai, Kyosuke Futami and Kazuya Murao

Sensors 2022, 22(19), 7194; https://doi.org/10.3390/s22197194 - 22 Sep 2022

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1139

Abstract

There are situations where manipulating subjective time would be desirable, such as reducing waiting time, and there are many studies to manipulate subjective time. However, it is not easy to use previous methods in various situations because most of them use visual and auditory information. This study proposes a method to manipulate the subjective time by the tactile stimuli from wrist-worn devices. We designed three types of tactile stimuli presentation methods that change the number, the duration, and the time interval of the stimuli. The evaluation result clarified the elements of the tactile stimuli that intentionally changed the subjective time and confirmed that our method can change the subjective time by about 23% (from

- 6

% to

+ 17

%). Since few studies have focused on the phenomenon in which the subjective time changes depending on the tactile stimuli from information devices, our findings can contribute to designing information devices and user experiences. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors and Wearable Technologies for Cognitive Aid)

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17 pages, 2229 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Are Psychophysiological Wearables Suitable for Comparing Pedagogical Teaching Approaches?

by Vesna Geršak, Tina Giber, Gregor Geršak and Jerneja Pavlin

Sensors 2022, 22(15), 5704; https://doi.org/10.3390/s22155704 - 30 Jul 2022

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1418

Abstract

This study describes how wearable devices can be used in elementary schools to compare some aspects of different teaching approaches. Upper arm wearables were used as an objective tool to compare three approaches when teaching science: (i) classical frontal teaching, (ii) embodied (kinesthetic) teaching, and (iii) a distance teaching approach. Using the wearables, the approaches were compared in terms of their impact on students’ psychological arousal and perceived well-being. In addition, short-term and long-term knowledge gain and physiological synchronization between teacher and students during the lecture were assessed. A synchronization index was defined to estimate the degree of physiological synchronization. During distance teaching, by means of measurements with wearables, students were significantly less physically active and significantly less psychologically aroused. Embodied teaching allowed significantly higher physical activation than during the other two approaches. The synchronization index for all three teaching approaches was positive with the highest values for distance and frontal teaching. Moreover, knowledge gain immediately after the embodied lessons was higher than after frontal lessons. No significant differences in the long-term knowledge retention between the three different teaching methods were found. This pilot study proved that wearables are a useful tool in research in the field of education and have the potential to contribute to a deeper understanding of the mechanisms involved in learning, even in complex environments such as an elementary school classroom. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors and Wearable Technologies for Cognitive Aid)

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18 pages, 2036 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Effects of Speed-Modulated Visual Stimuli Seen through Smart Glasses on Work Efficiency after Viewing

by Eiichi Hasegawa, Naoya Isoyama, Diego Vilela Monteiro, Nobuchika Sakata and Kiyoshi Kiyokawa

Sensors 2022, 22(6), 2272; https://doi.org/10.3390/s22062272 - 15 Mar 2022

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2710

Abstract

It is known that subjective time and work efficiency are affected by visual stimuli. However, existing studies only consider the effects of visual information on the user during viewing and ignore the after effects. Using smart glasses lets users see visual information while moving until just before arriving at the office or school. We hypothesize that the user’s effects from the visual information they were looking at just before working or studying affects the subsequent work. Through two user studies, we investigated whether information presented on smart glasses affected subsequent work efficiency. In the first experiment, participants were presented with avatars running at two levels of speed, or no avatars, through simulated smart glasses in a virtual environment. They then solved a dot-clicking task on a desktop monitor. In the second experiment, we investigated whether the same effect could be shown while walking in the real environment, with a running and a fast-walking avatar both at the same speed in order to see the difference in the effects of the different movements. In the first experiment, we confirmed that the speed of later work tended to improve when presenting the running human-shaped avatar. From the results of the second experiment, which was conducted in the real environment, we did not confirm that the subsequent work speed varied depending on the type of avatar being displayed. As a reason for the trend of improvement in the task efficiency in the first experiment, observation of fast human motion may have unconsciously accelerated the observers’ body movement speed due to the mirror neuron mechanism. As a reason for why the work speed did not improve in the second experiment, the participants may be affected by other pedestrians and running cars. Additionally, it was difficult to see the images on the smart glasses while walking in the real environment. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors and Wearable Technologies for Cognitive Aid)

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18 pages, 1054 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Method for Behavior Change Support by Controlling Psychological Effects on Walking Motivation Caused by Step Count Log Competition System

by Kyosuke Futami, Tsutomu Terada and Masahiko Tsukamoto

Sensors 2021, 21(23), 8016; https://doi.org/10.3390/s21238016 - 30 Nov 2021

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2172

Abstract

Systems presenting information that encourages competition by using rankings and scores (hereafter referred to as competition information) have become widespread to support behavioral change. However, users without high levels of motivation, such as behavior change support targets, do not necessarily benefit from competition information. In this study, we propose a method to control the psychological effects caused by competition information to support behavior change. We implemented a competition information presentation system using step counts logs to support increasing one’s daily steps. We designed two patterns of competition information considering psychological effects. One is likely to have good effects, using three mechanisms to easily obtain results corresponding to the effort, make closely matched rivals with similar abilities, and pay attention to a small number of rivals. The other is unlikely to have positive effects and may potentially even have negative ones, using a mechanism that brings about the opposite results of the former pattern. We evaluated 42 participants with low levels of motivation over six weeks. The results showed that the former information pattern increased participants’ step counts by about 1000 steps per day, and the latter information pattern did not lead to an increase. We confirmed the feasibility of the proposed method and discussed the possibility of the appropriate use and potential abuse of such techniques for manipulating motivation. Our study can be helpful in designing a competition information presentation system considering psychological effects. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors and Wearable Technologies for Cognitive Aid)

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33 pages, 1992 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Generating Instructive Questions from Multiple Articles to Guide Reading in E-Bibliotherapy

by Yunxing Xin, Lei Cao, Xin Wang, Xiaohao He and Ling Feng

Sensors 2021, 21(9), 3223; https://doi.org/10.3390/s21093223 - 6 May 2021

Viewed by 2042

Abstract

E-Bibliotherapy deals with adolescent psychological stress by manually or automatically recommending multiple reading articles around their stressful events, using electronic devices as a medium. To make E-Bibliotherapy really useful, generating instructive questions before their reading is an important step. Such a question shall (a) attract teens’ attention; (b) convey the essential message of the reading materials so as to improve teens’ active comprehension; and most importantly (c) highlight teens’ stress to enable them to generate emotional resonance and thus willingness to pursue the reading. Therefore in this paper, we propose to generate instructive questions from the multiple recommended articles to guide teens to read. Four solutions based on the neural encoder-decoder model are presented to tackle the task. For model training and testing, we construct a novel large-scale QA dataset named TeenQA, which is specific to adolescent stress. Due to the extensibility of question expressions, we incorporate three groups of automatic evaluation metrics as well as one group of human evaluation metrics to examine the quality of the generated questions. The experimental results show that the proposed Encoder-Decoder with Summary on Contexts with Feature-rich embeddings (ED-SoCF) solution can generate good questions for guiding reading, achieving comparable performance on some semantic similarity metrics with that of humans. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors and Wearable Technologies for Cognitive Aid)

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