MeditAid: a wearable adaptive neurofeedback-based system for training mindfulness state

摘要

A recent interest in interaction design is towards the development of novel technologies emphasizing the value of mindfulness, monitoring, awareness, and self-regulation for both health and well-being. Whereas existing systems have focused mostly on relaxation and awareness of feelings, there has been little exploration on tools supporting the self-regulation of attention during mindfulness sitting meditation. This paper describes the design and initial evaluation of MeditAid, a wearable system integrating electroencephalography technology with an adaptive aural entrainment for real-time training of mindfulness state. The system identifies different meditative states and provides feedback to support users in deepening their meditation. We report on a study with 16 meditators about the perceived strengths and limitations of the MeditAid system. We demonstrate the benefits of binaural feedback in deepening meditative states, particularly for novice meditators.