A Vibrotactile Alarm System for Pleasant Awakening

There has been a vast development of personal informatics devices combining sleep monitoring with alarm systems, in order to find an optimal time to awaken a sleeping person in a pleasant way. Most of these systems implement auditory feedback as the alarm signal, which is not always pleasant and may disturb other sleepers in the same space. In this paper, we present an adaptive alarm system that detects sleeping cycles and triggers the alarm signal during shallow sleep, in order to minimize sleep inertia. Since tactile sensation is associated with positive valence, vibrotactile stimulation is investigated as a silent alarm to enhance pleasant awakening. Three modulation techniques to render the tactile stimuli for pleasant awakening are considered, namely simultaneous, continuous, and successive stimulation. Two experimental studied are conducted. Experiment 1 studied exogenous attention towards tactile stimulation in a multimodal scenario (involving visual and haptic interactions) with fully awake individuals. Results from the attention task and the subjective valence rating suggest that the vibrotactile stimulation should be based on the continuous modulation, since this not only is very perceivable but also associated with positive attention. Experiment 2 evaluated the user experience with tactile stimulation patterns during sleep. Results confirmed the findings of experiment 1. Continuous modulation was rated highest for pleasant yet arousing sleep-awake transition.

[1]  E. Viding,et al.  Load theory of selective attention and cognitive control. , 2004, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[2]  Shuhei Asano,et al.  Vibrotactile Stimulation to Increase and Decrease Texture Roughness , 2015, IEEE Transactions on Human-Machine Systems.

[3]  J. Russell,et al.  The circumplex model of affect: An integrative approach to affective neuroscience, cognitive development, and psychopathology , 2005, Development and Psychopathology.

[4]  Alan C. Evans,et al.  Attention modulates somatosensory cerebral blood flow response to vibrotactile stimulation as measured by positron emission tomography , 1991, Annals of neurology.

[5]  Claudio Pacchierotti,et al.  Evaluation of Wearable Haptic Systems for the Fingers in Augmented Reality Applications , 2017, IEEE Transactions on Haptics.

[6]  R W Cholewiak,et al.  The generation of vibrotactile patterns on a linear array: Influences of body site, time, and presentation mode , 2000, Perception & psychophysics.

[7]  Camarin E. Rolle,et al.  Video game training enhances cognitive control in older adults , 2013, Nature.

[8]  Abdulmotaleb El-Saddik,et al.  Continuous tactile perception for vibrotactile displays , 2009, 2009 IEEE International Workshop on Robotic and Sensors Environments.

[9]  Fanglin Chen,et al.  Unobtrusive sleep monitoring using smartphones , 2013, 2013 7th International Conference on Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare and Workshops.

[10]  Ondrej Krejcar,et al.  Proactive User Adaptive Application for Pleasant Wakeup , 2011, ACIIDS.

[11]  Hussein Al Osman,et al.  Affective Haptics: Current Research and Future Directions , 2016, IEEE Access.

[12]  Mohamad A. Eid,et al.  SOA thresholds for the perception of discrete/continuous tactile stimulation , 2015, 2015 Seventh International Workshop on Quality of Multimedia Experience (QoMEX).

[13]  Karon E. MacLean,et al.  A first look at individuals' affective ratings of vibrations , 2013, 2013 World Haptics Conference (WHC).

[14]  F. A. Geldard.  Adventures in tactile literacy. , 1957 .

[15]  B. Swinderen,et al.  The Yin and Yang of Sleep and Attention , 2015, Trends in Neurosciences.

[16]  P. de Chazal,et al.  An Evaluation of a Non-contact Biomotion Sensor with Actimetry , 2007, 2007 29th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society.

[17]  Kajiro Watanabe,et al.  Noncontact method for sleep stage estimation , 2004, IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering.

[18]  Björn Eskofier,et al.  Somnography using unobtrusive motion sensors and Android-based mobile phones , 2013, 2013 35th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC).

[19]  Xi Long,et al.  On the impact of arousals on the performance of sleep and wake classification using actigraphy , 2013, 2013 35th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC).

[20]  J. Wessberg,et al.  Coding of pleasant touch by unmyelinated afferents in humans , 2009, Nature Neuroscience.

[21]  Jasper Kuijsten.  Adaptive Alarm Clock Using Movement Detection to Differentiate Sleep Phases , 2010 .

[22]  野間 春生,et al.  Symposium on Haptic Interfaces for Virtual Environment and Teleoperator Systems 参加報告 , 1997 .

[23]  Roope Raisamo,et al.  Vibrotactile information for intuitive speed regulation , 2009, BCS HCI.

[24]  M. Bradley,et al.  Measuring emotion: the Self-Assessment Manikin and the Semantic Differential. , 1994, Journal of behavior therapy and experimental psychiatry.

[25]  Abdulmotaleb El-Saddik,et al.  Slingshot 3D: A synchronous haptic-audio-video game , 2012, Multimedia Tools and Applications.

[26]  Ali Israr,et al.  Control space of apparent haptic motion , 2011, 2011 IEEE World Haptics Conference.

[27]  Roope Raisamo,et al.  Comparison of Saltation, Amplitude Modulation, and a Hybrid Method of Vibrotactile Stimulation , 2013, IEEE Transactions on Haptics.

[28]  James C. Craig,et al.  Response competition: A major source of interference in a tactile identification task , 1992, Perception & psychophysics.

[29]  Katherine J. Kuchenbecker,et al.  Vibrotactile feedback system for intuitive upper-limb rehabilitation , 2009, World Haptics 2009 - Third Joint EuroHaptics conference and Symposium on Haptic Interfaces for Virtual Environment and Teleoperator Systems.

[30]  A. Bonnel,et al.  Divided attention between simultaneous auditory and visual signals , 1998, Perception & psychophysics.

[31]  B. Ross,et al.  Attention modulates beta oscillations during prolonged tactile stimulation , 2010, The European journal of neuroscience.

[32]  Naoki Kawakami,et al.  Affective haptics in emotional communication , 2009, 2009 3rd International Conference on Affective Computing and Intelligent Interaction and Workshops.

[33]  Yacine Bellik,et al.  Multimodal interfaces: new solutions to the problem of computer accessibilty for the blind , 1994, CHI '94.

[34]  Ben J. A. Kröse,et al.  The TaSSt: Tactile sleeve for social touch , 2013, 2013 World Haptics Conference (WHC).

[35]  A Cappozzo,et al.  The sensitivity of posturographic parameters to acquisition settings. , 2002, Medical engineering & physics.

[36]  Hui Wang,et al.  Learning Naive Bayes Classifiers with Incomplete Data , 2009, 2009 International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Computational Intelligence.

[37]  Gil Yosipovitch,et al.  Somatosensory pleasure circuit: from skin to brain and back , 2015, Experimental dermatology.

[38]  K. Bloch,et al.  Polysomnography: a systematic review. , 1997, Technology and health care : official journal of the European Society for Engineering and Medicine.

[39]  Á. Kristjánsson,et al.  Divided multimodal attention sensory trace and context coding strategies in spatially congruent auditory and visual presentation. , 2014, Multisensory research.

[40]  Yi Yang,et al.  Force Control Tasks with Pure Haptic Feedback Promote Short-Term Focused Attention , 2014, IEEE Transactions on Haptics.

[41]  Y. Lamarre,et al.  Unmyelinated tactile afferents signal touch and project to insular cortex , 2002, Nature Neuroscience.

[42]  G. Békésy,et al.  Funneling in the Nervous System and its Role in Loudness and Sensation Intensity on the Skin , 1958 .

[43]  Lorna M. Brown,et al.  A first investigation into the effectiveness of Tactons , 2005, First Joint Eurohaptics Conference and Symposium on Haptic Interfaces for Virtual Environment and Teleoperator Systems. World Haptics Conference.

[44]  Mohamad Eid,et al.  Aegis: A biofeedback adaptive alarm system using vibrotactile feedback , 2014, 2014 IEEE International Instrumentation and Measurement Technology Conference (I2MTC) Proceedings.