Calming Tech – Explorations on Interactive Technology Design for Stress and Emotional Management

  • Pablo Paredes, University of California, Berkeley; Mary Czerwinski, Microsoft

Stress has been regarded as an exacerbating factor for many physical and mental disorders. Stress management considers the detection and mitigation of stress. In this talk we will present the technology developed at the Berkeley Institute of Design to detect somatic stress signals and to help mitigate its effects. We will describe two sensing platforms, a wearable wireless device used to measure various biometrics, such as heart rate variability, and a voice-driven tool based on somatic and prosodic voice changes. We will present also results from a study on calming technologies based on social interactions, gaming and haptics. These exploratory results helped draw some initial conclusions around calming technology usability design principles. Complementary, we will present some visionary technology that could help improve engagement with traditional mental health tools such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and we will go over new ideas being developed to help the user be more aware of and regulate emotions.

Speaker Details

Pablo Paredes is a 3rd year Computer Science PhD candidate at the University of California – Berkeley with Prof. John Canny. Before joining UCB, he worked for almost a decade in the industry in product development and strategic marketing. His research is in Human Computer Interaction, with an emphasis on technologies for behavior change. His motivation comes from personal experience with psychological therapies, such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. His current focus is in the research of calming technologies and emotional regulation tangible devices. Additionally, he is interested to test narrative and gaming technologies to support long term engagement through identity change.

    • Portrait of Pablo Paredes

      Pablo Paredes

      PhD Student

      University of California, Berkeley

    • Portrait of Mary Czerwinski

      Mary Czerwinski

      Partner Researcher and Research Manager

  • Research Area

Series: Microsoft Research Talks