Pablo Paredes

Under pressure: sensing stress of computer users

Recognizing when computer users are stressed can help reduce their frustration and prevent a large variety of negative health conditions associated with chronic stress. However, measuring stress non-invasively and continuously at work remains an open challenge. This work explores the possibility of using a pressure-sensitive keyboard and a capacitive mouse to discriminate between stressful and relaxed conditions in a laboratory study. During a 30 minute session, 24 participants performed several computerized tasks consisting of expressive writing, text transcription, and mouse clicking. During the stressful conditions, the large majority of the participants showed significantly increased typing pressure (>79% of the participants) and more contact with the surface of the mouse (75% of the participants). We discuss the potential implications of this work and provide recommendations for future work.

CalmMeNow: exploratory research and design of stress mitigating mobile interventions

This paper describes design explorations for stress mitigation on mobile devices based on three types of interventions: haptic feedback, games and social networks. The paper offers a qualitative assessment of the usability of these three types of interventions together with an initial analysis of their potential efficacy. Social networking and games show great potential for stress relief. Lastly, the paper discusses key findings and considerations for long-term studies of stress mitigation in HCI, as well as a list of aspects to be considered when designing calming interventions.

Fast & Furious: Detecting Stress with a Car Steering Wheel

Stress affects the lives of millions of people every day. In-situ sensing could enable just-in-time stress management interventions. We present the first work to detect stress using the movements of a cars existing steering wheel. We extend prior work on PC peripherals and demonstrate that stress, expressed through muscle tension in the limbs, can be measured through the way we drive a car. We collected data in a driving simulator under controlled circumstances to vary the levels of induced stress, within subjects. We analyze angular displacement data to estimate coefficients related to muscle tension using an inverse filtering technique. We prove that the damped frequency of a mass spring damper model representing the arm is significantly higher during stress. Stress can be detected with only a few turns during driving. We validate these measures against a known stressor and calibrate our sensor against known stress measurements.

Breath Booster!: Exploring In-Car, Fast-Paced Breathing Interventions to Enhance Driver Arousal State

In this paper, we explore the delivery of fast breathing interventions in a driving context, given the proven effects of high-paced breathing on autonomic arousal. Through in-lab simulator studies, we demonstrate the feasibility of using haptic guidance to increase breathing rate, intensity, and heart rate as well as subjective perceptions of alertness and focus. We also assess usability and user receptivity towards the approach across various simulated driving scenarios (highway, city), times of day (day, night), and traffic levels (low, heavy, fast). In doing so, we outline specific use cases where fast breathing interventions are more or less appropriate and beneficial (e.g., during long, monotonous drives on the highway or at night vs. complex or tense driving scenarios), and we offer fertile future directions for the continued development of breathing systems for health and well-being.

Fiat-Lux: Interactive Urban Lights for Combining Positive Emotion and Efficiency

We fuse science and design thinking to create a novel, IoT interactive urban lights system focused on increasing positive affect among pedestrians. Our contributions are three-fold. First, the design, construction, and evaluation of an efficient interactive lighting system focused on well-being, as opposed to systems focused on utility or landscaping. Second, we used scientific methods to discover basic design parameters for affective outcomes. Third, we optimized user experiences for low energy profiles, positive affect, and interactivity. Tested interactions show positive and some unexpected negative responses. Optimal interactive designs cut energy consumption by 75% while maintaining positive affect. Furthermore, card sorting design exercises revealed an inverse relationship between perceived pleasant feelings and interactivity. We conclude by discussing the implications of our research for the design of coherent, attractive, and efficient urban lighting.