As light as you aspire to be: Changing body perception with sound to support physical activity

Ana Tajadura-Jiménez, Joseph Newbold, Linge Zhang, Patricia Rick, Nadia Bianchi-Berthouze

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

28 Citations (Scopus)
21 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Supporting exercise adherence through technology remains an important HCI challenge. Recent works showed that altering walking sounds leads people perceiving themselves as thinner/lighter, happier and walking more dynamically. While this novel approach shows potential for physical activity, it raises critical questions impacting technology design. We ran two studies in the context of exertion (gym-step, stairs-climbing) to investigate how individual factors impact the effect of sound and the duration of the after-effects. The results confirm that the effects of sound in body-perception occur even in physically demanding situations and through ubiquitous wearable devices. We also show that the effect of sound interacted with participants’ body weight and masculinity/femininity aspirations, but not with gender. Additionally, changes in body-perceptions did not hold once the feedback stopped; however, body-feelings or behavioural changes appeared to persist for longer. We discuss the results in terms of malleability of body-perception and highlight opportunities for supporting exercise adherence.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationCHI '19
Subtitle of host publicationProceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
EditorsStephen Brewster, Geraldine Fitzpatrick, Anna L. Cox, Vassilis Kostakos
Place of PublicationNew York
PublisherACM
Pages1-14
Number of pages14
ISBN (Electronic)9781450359702
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2 May 2019
Externally publishedYes
Event2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI 2019 - Glasgow, United Kingdom
Duration: 4 May 20199 May 2019

Publication series

NameConference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings

Conference

Conference2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI 2019
Country/TerritoryUnited Kingdom
CityGlasgow
Period4/05/199/05/19

Keywords

  • Auditory body perception
  • Emotion
  • Evaluation method
  • Interaction styles
  • Multimodal interfaces
  • Sonification

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