MUSICAL BIOFEEDBACK

 

Musical (Sonified) biofeedback conveys biomechanics metrics via musical sounds. We are developing systems with which people can interactively “tune” music biofeedback to tune their movement strategies. Recently, our lab has been awarded with an NSF CAREER award titled “Adaptive Biofeedback to Improve Balance during Everyday Mobility” to advance this mission. Additionally, we had support from K12HD073945. https://irek12.org/

We are currently evaluating how older adults interact with balance biofeedback systems with guidance from a physical therapist to improve their balance during walking and turning. Below, we include some example early prototype sound designs developed by Dr. Luke Dahl (UVA) and Matias Vilaplana Stark.

Publications

Tillman, M., Dahl, L., Knowlton, C., Zaferiou, A. (2020) Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Movement and Computing. https://doi.org/10.1145/3401956.3404244

Dahl, L., Knowlton, C., Zaferiou, A. (2019) Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Movement and Computing. doi 10.1145/3347122.3359600

DeSIGN PROTOTYPES:

audiovisual example of dance sonification:

This example sound design, by Dr. Luke Dahl, was used in the context of dance to explore the relationship between pelvis and feet, generally associated with whole body balance regulation. We currently use this design during STEAM outreach events.

 

We are working on more mobile ways to sonify balance metrics. Summer 2020 undergraduate Pinnacle Scholar, Paul Brellis, created this system to calculate the base of support and body’s center of mass using a Microsoft Kinect.

Video Details: On the left/below, you see the stick figure generated by Kinect. The middle you see the XYZ coordinates of the Body’s Center of Mass that uses assumptions about body segment parameter parameters. On the right, you can see the purple outline of the base of support along with the light blue dot as the projection of the body center of mass onto the ground.

Archive of Old Prototypes

Older prototypes of sonified biofeedback are included below: