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VARIAPSODY

Designing a Novel music listening device for emotion regulation






WHY?


Variapsody is an attempt to design consumer technology that goes beyond short-term gratification. It is to showcase ways everyday activities can be psychologically beneficial.



It is 1 device with 3 features







1. REACTION TILE


Inscribes your emotional reaction to music on a “tile”






2. MONOFILTER


Makes music less distracting to help focus on other tasks.




3. VIBESHOT

Captures the listening context in a journal-like digital page.  This reflects the associative nature of how we form memories.

 







WHY?

(again but more academic)

While conventional PPIs (’Positive Psychology Interventions’ such as self-reflection in a journal or reading self-help book) are proven to work, they often require users to initiate a new habit or behavior.

Variapsody showcases ways in which designing around everyday activities lowers the effort needed for frequent “Positive Psychology Intervention” use. (Music listening leading into emotion regulation)











While conventional PPIs (Positive Psychology Interventions such as self-reflection in a journal or reading self-help book) are proven to work, they often require users to initiate a new habit or behavior.

Emotions x Wellbeing?

    Despite their transience, emotions have a long-term impact on our experience as they influence the ways we perceive, think, and behave. In particular, positive emotions are known to increase one’s creativity, willingness to try novel activities, and facilitate forming lasting social connections [
🔗
].

Enabling and supporting the capacity for emotion regulation has been considered an effective approach to improving overall well-being. Emotion Regulation (ER) refers to “how we try to influence which emotions we have, when we have them, and how we experience and express these emotions. [
🔗
]”


Variapsody —  ‘Vari’ for variety, variation, variability and ‘apsody’ from rhapsody, an effusively enthusiastic or ecstatic expression of feeling. — is an interactive music listening device with three features, each focusing on one of three emotion regulation strategies:
  1. The Reaction Tile inscribes one’s reaction to music onto a tangible, domino-sized tile to encourage paying close attention to emotional stimuli in music (i.e., attentional deployment).
  2. The Monofilter muffles music (situation modification) for easier monotasking. In other words, it blunts the salience of music to give users control over their cognitive bandwidth.
  3. The third is the Vibelist that helps a person capture the context of music listening experiences in the form of a digital collage that can serve as a source of reflection and reappraisal of past events (cognitive change).





In addition, by providing three separate features on the same device (each catered to a different music listening use-case), Variapsody enables users to expand their repertoire of emotion regulation (regulatory diversity).

Why tangible?

    The tangibility of an artifact can add value by making PPIs more engaging to use and elevate their integration into people’s daily contexts. Being physical, tangible PPIs and their outcomes (e.g., receipts or tokens as a symbolic representation of the experience) can serve as visual reminders to use them and help users reminisce of their experiences. 







How it works
/
Prototyping progress


Input is Heart rate variability

Heart rate sensor, screen with Arduino. No processing beyond that to calculate HRV. Prototyped mechanical way of inscribing, but photo-chemical more miniaturizable (not prototyped).


Realtime digital signal processing of the musical signal (i.e. lowpass filter, reverb, removing vocals)

All the above prototyped and applied to input signal (3.5mm jack) to a Bela board, running PureData. Middle knob controls duration between occasional “moments of clarity” (clear glimpses of the song). The “instant clarity button” safeguards user autonomy by allowing momentarily bypassing filter during a song section they like.
APIs to pull data of song, time and place of ‘vibeshot’ (Spotify, weather, location) and self-reported entries (text, photo, feelings see Mood Meter)

Weather, Spotify API worked. Did not integrate them into a app (eg database + UI) that also allows text, photo entries.













Discovery / Design / Production phase photos





DISCOVERY


I explored and researched far and wide during the thesis research journey. Below are my favorite tangents that didn’t make it to the final thesis.

breathing pattern beads w/ heart rate monitor and sound filter (later simplified to become the Monofilter).


Training focus through visual perception: moving between concentration (focusing on a point) and panoramic vision (/open monitoring). Animation and tabletop prototype. A tool to practice diving into, or pulling out of, tunnel vision.




A lock screen that addresses the problem of inattention while using smartphones. Provides prompts for users to reflect or define the digital experience they seek. Some doodles to visualize guided mindfulness meditation steps (eg contact points, body scan, noting technique)









Mark