Sonic Cradle is an experimental interaction paradigm exploring technology for mindfulness. It’s a therapeutic meditation chamber using biofeedback, music, and sensory deprivation.
Can persuasive technology experientially introduce a state of mindfulness to non-practitioners? This question led me to design, build, and study Sonic Cradle - an interactive prototype where your body is suspended in complete darkness while you compose music using only your breathing. Grounded in science, it was designed to induce an attentional loop which parallels mindfulness meditation. I used mixed methods research to confirm that Sonic Cradle produced subjective experiences comparable to mindfulness meditation, along with a corresponding shift in the parasympathetic nervous system.
I published this work in leading academic venues in human-computer interaction in 2012-2013, making it one of the first major projects at this intersection of technology and mindfulness. Since then, much more work has been conducted in the space, with more than 350 explicit citations of this project in the literature. If you're especially interested, you can watch a 20 minute talk outlining the project, read an award-winning design rationale, read validation studies (1) (2), or simply listen to relaxing recordings of the system in-use.
Academic Publications
Interactively mediating experiences of mindfulness meditation.
Jay Vidyarthi & Bernhard Riecke - Feb 2014. Journal article published in the International Journal for Human-Computer Studies.
Could an Interactive Medium Introduce Non-Practitioners to Mindfulness Meditation?
Jay Vidyarthi & Bernhard Riecke - May 2013. Paper published and presented at the 1st International Conference on Mindfulness in Rome, Italy.
Mediated Meditation: Cultivating Mindfulness with Sonic Cradle.
Jay Vidyarthi & Bernhard Riecke - Apr 2013. Paper published and presented at CHI 2013 in Paris, France.
Sonic Cradle: Evoking Mindfulness through ‘Immersive’ Interaction Design.
Jay Vidyarthi - Dec 2012. M.Sc. Thesis defended at Simon Fraser University (SIAT) in Vancouver.
Sonic Cradle: Designing for an Immersive Experience of Meditation by Connecting Respiration to Music.
Jay Vidyarthi, Bernhard Riecke & Diane Gromala - June 2012. Paper published and presented at DIS 2012 in Newcastle.
[Award winner: peer reviewed in top 2.5% of all papers]
Encouraging Meditative Experiences through Respiratory-Musical Interaction.
Jay Vidyarthi, Bernhard Riecke & Diane Gromala - May 2012. Paper published and presented at GRAND 2012 in Montreal.
Visuo-Sonic Cradle – Immersive interaction design combining breathing- and neurofeedback to foster meditative states
Prpa, M., Quesnel, D., Kitson, A., Cochrane, K., Vidyarthi, J., & Riecke, B. E., ICM2016ROME, poster presentation, Rome, Italy.
Sonic Cradle: Investigating Meditative Aspects of an Interactive Technology
Kitson, A., Riecke, B. E., & Vidyarthi, J. (2014). NCE-GRAND 2014 Conference, 1–4.
Are you Immersed? Characterizing Immersion across Literature, Art and Interactive Media.
Jay Vidyarthi, Bernhard Riecke & Diane Gromala - Sept 2011. Paper published and presented at SLSA 2011 in Kitchener.
Sympathetic Guitar: Human Social Response to Remote Interaction Paradigms in Abstract, Expressive Contexts
Jay Vidyarthi, Bernhard Riecke & Alissa Antle - Aug 2011. Paper published and presented at Computational Aesthetics 2011 in Vancouver.
Sympathetic Guitar: Can a Digitally-Augmented Guitar be a Social Entity?
Jay Vidyarthi, Alissa N. Antle & Bernhard Riecke - May 2011. Work-in-progress published and poster presentation at CHI 2011 in Vancouver.
Human-Computer Interaction: the missing piece of the Records Management puzzle?
Steve Bailey & Jay Vidyarthi - September 2010. Journal article published at Records Management Journal.
Using Multiple iTV Displays for the Simultaneous Comparative Evaluation of Parallel Prototypes
PA Lapointe, Jay Vidyarthi & Joelle Stemp - June 2010. Paper published and presented at EuroITV 2010 in Tampere.
Rich Internet Resources: Designing Complex Web-Based Information Archives
Jay Vidyarthi - April 2010. Paper published and presented at ECA 2010 in Geneva.