Robot-Assisted Mindfulness Practice: Analysis of Neurophysiological Responses and Affective State Change
arXiv Preprint Archive – August 12, 2020
Source: arXiv
Summary
A social robot successfully guided participants into more positive emotional states through mindfulness exercises, showing how human-computer interaction (cs.HC) can enhance mental wellness. The research paired robotics (cs.RO) with brain monitoring to track participants' mental states during robot-led meditation sessions. Results showed unique brain activity patterns in the meditation group, particularly increased sensory awareness. Most notably, all participants reported better moods after interacting with the robot, regardless of activity type, highlighting the potential for robotic systems in mental health support.
Abstract
Mindfulness is the state of paying attention to the present moment on purpose and meditation is the technique to obtain this state. This study aims to develop a robot assistant that facilitates mindfulness training by means of a Brain Computer Interface (BCI) system. To achieve this goal, we collected EEG signals from two groups of subjects engaging in a meditative vs. nonmeditative human robot interaction (HRI) and evaluated cerebral hemispheric asymmetry, which is recognized as a well defined indicator of emotional states. Moreover, using self reported affective states, we strived to explain asymmetry changes based on pre and post experiment mood alterations. We found that unlike earlier meditation studies, the frontocentral activations in alpha and theta frequency bands were not influenced by robot guided mindfulness practice, however there was a significantly greater right sided activity in the occipital gamma band of Meditation group, which is attributed to increased sensory awareness and open monitoring. In addition, there was a significant main effect of Time on participants self reported affect, indicating an improved mood after interaction with the robot regardless of the interaction type. Our results suggest that EEG responses during robot-guided meditation hold promise in realtime detection and neurofeedback of mindful state to the user, however the experienced neurophysiological changes may differ based on the meditation practice and recruited tools. This study is the first to report EEG changes during mindfulness practice with a robot. We believe that our findings driven from an ecologically valid setting, can be used in development of future BCI systems that are integrated with social robots for health applications.