Robot-Assisted Mindfulness Practice: Analysis of Neurophysiological Responses and Affective State Change
Maryam Alimardani, Linda Kemmeren, Kazuki Okumura, Kazuo Hiraki
arXiv Preprint Archive August 12, 2020 via arXiv
Summary
AI-generated from the abstractA robot assistant guided mindfulness meditation while recording brain activity via EEG. Two groups of people interacted with the robot, one group meditating and the other not. Unlike prior meditation studies, the robot-guided practice did not change frontal alpha or theta brain waves. However, the meditation group showed stronger right-sided occipital gamma activity, linked to sensory awareness and open monitoring. Participants reported improved mood after interacting with the robot, regardless of whether they meditated. The findings suggest EEG can detect mindful states during robot-guided meditation, but the brain changes may differ from traditional meditation. This is the first report of EEG changes during robot-guided mindfulness practice.
Study at a glance
| Characteristics | Controlled experiment Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Population | Subjects engaging in meditative vs. nonmeditative human-robot interaction |
| Keywords | Social-robotics Mindfulness-meditation Human-robot-interaction cs.hc Mental-health-technology Brain-computer-interfaces cs.ro |
| Key finding | Robot-guided mindfulness meditation did not alter frontocentral alpha and theta brain activity but increased right occipital gamma activity, and participants reported improved mood after interacting with the robot regardless of meditation condition. |
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.