AHFE Open AccessHuman Factors and Wearable Technologies
Editors: Jesslyn Alekseyev, Christianne Falcão
Topics: Wearable Technologies
Publication Date: 2023
ISBN: 978-1-958651-61-2
DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1003620
Articles
The human quest for wearable technologies for stable healthy lifestyle through self-measurement
One of the contenders of health care systems globally is hospital congestion since the emergence of the ravaging COVID-19. Hospital congestion is caused by a prolonged hospital stay and delayed discharge due to complicated health issues. The research domain of wearable technologies and well-being is growing, and many authors have contributed to the literature on wearable devices and well-being. However, there still needs to be more knowledge on how human factors affect a stable, healthy lifestyle while using wearable through self-measurement. This study utilized a 1000 sample size from Finland for descriptive and correlation analysis with SPSS version 28. The study results show wearable technology as a motivation for a stable human healthy lifestyle and offer managerial implications.
Sunday Adewale Olaleye, Esther Olubunmi Olaleye
Open Access
Article
Conference Proceedings
Improved Affect Prediction Using Complexity Based Ultra-Short-Term Heart Rate Variability Features
Heart rate variability (HRV) has been a useful tool for understanding human behavior. HRV features, derived from the inter-beat interval (RR) time series, reflect the autonomic nervous system processes of the body and have shown correlates with various mental processes. These processes include mental fatigue, workload, and anxiety, to name a few. Developing an understanding of these constructs in machines is key to improving human-computer interaction. However, HRV based emotion recognition is often limited to detection of negative (stress or anxiety) versus neutral emotional responses. Such systems when tested with subjects showing wider emotional responses may lead to errors. In addition to this, it is desirable for such emotion recognition systems to have high temporal resolution, thus allowing for almost real-time feedback and adaptive decision making. In this article, we explore the use of novel complexity-based feature set computed from so called ultra-short-term segments of 60 seconds. More specifically, we evaluate the potential of HRV features to distinguish stress vs. amusement vs. neutral vs. relaxation classes. Experiments using the WESAD database show that the proposed features extracted on ultra-short-term window of 60s and combined with benchmark features provide an overall improvement of 12.92 % balanced accuracy and 20 % F1-score over using only the benchmark features.
Abhishek Tiwari, Behnaz Poursartop, Amin Mahnam, Tiago Henrique Falk
Open Access
Article
Conference Proceedings
Application of wearable technologies for the assessment of biomechanical risk in hairdressers
It is usual to link respiratory and skin health issues to hairdressing job. The most current papers from throughout the world reported on biomechanics as well. Shoulder, lower back, and upper back joints were the most impacted. Several authors conducted ergonomic risk assessments through standardized protocols, like REBA, founding high-risk levels. Other authors measured shoulder and wrist movement with IMU or inclinometer founding a high biomechanical risk. Only one study used electromyography (sEMG) to compare the activity of male and female hairdressers founding those women had considerably higher sEMG activity. This study only measured the muscle work from upper limb flexors and extensors. To our knowledge, no research has investigated the whole upper body kinematics and sEMG from the upper arm, shoulder, and trunk using instrumentally based tools for hairdressers’ risk assessment. The aim of our study is a biomechanical risk assessment of the subtask of hair drying in two different ways (horizontally – HOR and upwardly - UP). We acquired four expert workers using an optoelectronic system and sEMG. sEMG results showed that the left side of the body was generally more involved than the right one in both the assessed tasks. Latissimus Dorsi, Trapezius Superior, Deltoideus Anterior, and Flexor Carpi Ulnaris were severely affected by this. In the UP task, the shoulders (Trapezius Superior and Deltoideus Anterior) had high mean percentage of Maximum Voluntary Contraction (%MVC) values. According to our sEMG results, holding a phone that weighs almost 1 kg in a static position is less straining on the upper limb and shoulder than constantly moving the left hand while holding a small comb. Kinematic data seems to support this. The left side showed the highest Range of Motion (RoM) values than the right for shoulder abd-adduction and elevation on the UP task and shoulder horizontal abduction, elbow flex-extension, and wrist prono-supination on both tasks. The shoulder flex-extension showed comparable high RoM values in both tasks.Our findings also show a high standard deviation for RoMs, indicating a high heterogeneity in performing the same task. Our research found that hair-drying is a demanding task for hairdressers. We recommend using wearable technologies to have a more reliable work situation instead of standardized protocols for risk assessment.
Alessio Silvetti, Ari Fiorelli, Antonella Tatarelli, Lorenzo Fiori, Giorgia Chini, Tiwana Varrecchia, Adriano Papale, Alberto Ranavolo, Francesco Draicchio
Open Access
Article
Conference Proceedings
A Dataset of Watch and Wristband for Deep Learning based Multi-view Stereo 3D Model Reconstruction
Multi-view stereo (MVS) 3D reconstruction based on deep learning has achieved great success, however, it requires a very high quality and quantity of datasets compared with other computer vision tasks. Current 3D datasets have great limitations in the reconstruction of industrial products, including low accuracy, few types of styles, and few pairwise image models. In this paper, we introduce a new dataset for MVS 3D Model Reconstruction, focusing on the watch wristband category. Better than the existing available open-source watch and wristband dataset, ours contains more than 1k multi-view high-resolution images and high-precision 3D models, covering cartoon, mechanical, vintage, etc. Most importantly, ours can be used directly for deep learning-based MVS 3D reconstruction, because besides three views of real images, we drew line sketches of the three views, and then match them to the high-precision 3D model one by one. At last, we train the MVS network based on deep learning with our dataset as input and supervision. The experiments show that we achieve significant results, and verify the effectiveness of reconstruction in the watch wristband category.
Ma Bowen, Yi Xiao, Xinyu Guo, Yuxiang Pang
Open Access
Article
Conference Proceedings
Key Enabling Technologies and Concepts for the Human-Centric Industrial Revolution
Recently, a new Industrial Revolution has been conceptualized, this is coined with the term “Industry 5.0”. In fact, the rapid development of information and operational technologies enabled the creation of a new human-centric industrial paradigm. In this paper, we collect the necessities to go beyond Industry 4.0, the key technologies enabling Industry 5.0, its concepts, goals and provide an Industry 5.0 map that links all these concepts together. The provided map can be used by practitioners to have a clear vision of Industry 5.0 and to take into account all its objectives, enabling technologies and Industry 4.0 gaps while applying it. The researchers also present further research agenda and roadmap for the development of Industry 5.0.
Francesco Lolli, Antonio Maria Coruzzolo, Platao Gonçalves Terra Neto, Miguel Afonso Sellitto, Rita Gamberini
Open Access
Article
Conference Proceedings
Smartwatch-based persuasive design with tailored competition and cooperation strategies for promoting physical activity
Originating from the concept of “captology”, interactive information technology designed for changing users’ attitudes or behaviors is known as persuasive technology (Fogg, 2002). Based on Fogg's behavioral model, Oinas-Kukkonen & Harjumaa (2008) proposed a framework for designing and evaluating Persuasive System Development (PSD), with specific persuasion principles. Persuasive technology has gained popularity in mobile sports applications as a design approach aiming to change healthy-related attitudes and behaviors among users. Nevertheless, most applications of persuasive design have taken a "one-size-fits-all" approach to design, regarding the users as a whole rather than tailoring personalized content to individual user characteristics (Orji et al., 2014), the former being a less effective design approach than the latter (Yee et al., 2012). Meanwhile, some studies indicated that using strategies proposed in PSD might have positive impacts on behavior change related to physical activity, such as the social support strategies implemented on smartwatches (Wan & Zhang, 2020). Smartwatch, as a wearable device with health monitoring functions, offers a unique opportunity for persuasive design. It will be particularly useful to provide tailored design solutions (Klock et al., 2020) for people with different personal characteristics to enhance exercising motivation and develop sustainable habits.The current study incorporated individual differences into persuasive design related to physical activity, and examined the effects of persuasive strategies with social features (i.e., competition and cooperation) implemented on smartwatches. In particular, we investigated whether intergroup competition, which combines competition and cooperation, could also be an effective persuasive strategy. An online experiment was conducted with 168 participants in China, which collected data on perceived persuasiveness and task enjoyment about four smartwatch-based strategies (i.e., individual, competitive, cooperative, and intergroup competition), as well as participants’ individual characteristics (including competitive and cooperative personality tendencies, exercising habits, demographics and so on). Our results showed that the perceived persuasiveness of intergroup competition was significantly higher than that of the individual strategy. Meanwhile, the competitive personality tendency also significantly affected participants' perceived persuasiveness of different strategies. As consistent with our hypothesis, the more competitive as people, the more likely they were to be persuaded by the competition strategy. Therefore, intergroup competition as a new persuasive strategy can be incorporated into future design approaches for promoting physical activity and health. Considering the significance of individual differences, we also suggest tailored strategies for suiting needs of different users when developing persuasive technology in the physical activity domain.Funding: This study was funded by the Guangdong Social Science Fund (Grant No. GD22CJY05), Shenzhen Social Science Fund (Grant No. SZ2022B008), and the Guangdong Education Science Fund (Grant No. 2022GXJK425).
Guo Xinrui, Jie Yao, Shumeng Hou
Open Access
Article
Conference Proceedings
An overview of various tasks and trades in the construction industry offering potential for exoskeletons
This paper reviewed a Canadian construction firm's health, safety, and environment database. A total of 13 Canadian offices were represented in the database, spanning January 2019 through June 2022. All 4395 entries were categorized based on damage type, injury nature, accident type, and causal agent. A thorough analysis of each event description was conducted to determine whether wearable technologies if they had been available and used, could likely have prevented the accident. This paper identifies the various tasks and trades in the construction industry which offer the potential for using wearable technologies, more specifically exoskeletons. It discusses the types of accidents that could possibly be prevented by using innovative exoskeletons. Based on the findings, this study also lists criteria that exoskeletons should meet to be beneficial to construction workers' health.
Geneviève Gagnon, Firdaous Sekkay, Daniel Imbeau, Mario Bourgault
Open Access
Article
Conference Proceedings
Evaluation of dynamic thermal comfort of virtual reality headsets in motion
Virtual reality (VR) headset has been increasingly applied in various activities with longer wearing time, such as gaming or training. Users no longer stay in a static state but are more likely to perform a series of body movements. This paper focuses on the dynamic thermal comfort of head mounted displays (HMDs) to explore the VR experience in state of motion. Eight participants wore three types of HMDs to conduct thermal comfort tests while doing light exercises. Thermal comfort was quantified by subjective rating and miniature data logger measurement. The results showed that wearing HMDs in motion caused more subjective thermal discomfort than in rest. Low airtightness of HMDs led to a lower increase in temperature and humidity inside the device in motion, yet it would also reduce the immersiveness of the VR experience due to light leakage. Furthermore, there was no significant difference in the subjective discomfort level of the three types of devices. In order to improve the overall user experience, the development of HMDs should consider design tradeoffs in terms of materials, shape, finishing etc., maximizing user comfort while ensuring optimal audiovisual display effect.
Yujing Wang, Chongfeng Li, Jiawang Wang, Yufei Hou, Yun Wang, Xin Wang
Open Access
Article
Conference Proceedings
Augmenting VR/XR experiences using directional vibrotactile feedback and temperature variation using wearable devices
As virtual and mixed reality hardware systems become more mainstream, users are spending substantial amounts of time in simulated environments. Unlike the transition from desktop to mobile devices, VR/XR utilizes 360 wrap-around space which can be challenging to master even for experienced users. Tasks and tools commonly utilized in 2D environments within mobile and personal computing devices may not always be intuitive for VR space. For that reason, it is important to study and evaluate which common graphical user interface (GUI) techniques can be extended to VR/XR and how the efficiency of common 2D tools need to be improved within a 360-degree space. In this study authors explore six commonly used GUI tools and evaluate them in a VR environment. The research looks at how participants deconstruct 360-degree GUI tasks by identifying the location of the controls, navigating through the VR space to the relevant area and finally adjusting the GUI controls as instructed. The study looks at augmenting the interaction by providing vibrotactile navigation cues along with kinaesthetic and temperature-based feedback to complete the GUI tasks. Comparing to conventional visual only techniques that are currently being used in VR environments, vibrotactile, kinaesthetic and temperature feedback provided faster task completion times and more pleasant user experience. Participants also rated the additional feedback channels as more informative and less distracting within the virtual environment. Overall results show that participants preferred the novel use of haptic feedback for most of the GUI controls assessed within the study. Moreover, results also show that some more complex GUI controls (i.e., dial, menus, and lists) may not be best suited for VR 360-degree interaction, using visual only information channels, especially with non-robust inside-out hand tracking techniques. Additional research is needed to validate these results across different VR/XR hardware and simulated environments, however, current results point towards utilizing multi-modal and multi-technology interaction tools to create more immersive and intuitive 360 virtual spaces across a wide range of VR/XR devices.
Ahmed Farooq, Jussi Rantala, Zhenxing Li, Roope Raisamo
Open Access
Article
Conference Proceedings
Dynamic stability of VR headsets: the effect of contact area on displacement in user motion
Since the metaverse was introduced, virtual reality (VR) head-mounted displays (HMDs) are increasingly being used for VR gaming, sports and 3D films. Additionally, the Pancake optical module has made HMDs smaller and lighter, which greatly increased its comfortability. However, during real use, there will inevitably be a lot of user head mouvements, such as shaking, lowering and raising, etc., which will cause certain displacement of the HMDs due to its inertia. Then the relative displacement of HMDs may affect the pressure and pressure-bearing area of the head, which leads to user discomfort.Currently, the research on the comfort of HMDs primarily focuses on the static scenarios without mouvement. This paper investigated the relative displacement and user comfort of the HMDs in motion. The main purpose of this study is to determine the relationship between HMDs' displacement and the contact area in order to provide design guidances and insights for HMDs, particularly the binding area. This paper also proposed an effective experimental method for measuring the relative displacement of HMDs, which can be used to assess the dynamic stability.A simple VR environment was bulit to guide the participant’s head movements by moving circular lightened dots, for simulating the head mouvements in daily life. At the same time, a wearable ruler sticker was designed to measure the displacement of the HMDs relative to the head.The experimenter took measurements of participants’ heads and assisted them to get familiar with the HMDs, and then pasted ruler stickers on the participants’ faces. The participants put on the HMD and adjust it to a comfortable position. Then they completed the head movement under the guidance of the VR environment and repeated it for 5 times. The same procedure was repeated after changing the contact area of the binding with 40mm*40mm foam cotton pieces. The HMD’s position was recorded before and after the mouvement.The results shows that, the HMDs exhibit a significant displacement relative to the head, after performing typical head motions, which causes some slight discomfort. Meanwhile, after doing a data correlation with SPSS, it can be found that the contact area of the binding is one of the main reasons for HMDs’ displacement. And the displacement can be greatly reduced and the pressure comfort rarely changes when the contact area of the bindings is increased, which has a positive impact on the overall comfort evaluation. Besides, we believe that in addition to the contact area, the mass distribution, pressure, and materials also have an effect on the relative displacement of HMDs, which might be the focus of future research. In future, new prototypes will be developed to increase the accuracy of environmental variables control and the evaluation of different factors.
Weihan Ge, Yun Wang, Hongyu Ren
Open Access
Article
Conference Proceedings
Perceptions of and intention to use wearable and assistive devices among older adults
This study examined older adults’ perceptions of wearable and assistive devices and the influences of these perceptions on the intention to use (ITU) these devices. Fourteen perception variables related to device usage were assessed: perceived usefulness (PU), perceived ease of use (PEOU), attitudes (ATT), ease of maintenance (EOM), weight (WEI), portability (POR), perceived comfort (PCOM), perceived convenience (PCON), appearance (APP), anxiety (ANX), image (IMA), perceived need (PN), perceived cost-effectiveness (PCE), and trust (TRU). Eighty-one older adults aged 65 years or older tried out any three of seven wearable and assistive devices and then responded to a questionnaire containing items pertaining to each variable. Descriptive statistics were used to describe the participants’ demographic characteristics and perception responses. Partial least-squares path modeling was used to examine the impacts of the variables on the participants’ ITU. We found that the participants generally had positive perceptions of wearable and assistive devices. Specifically, we found that PU, PEOU, ATT, APP, PN, IMA, and TRU positively influenced the participants’ ITU, whereas EOM negatively influenced their ITU. In summary, practitioners should understand the needs of older adults, reduce their investment in promoting EOM, optimize the appearance and usability of the devices, and provide opportunities to try out the devices, all of which should be useful in improving older adults’ perceptions of and ITU for wearable and assistive devices.
Hao Liu, Calvin Or, Vivian Lou, Yong Hu, Ning Xi
Open Access
Article
Conference Proceedings
An Emotional Bio-wearable
Touch is a powerful emotional communication tool that can reduce the stress hormone cortisol and triggers the release of oxytocin. The emotional influence of touch is rooted in human biology. Separation and losing loved ones’ touch are associated with emotional distress and impact people's mental health and daily productivity.During the pandemic, we all experienced separation from loved ones as emotionally draining. People are separated from their loved ones for a variety of reasons, such as pursuing education, a new job, getting married, or relocating. There are a few coping solutions, such as making video calls with loved ones or keeping their photos around us, reminding us of their presence. But those visual cues may not be enough for tactile individuals. This research demonstrates that people who define touch as their love language tend to keep their loved one's belongings. Touching our keepsakes is a coping strategy to enhance our feelings of connection to our loved ones. However, not all sentimental items are always carriable or available to support us when we need them emotionally. The Emotional Bio-wearable represents the integration of biology and technology, creating a meaningful wearable keepsake for those who benefit from a tactile, emotional sensation. In addition, this project developed a combination of parametric modeling, interface design, and software development to create an intuitive and interactive application.The Emotional Bio-wearable has two parts. The first part is an iOS application program, which receives data such as a heartbeat (a symbol of life) and user’s responses to questions to determine the user’s preferred style. The application generates designs and customizes the output based on the inputs. The second delivery part is the physical bio-bracelet covered with a meaningful texture, heartbeat and printed with a 3D printer. This project is an exploration of the impact of tactility, focusing on those who identify ‘touch’ as their love language. An Emotional Bio-wearable provides a new way of connecting to love ones and boosts the consumer’s mental health.
Parisa Asayesh
Open Access
Article
Conference Proceedings
A Novel Method for Evaluating the Suitability of Helmets
With the integration of helmets and functional accessories, wearers' fatigue would be accelerated. Therefore, the suitability and comfort of helmets become the most critical factors for the final promotion and application. In this work, the effects of average pressure distribution(APD) for five different types of helmets on five areas (front, rear, left, right, and top) of the head surface under static and multi-coupled degrees of freedom rotation conditions (30mm vertical vibration, 15 ° pitching movement, 15 ° flip movement, 15 ° azimuth movement) were analyzed. The results show that #B helmet has a uniform distribution of APD on the head, making it the most comfortable, while the #E helmet has the most uneven APD on the head, with greater pressure on the top of the head compared to the other four helmets, indicating that the comfort of the E helmet is poor, It may be that the pad system of #E helmet does not restrain and support the circumference of the head, the entire mass of the helmet acts on the top area of the head. Combined with many wearers ’ feedback suggestions, the dispersity of helmet pressure (DHP) under static conditions and helmet-following(HF) under dynamic conditions are considered as two extremely critical indicators for assessing helmet comfort. The results indicated that the DHP was positively correlated with HF performance, The smaller the DHP of the helmet in static state, the better the HF stability of the helmet in dynamic state. Therefore, this present work proposes indicators that affect helmet wearing comfort from the perspective of ergonomics, which can objectively and quantitatively evaluate helmet wearing comfort in the market.
Xiao Zhang, Qiang Li, Jianwei Niu, Xiao Chen, Yuanyuan Zu
Open Access
Article
Conference Proceedings