Listening to your loved one’s Biomusic: Auralizing biosignals to enhance social connection

Abstract

Nowadays, more and more communication is online, but non-verbal cues and emotions appear to be difficult to convey through the online format. Therefore, research has been done towards sharing biofeedback in communication, showing positive effects on social connection. A rather unexplored format of sharing biofeedback is music, which is a shame because music can evoke emotions, but also convey emotions. Therefore, we propose generating music based on biofeedback: biomusic, and researching its effect on empathy and social connectedness between loved ones. Based on the results of three design iterations, we created biomusic by connecting heart rate to the tempo of the music, electrodermal activity (EDA) to a chord played in the background and an EDA peak to a sound effect. We evaluated the use of biomusic in communication by performing a within-subjects evaluation with twenty dyads of loved ones, containing nine senders and twenty receivers. The senders created a voice message and a text message for their loved one, while their biofeedback was being recorded. The biofeedback was converted into biomusic and added to both of the messages, after which the messages were displayed to their loved one; the receiver. The receivers indicated their perceived empathy and social connectedness after listening to the voice message and reading the text message with and without biomusic. The results showed varying opinions towards the use of biomusic in communication, with some receivers stating that it did not add anything and others being very enthusiastic. The biomusic did not have a statistically significant effect on the perceived empathy and social connectedness, but in the interviews, the participants indicated feeling a bit more emphatic and socially connected when the biomusic was added, especially with the voice message. They indicated being interested in adding biomusic to special types of communication with close relationships such as emotional conversations, but indicated being less interested in adding biomusic to a text message, due to the asynchrony of the text and the music. This study used one way of creating biomusic and tested its effect on two types of communication. Therefore, we suggest extending this work, including different target groups and communication means and experimenting with different sounds, biofeedback and musical elements. We conclude that the current research showed that biomusic had varying effects on social connection, providing new insights into the use of melodic biomusic in communication, focusing on asynchronous communication between loved ones.