Exploring humanistic intelligence through physiologically mediated reality

Abstract

We present a way of making the wearing of a lifelong electrocardiographic health monitor fun for a user. The health monitor is coupled with a reality mediator device to create physiologically mediated reality, i.e. mediated reality which alters a user's audiovisual perception of the world based upon their own electrocardiographic waveform. This creates an interesting audiovisual experience for the user, playing upon the poetic narrative of combining cardio-centric metaphors pervasive in everyday life (the heart as a symbol of love and centrality, e.g. "get to the heart of the matter") with ubiquitous occular-centric metaphors such as "see the world from my point of view". This audiovisual experience is further enhanced by combining music which alters the visual perception and also heightens the user's emotional response to their experience and, in doing so, further affects their heart(beat).