TEAM
Selina Dick, Marina Geltenbort, Lena van Maris, Elisa Moder
YEAR
2022/ 2023
SUPERVISOR
Prof. David Oswald
The aim of the course Invention Design is to think future-oriented. Our task was to develop a concept, product, etc. which will be realistic in 10 to 20 years and is oriented towards social and technological trends. The course brief was to include emerging technologies in the project.
COURSE
Invention Design
dufte
A concept to help people getting emotionally more balanced in exceptional situations.
As an example: nervousness before a presentation.
Project objective
From the beginning on, the focus was scent. As we knew not only from ourselves, scents can trigger different emotions and feelings. We wanted to take advantage of this.
THE PROCESS
MORPHOLOGICAL BOX
Starting with a lot of research we could expand our knowledge about several topics like mental illnesses, the effects of scents or aromatherapy. To get in-depth knowledge, we conducted interviews with a psychologist, an olfactory researcher and an aromatherapist. With these insights, we could focus on a more specific user group, which in our case were not people with a mental illnesses, but people who struggle in certain situations, as the example above.
The basic idea that emerged was to help people with these problems through the use of scents. That was when we got to the subject of classic conditioning.
To become a quick overview of how we used conditioning in our project, here the schema of classical conditioning after pavlov:
Combining these two stimuli means, that every time the body is (as an example) relaxed, the scent is emitted. When the conditioning is completed (which is never completely the case) and the brain has linked the scent with relaxation, we can use the scent as a trigger to get a person in a e.g. relaxed condition/ state.
MEASURING EMOTIONS
Measuring electrodermal activity allows objective classification of a person's arousal level. The emotional arousal of a person has a direct influence on his sweat secretion, which changes the conductivity of the skin. Even the smallest differences can be measured.
The voice is used to measure valence and dominance. Even without considering the actual content of what is said, artificial intelligence can draw objective conclusions about a person's emotional feelings based on minimal changes in pitch and speech rhythm. These techniques are currently still at an early stage of development.
KIT
The kit includes a QR code that directs the user directly to the Companion App, as well as all the components necessary to perform the conditioning. These are: a wristband with sensor, a necklace with integrated microphone and scent diffuser, and a selection of scents.
COMPANION APP
To round off our project, we developed an app that provides the user with necessary information. This includes an onboarding to determine which "problem" should be addressed in the future and the determination of the scent, as well as general information about conditioning and scents. However, the most important part of the app is the overview of the emotion models, which shows progress, improvements and the current state.
CONCEPT VIDEO