Multimedia-assisted breathwalk-aware system.

Combining specific footstep patterns with synchronized breathing, known as Breathwalk, can be learned with the help of a smartphone system that provides multimedia guidance. A pilot study tested a walking-aware system that detects a user's walking and breathing conditions and delivers appropriate feedback. The system effectively helped beginners slow down their walking speed and reduce incorrect footsteps during walking meditation. A second experiment compared feedback mechanisms and found that a visual-auditory combination was more effective than either visual or auditory feedback alone for learning Breathwalk techniques.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Breathwalk is a science of combining specific patterns of footsteps synchronized with the breathing. In this study, we developed a multimedia-assisted Breathwalk-aware system which detects user's walking and breathing conditions and provides appropriate multimedia guidance on the smartphone. Through the mobile device, the system enhances user's awareness of walking and breathing behaviors. As an example application in slow technology, the system could help meditator beginners learn "walking meditation," a type of meditation which aims to be as slow as possible in taking pace, to synchronize footstep with breathing, and to land every footstep with toes first. In the pilot study, we developed a walking-aware system and evaluated whether multimedia-assisted mechanism is capable of enhancing beginner's walking awareness while walking meditation. Experimental results show that it could effectively assist beginners in slowing down the walking speed and decreasing incorrect footsteps. In the second experiment, we evaluated the Breathwalk-aware system to find a better feedback mechanism for learning the techniques of Breathwalk while walking meditation. The experimental results show that the visual-auditory mechanism is a better multimedia-assisted mechanism while walking meditation than visual mechanism and auditory mechanism.