Ongoing Document Prototype 2
In the last round of prototype, we tested on the relation between the different levels of heart beat and its corresponding emotional status indicated by the level of severity of the cases they have experienced. We found out there is a positive relation between them, it means that the higher the heart rate, more likely the victim will rate the severity higher, more offended they felt from the physical sexual harassment case they have experienced in entertainment places.
- Research on how vibration can produce physical comfort
Retrieved from: https://biomedres.us/pdfs/BJSTR.MS.ID.001406.pdf
Pain is the most common reason for people who visit physician consultation. Americans and Europeans annually spend more than 50 billion to reduce lower pain (NSCLBP), and that number continues to grow. Pharmaceutical drug prescription as a remedy for NSCLBP results in high cost, minimal pain reduction, side effects, limited efficacy and pharmaceutical overdose death. Virotherapy provides tissue healing which is an intricate process regulated by circulation. It has been proved that passive vibration can speed blood flow and has a passive effect on chronic low back pain. In addition, many studies have gained insights into the positive impact of using vibration therapies to strengthen muscular performance. Results of several weeks of heavy resistance training imply that vibration therapy has the potential to aid soft tissue injury and the sequelae of disuse and immobilization. In Sackner et al. study, it claims that whole-body vibration accelerates the release of sufficient amount of (NO) into the circulation of healthy elements and aids patients with inflammatory diseases which curb the generation of protective nitric oxide (NO). Ponggkitwitonn rt al. suggest that low-intensity vibration (LIV) increased cell number and the expression of healing-associated markers, while restraint the generation of pro-inflammatory cytokines.
- Why vibration can help women to calm down or secured after they experience sexual harassment?
Spector, Nicole. “How Sexual Harassment Damages a Woman's Health.” NBCNews.com, NBCUniversal News Group, 14 Oct. 2017, 1:14 am, www.nbcnews.com/better/health/hidden-health-effects-sexual-harassment-ncna810416.
This article focus on the psychological and somatic reactions to sexual harassment. In respect to emotional and behaviour issues, depression, anxiety, borderline personality disorder, suicidal and self-harming behaviours are the potential mental problems accompanying with sufferer for years. For that especially experienced sexual violence, higher possibility that victims may exhibit the symptoms of PTSD. When the metal problems become overwhelming for the casualty, the body starts to reflect, which called somatising. These physical symptoms may precipitate the gamut manifesting as muscle aches, headaches, or even chronic physical health problems such as heart diseases and chronic fatigue. Presented findings indicate that mechanic vibration, has the potential to improve cognition, relaxation effect, reducing stress, play a factor in self-esteem ultimately improve quality of life in any age group. Also, vibroacoustic healing works efficiently on activating blood circulation, pain reduction, curing soft tissue injury and muscle ache. To some extent, it solves emotional and somatic problems caused by sexual abuse. However, more studies are needed to approximate and explain the impacts of victims of experiencing sexual harassment.
- Benefit of vibration in providing emotional support
Retrieved from: https://biomedres.us/pdfs/BJSTR.MS.ID.001406.pdf
Depression is a common psychiatric condition among adolescents, adults and elderly. The subjective symptoms of depression mainly include feelings of worthlessness, loss of interest in usual activities, suicidal thoughts and insomnia. Wunram et al. and his colleagues hypothesised that an essay to perform passive muscular training on whole-body vibration device has equal anti-depressive effects in depressed adolescents compared to a cardiovascular exercise. Koike et al. examined the vibration acoustic therapy can offer relaxation effect and enhance the psychological symptoms of older cohorts. Body dissatisfaction is considered to be the most critical component of disturbance, and it reflects negative subjective evaluations of one's physical body. Ruutel and his colleagues claim that vibration therapy comforts emotions which connects with physical well-being. Therefore, some experts argue that vibroacoustic treatment can aid diminishing body dissatisfaction as a treatment program to reduce stress and anxiety. Besides, Fuermaier et al. assert that WBV benefits improving cognitive performance of healthy individuals as well as the particular with the Attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD) which always leads to social isolation, rejection and discrimination.
In this round of prototype, we moved on to one of our main feature: vibration. We aim to find out users's preference on different level of vibration patterns. Users are categorised based on the three levels of heart beat, low, normal and high. Vibration patterns will be accessed based on the following three criterion:
- Vibration Frequency
- Vibration Length
- Pressure of vibration
The vibration frequency refers to the time of interval between each vibration motion; where vibration length refer to the time taken for one vibration to take place and the pressure of vibration refers to the amount of pressure produced by one vibration motion in a particular vibration pattern. Our group believed that it is essential to find out the preference of the three features mentioned above as according to the article fundamental of vibration(), it stated that the basic concept about vibration is the theory of vibration deals with the study of oscillatory motions of bodies and the forces associated with them. The first two criterion are about the oscillatory motions of bodies and the last criteria is about the force produced by a vibration.
It was originally planned that vibration will not be implemented to our "Hug Pillow" as it could produce a lot of comfort and mitigation for victims that who have experienced severe sexual harassment. However, from the testing we have done in the last round, we realised that even though the heart beat rate could be low, indicating that they might consider their experience to be "not so severe", it does not mean that there isn't any negative impact brought to them, they do not need any sort of comforting. Also, to analyse in depth, the type of support demand from low, normal and high heart beat might be different slightly. This implies that the need of vibration pattern could be different too. Therefore, we would like to find out the difference in preference of different types of vibration pattern between victims with low, normal and high level of heart beat.
There are hundreds of different vibration pattern exist in the world and every one of them are different in vibration frequency, vibration length. It is impossible to test all of the patterns, a few vibration patterns have been selected according to the research below.
- why these vibration are doing good for helping women to cope with sexual harassment in entertainment place
Retrieved from http://bestmassagechairguide.com/vibrational-massage-and-its-positive-effects-on-your-body/
In this paper, it displayed some positive effects of vibrational massage. This therapy is focused on the various frequencies of vibrations on multiple parts of the human body according to different health conditions. With the use of electric massager or movements of the massage therapist, it relief both muscle tension and mental stress. It has been proven that vibration massage technique can reduce anxiety by positively impacting on the production of happy hormones and the level of serotonin in the physical body. Besides, vibrational therapies prove to be aiding people who experience extreme stress and may even lose their consciousness because it activates circulation within the body by recurring muscle contractions and speed the flow of blood within the vessels. Promoted level of blood circulation would improve metabolic system the physical and thus people feel fitter. Also, it aids in reducing the effect of pain without any medication. It helps the muscle around the pain area to relax.
- What frequency or vibration length does people like in giving them comfort and mitigation? Focus on frequency and vibration length
Karin Kraft, Susanne Kanter, and Hubert Janik. "Safety and effectiveness of vibration massage by deep oscillations : A prospective observational study",Hindawi,2013.https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5628593/
In acute whole-body vibration WBV effect studies utilising vibration frequencies ranging from 20 to 50-Hz, while some studies favored 30-Hz, some other preferred frequencies 50-Hz. This article aims to study the impacts of two different rates of whole-body vibration healing on knee extensors muscle strength in healthy young women participants. Twenty-two healthy young women aged between 22 and 31 were evenly and randomly allocated into 30-Hz and 50-Hz groups. This WBV training program consists of 24 sessions on the asynchronous vertical platform (peak-to-peak displacement: 2-4mm; semi-squat, one-legged squat, and lunge positions on the right leg; set numbers: three times per week for eight weeks). The isometric and dynamic strength of the knee extensors were measured before and at the end of the supervised training program. Regarding the 30-Hz group, there was a considerable rise in the maximal voluntary isometric contraction (p=0.039), and the concentric peak torque (p=0.018) of knee extensors and these changes were significant (p<0.05) compared with the 50 Hz group. Besides, the eccentric peak torque of the knee extensors was increased significantly in both groups (p<0.05). However, there was no significant difference between the 30-Hz and 50-Hz group (p=0.873). To summary up, within the eight weeks of WBV training process in two groups, it shows 30-Hz was more effective than 50-Hz to improve the isometric contraction and dynamic strength of knee extensors.
- Description
We implemented this function by using the DRV2605L motor driver, which includes 117 basic pre-coded vibration modes. The following image is the driver that we use.
- Device Connection
Connect Vin to the power supply with 5V;
Connect GND to power ground;
Connect the SCL pin to A5;
Connect the SDA pin to A4;
- Corresponding code
As the motor driver has been equipped with pre-coded library, for the first prototype with our aim as testing main functions, we decided to use the basic sketch that the DRV2605L library has provided. Image illustration is as following.
- Testing Results
After it was launched, by using the serial monitor, we could see that the 117 types of built-in vibration modes are played automatically. And by placing our fingers on the vibration sensor, we could clearly feel the differences of each mode. An image illustration of serial monitor when it is launching is as following.
Based on the research paper we have found, physical comforting such as vibration is able to help victims to relax, calm down their stretched emotional state. (need citation) However, there are many different kinds of vibration, some of them are able to produce comfort, some of them are acting as companion. We managed to narrow down to 4 types of vibration with each of them represents a distinct type of vibration pattern:
- Low frequency, long vibration length - Vibration pattern 1
- Low frequency, short vibration length - Vibration pattern 2
- High frequency, long vibration length - Vibration pattern 3
- High frequency, short vibration length - Vibration pattern 4
We would like to find out if each group of victims with low, normal and high level of heartbeat shows a particular preference of vibration pattern according to the above choices.
Then a pressure preference is conducted too, as different groups of victims with low, normal and high heart rate might have different preference on the amount of pressure produced by the pillow. We hypothesised that the preference of different level of pressure might reflected by their heart rate. We would like to find out the relation between their heart rate and the corresponding preference on level of pressure. In order to produce the best user experience and to find out the relation between their heart rate and the preference on vibration pressure, test was conducted with the measuring unit stated as follow:
Level 1: 1 vibration Motor Level 2: 2 vibration Motor Level 3: 3 vibration Motor
The vibration motor we used for our prototype are "Mini vibration motor 2.7mm" in size. This mini vibration motor allow us to placed into the pillow with the right size and is useful in mocking the real product.
Since we want to know the preference of a certain vibration pattern by victims with different level of heart rate, we will need to know their heart rate level, therefore, we would like to repeat the heartbeat test (refer to prototype 1) again with another 10 female victims. As if choosing the same group of females, their heart rate might not be accurate, as they probably will tell the same story and the repetitive of narrating their story will dilute the feeling toward the incident, hence the heart rate might not be representative to their preference of the vibration pattern.
By repeating the same process in prototype 1, then we moved on by giving them four types of vibration pattern to feel. Each of the vibration are given for 3-5 minutes to tester, allow a period of adapting and then after they are getting use to it, they might be able to comment on the comfort of a particular vibration provided to them. Later on, they will select the most preferred vibration pattern and are required to provide reasons for it.
After that, a pressure test will be conducted by providing them three different levels of pressure. Just as the vibration pattern each of the vibration pressure are given for 3-5 minutes for tester, allow a period of adapting and then after they are getting use to it, they might be able to comment on the comfort a particular vibration pressure provided for them. Later on, they will select the most preferred level of vibration pressure provide reasons for it.
- "Preferred Vibration" refers to the Vibration Pattern mentioned above.
| Participant 1 | Statistics |
|---|---|
| Average Heart Rate | 62 beats/min |
| Preferred Vibration | Vibration pattern 2 |
| Reasons | low frequency and short vibration length are producing a clocking effect which kind of slows down the time and the tick-tock sound seem to produced a quiet and calm atmosphere |
| Preferred level of Pressure | 3 |
| Reasons | The strongest pressure of vibration is easily felt, as well as the intensity of level 3 vibration is suitable for the tester the best. |
| Participant 2 | Statistics |
|---|---|
| Average Heart Rate | 63 beats/min |
| Preferred Vibration | 3 |
| Reasons | The high frequency and long vibration length are used to provide comforts, and it also draws attention from the users. The continuing vibration in a consistent prompting acts like the massage, helpful for relax. |
| Preferred level of Pressure | 3 |
| Reasons | The level 3 vibration is the strongest in the all 3 kinds vibration. The other two is a bit slight, and not very obvious to feel them. |
| Participant 3 | Statistics |
|---|---|
| Average Heart Rate | 69 beats/min |
| Preferred Vibration | 3 |
| Reasons | The high frequency and long vibration length managed to make the tester feel comfortable to feel that. When the tester fell in this kind vibration, the tester was quite enjoyable and feeling better. |
| Preferred level of Pressure | 3 |
| Reasons | The stronger vibration will bring more stimulating, and level 3 vibration is the strongest out of three. |
| Participant 4 | Statistics |
|---|---|
| Average Heart Rate | 70 beats/min |
| Preferred Vibration | 4 |
| Reasons | The high frequency with the short vibration length is like a strong motion, hence the tester prefer this kind of vibration because the tester really enjoy the repeated with high frequency vibration. |
| Preferred level of Pressure | 2 |
| Reasons | The level 2 pressure of vibration brings the most comforts, and it is neither weak and nor strong. |
| Participant 5 | Statistics |
|---|---|
| Average Heart Rate | 74 beats/min |
| Preferred Vibration | 3 |
| Reasons | The high frequency, long vibration length vibration created a pure massage environment that the tester immersed inside. No other kinds of vibration can do this again. In particular, the short vibration is easy to impact the tester have a sense of prompting and disturb the tester. |
| Preferred level of Pressure | 3 |
| Reasons | All of the three kinds pressure of vibration are not strong enough for the tester, but the level 3 vibration is the strongest in these three kinds. |
| Participant 6 | Statistics |
|---|---|
| Average Heart Rate | 78 beats/min |
| Preferred Vibration | 4 |
| Reasons | The high frequency with the short vibration length vibration the tester preferred. The tester thought this kind of vibration is the only one can make him calm down and relax out of four kinds. |
| Preferred level of Pressure | 2 |
| Reasons | The level 2 vibration is strong enough for him. And the tester felt excited after experiencing the level 3 vibration instead of calm down. |
| Participant 7 | Statistics |
|---|---|
| Average Heart Rate | 80 beats/min |
| Preferred Vibration | 1 |
| Reasons | The low frequency with long vibration length makes participants feel easy to calm down, and the tester can have a devotional time regarding cognitive thinking. |
| Preferred level of Pressure | 3 |
| Reasons | The strongest pressure enhances the capability of responsitivity and interactivity. Under this pressure, tester felt being noticed and cared. |
| Participant 8 | Statistics |
|---|---|
| Average Heart Rate | 82 beats/min |
| Preferred Vibration | 1 |
| Reasons | When the user was experiencing slow vibration, the tester felt the world is so quiet, smooth and relaxed. The emotion was slowly transferred into a peaceful state. |
| Preferred level of Pressure | 3 |
| Reasons | The stronger the pressure, the accurate the sensitivity. Thus, people felt being shared their physical and emotional pain. |
| Participant 9 | Statistics |
|---|---|
| Average Heart Rate | 92 beats/min |
| Preferred Vibration | 1 |
| Reasons | This participant mentioned the slow vibration provides the sense of security. Feeling secured can eliminate negative emotions such as anger, frustration, and anxiety. |
| Preferred level of Pressure | 3 |
| Reasons | The strongest pressure made the user feel being tightly hugged by close friends and family. It means gaining more supports and faiths. |
| Participant 10 | Statistics |
|---|---|
| Average Heart Rate | 89 beats/min |
| Preferred Vibration | 3 |
| Reasons | Vibration pattern 3 provides longer length which benefits bringing comforts and attention. Also, peace was felt due to the consistency of high frequency. |
| Preferred level of Pressure | 3 |
| Reasons | The highest pressure could drag the user out of sadness, isolation, loneliness. The user felt accompanied. |
- Low Heart Rate
From the results collected we could see that there are 3 out of 10 participants are fall into the category of low heart rate. Out of the 3, 2 of them prefer the vibration pattern 3 and the rest prefer the vibration pattern 2. Vibration pattern 3 is high in frequency with long vibration length, we could see from the majority of their reasons for choosing 3 are that they love the long vibration length as it provides comfort and attention, the high frequency provide a consistent prompting that act as a massage to users which allow them to calm down and feel better. More importantly, since we have found out that the the higher the heart rate means that they consider themselves are facing the more severe cases of sexual harassment, they are experiencing stronger negative emotion. In this case, the low heart rate indicated that they are experiencing lesser negative emotion, we might infer from the results that they enjoy the vibration pattern might not because of they are using the vibration to reduce the negative emotion but more of enjoying the motion of the vibration itself which purely creates comfort to them.
- Normal Heart Rate
While there are also 3 out of 10 participants are under normal heart rate. Out of these 3, 2 of them prefer the vibration pattern 4 and the rest prefer the vibration pattern 3. Vibration pattern 4 is high in frequency with short vibration length while vibration pattern 3 is high in frequency with long vibration length. Since more participants prefer the vibration pattern 4, and their reasons such as strong motion, regularity in the vibration cycle and relaxing have shown that they love it might because of they enjoy the repeated motion, the short and sweet vibration creates a sense of prompting in user's sensory nerves which easily grabbing their attention and allows them to letting go of things they are stuck with. However, when comparing vibration patterns that grabbing attention and provide most amount of comfort, logically speaking the vibration pattern 3 might be more fall towards it as the longer vibration length allow users to experience the fullest strength of vibration than the short length. Therefore, we can only conclude that more people in our sample prefer the vibration pattern 4 might due to their personal preference and the sample size is too small for us to drawn a firm conclusion based on a typical trend.
- High Heart Rate
Out of the 10 participants, there are still a slightly greater number of 4 participants are monitored to be considered as high heart rate. The higher the heart rate signifying that they consider their cases to be severe and by recalling it, they experience a greater negative emotion brought to them. By looking at their choices, 3 out of 4 participants selected the vibration pattern 1 and the rest have chosen the vibration pattern 3. The vibration pattern 1 is quite distinct from what the majority of participants chosen in the low and normal heart rate as it has a low frequency with long vibration length. Low frequency means the time interval between each oscillation is long and long vibration length will provide a clearer feeling for users. From the reason they have provided to us, "the slow motion are easier to calm down" which means the rhythm of the vibration is slow that comforting the user to feel easy and relaxed. The slow vibration make participant felt that the world is so quiet, this hints that their emotional status are slowly changing to a peaceful state while they are experiencing such vibration. Since the longer vibration length is stronger to be felt by users, it also contributed in creating the quiet and slow motion. One of the participants also stated that it provides reassurance, we can understand it by this vibration pattern seem to provide a sense of security to them too, where it could also be a reason that why they can calm down more easily. This kind of vibration could reduce the negative emotion such as anger, anxiety and frustration. However, sadness, offended and helplessness are still not solved, probably more features should be considered when dealing with these emotions. Therefore, we can conclude from our results that participants with stronger negative emotion might naturally tend to looking for activity or motions that enable them to calm down and feel better.
In conclusion, we can see that the need for victims having low, normal and high heart rate could be slightly different. We could not know if victims with low and normal heart beat prefer a certain vibration pattern are due to a specific reasons or emotions they experienced but we know that they love vibration with high frequency and it probably because it produces more excitement than those with low frequency. While, victims with high heart rate prefer something that is slow and regular which enable them to enjoy the peaceful atmosphere that is created and feel secured thus relaxed.
Before the test, we expect that different heart rate might have a particular preference on the level of pressure of the vibration. However, to our surprise, regardless of low normal or high heart rate, 8 out of 10 participants prefer level 3 pressure which is the strongest in strength. None of the participants chose level 1 and look at the reasons they have provided, most of them stated that they like the strong vibration as it can be felt more easily and more active in producing sensory activity. This indicated that stronger vibration are more stimulating, therefore, we can drawn that there might not have a relation between the heart rate and the preference on the level of pressure produced by vibration. Stronger vibration are liked by all victims regardless of their heart rate level and this suggest that the strength of vibration is important to all vibration patterns and the strength of vibration should be kept consistent in for all victims.
- Sample size is too small, conclusion is representative but not comprehensive. Future test should include a larger sample size for more comprehensive analysis and evaluation.
- There are many external factors such as personality, emotional status at that period of time and challenges and things encountered before the test are all affecting the choice of vibration.
- Expand the test by observing the heart rate fluctuation during vibration, it could provide a clear understanding of the comfort level directly.
- Test procedure is long and tedious, probably a more suitable way of testing should be considered and developed so that less amount of work done but greatest results are produced.