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A new study suggests that a wearable device capable of amplifying the sounds of hand movements can help individuals maintain focus on the present moment. This research indicates that heightening the acoustic feedback from manual interactions fosters a state of mindfulness and encourages curiosity during everyday tasks. The findings were published in the Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies.
Mindfulness is generally defined as a mental state involving deliberate attention to the present moment combined with an attitude of openness. While formal practices such as meditation or yoga are well-known methods for cultivating this state, they often require dedicated time and a quiet environment. Many people find it difficult to sustain these formal routines amidst a busy schedule.
An alternative approach is known as informal or everyday mindfulness. This involves integrating awareness into routine daily activities, such as washing dishes, folding laundry, or writing.
Despite the potential of this approach, there are few technological tools designed to support it. Most existing mindfulness applications rely on verbal instructions or visual guides, which can demand significant cognitive effort.
Researchers at the Stanford SHAPE Lab and Virtual Human Interaction Lab aimed to develop a system that supports mindfulness through sensory cues rather than explicit commands. They theorized that a “bottom-up” sensory approach could reduce the mental load required to stay focused. By making the physical consequences of an action more noticeable, the technology attempts to naturally draw attention to the immediate experience.
The team specifically focused on the sounds produced by manual interactions. Hands are the primary tools used to interact with the world, and these interactions generate constant but often subtle acoustic signals.
The researchers hypothesized that amplifying these sounds would create a “sensory surprise.” This deviation from what the brain expects to hear could spark curiosity and prompt the user to pay closer attention to their actions.
“Mindfulness practices promote calmness and focus, yet existing technologies focus primarily on formal exercises, such as sitting meditation. In this work, we aim to explore how technology can support the informal practice of mindfulness—also called everyday mindfulness—when attention and curiosity are interwoven with daily activities, as simple as washing our hands or cooking a meal,” said study author Yujie Tao, a PhD student in Computer Science at Stanford University.
The hardware consisted of high-fidelity microphones attached to the user’s wrists and a pair of open-ear headphones. The microphones captured audio generated near the hands, such as the friction of skin against an object or the tap of a finger on a surface.
The system processed this audio in real time, increasing the volume by 15 decibels before playing it back to the user. The open-ear design allowed participants to hear the amplified sounds layered over the natural ambient noise.
The study involved 60 participants with an average age of approximately 25 years. The researchers randomly assigned these individuals to either a device group or a control group. Participants in the device group heard the amplified sounds of their hand movements throughout the experiment. Those in the control group wore the same equipment, but the audio augmentation features were deactivated.
The primary activity in the study was an object exploration task. Researchers presented participants with two distinct sets of items to manipulate. One set contained familiar household objects, including a pair of scissors, a storage bag, a paper cup, and a marker set. The second set included unfamiliar or novelty items, such as a tape dispenser with a clamp mechanism and a broom shaped like a human face.
Participants were instructed to explore these objects naturally and without a specific time limit. Following the exploration of each set, the individuals completed standardized questionnaires. These surveys were designed to measure “state mindfulness,” which refers to a temporary mindset of awareness and attention.
In addition to self-reports, the study employed objective measures to assess attention and curiosity. The researchers analyzed written descriptions provided by the participants to see what details they noticed about the objects.
They also video-recorded the sessions to code behavioral patterns. Specifically, they looked for “trial-and-error” behaviors, which are repetitive actions performed with slight variations to learn about an object’s properties.
The results provided evidence that audio augmentation influences how people engage with their physical environment. Participants in the device group reported higher levels of state mindfulness compared to the control group. This suggests that the enhanced auditory feedback helped users maintain a connection to their present activity.
“Digital technologies, from social media to virtual reality, often draw users away from everyday, real-world experiences and into synthetic ones,” Tao told PsyPost. “We want to challenge this trajectory by rethinking how technology can reconnect users to what is happening here and now. While our system is still in its initial validation, we see promising findings on how the system can guide attention back into ongoing activities rather than away from them.”
Analysis of the written descriptions revealed that the device successfully directed attention toward sensory details. Participants who heard the amplified sounds were much more likely to use sound-related terms in their responses.
The device group referenced auditory properties nearly nine times as often as the control group. This indicates that the technology made typically overlooked cues salient enough to capture conscious attention.
Behavioral data supported the idea that audio augmentation stimulates curiosity. Participants in the device group spent more time interacting with the objects than those in the control group. They also exhibited a higher frequency of trial-and-error behaviors. For example, a user might repeatedly open and close a pair of scissors or tap a cup on different parts of a table.
The researchers also investigated whether the device affected the users’ sense of agency. It is possible that altering sensory feedback could make people feel a loss of control over their actions. However, the study found no significant difference in reported agency between the two groups. This suggests that the amplified sounds were perceived as a natural extension of the users’ own movements.
The study also examined whether the familiarity of the objects influenced the results. Participants generally spent less time exploring familiar objects compared to unfamiliar ones.
However, the audio augmentation appeared to boost mindfulness and exploration regardless of whether the object was a common tool or a novelty item. This implies that the device can make even mundane, well-known objects seem novel and worthy of attention.
“We propose a wearable device that amplifies sounds produced by the hands and plays them back to the user in real time, encouraging attention to ongoing actions,” Tao explained. “With the device, you can hear more clearly these subtle yet often overlooked sounds, such as hands rubbing together and finger sliding through different surfaces. Our initial study with 60 participants in-lab showed that the audio augmentation delivered by our device can enhance state mindfulness, direct user attention to auditory properties of objects. and spark exploratory behavior.”
Despite the positive effects on mindfulness and behavior, the study did not find significant changes in other emotional states. Reports of awe and feelings of connectedness to the objects were similar across both groups. The researchers suggest that the indoor laboratory setting and the nature of the tasks might not have been conducive to eliciting strong emotions like awe.
As with all research, there are limitations. The experiment was conducted in a controlled lab environment with minimal background noise. It remains unclear how the device would perform in a noisy, real-world setting where extraneous sounds might be amplified. The task of exploring objects is also different from typical daily chores, which often have specific goals and time constraints.
“As a next step, we aim to investigate the device’s long-term effectiveness and benefits,” Tao said. “We are preparing a field study in which participants will take the device home, allowing us to understand its use in natural, real-world settings beyond the lab. We are also excited to explore the potential for integrating the device into existing mindfulness training programs, which are commonly used in therapeutic interventions for a range of mental health conditions.”
The study, “Audio Augmentation of Manual Interactions to Support Mindfulness,” was authored by Yujie Tao, Jingjin Li, Libby Ye, Andrew Zhang, Jeremy N. Bailenson, and Sean Follmer.
