I am currently exploring whether physiological information could become more than a hidden sensor input and instead be turned into a physical, understandable cue that helps the person notice what is happening in their own body.
This paper stood out because it does exactly that. Rather than translating heartbeat data into a graph or number, it converts each detected heartbeat into a tactile sensation on the chest.
My notes focused on the idea of heartbeat supplementation: combining biofeedback with sensory augmentation so that the person feels an amplified version of their own cardiac rhythm.
That is different from many of the systems I have looked at so far. The response is not trying to slow the body, distract from stress or deliver a generic calming pattern. It is trying to make an existing internal signal easier to perceive.
The researchers developed a real-time haptic heartbeat-feedback system.
A Plux ECG sensor records the participant’s heartbeat. A custom Python system detects each ECG R-peak in real time, and every detected beat triggers a vibration through a Woojer haptic speaker positioned on the front-middle of the chest, above the heart area.
The vibration is designed to mimic the sensation of the participant’s own heartbeat rather than feeling like an arbitrary notification.
The researchers shaped the haptic pulse to resemble the pressure rise associated with systole. Each vibration begins when the heartbeat is detected, peaks around 200 ms later and ends around 400 ms after detection.
This is why the term sensory augmentation makes sense here: the system is not inventing a new rhythm. It is amplifying and externally reinforcing a bodily rhythm that is already happening.
One of my notes was that the Woojer vibration speaker sat over the anterior middle section of the chest.
That placement is important because the feedback is deliberately aligned with where a heartbeat might naturally be felt.
The researchers argue that haptic feedback may be easier to integrate with internal bodily sensation when it matches the natural signal in timing, location and physical quality.
This is a useful contrast with wrist-based haptics. A wrist vibration can communicate information about heart rate, but a chest vibration that arrives exactly with the heartbeat may feel more like a direct extension of the bodily sensation itself.
For my project, that raises an interesting material and placement question: should feedback simply be understandable, or should its physical location also relate to the body signal it represents?
The study involved 60 healthy adults, randomly divided into two groups of 30.
Both groups completed a 12-minute heartbeat-perception training session.