Mental well-being in adolescents and young adults is increasingly challenged by attention difficulties, stress, and anxiety. A growing body of research indicates that the way humans perceive their body in relation to its environment is closely tied to how they regulate emotions and sustain attention (Dobricki & Pauli, 2016). Changing this body-environment perception in an embodied and controlled way — and giving learners direct feedback on how their body responds — therefore has the potential to support the learning of emotion regulation, a core competence for mental health and for concentration in everyday life and in education.
This project develops and scientifically investigates two complementary applications based on this principle. The first is an immersive virtual reality (VR) experience that builds on a prototype I have developed for changing body-environment perception in support of emotion regulation. Real-time biofeedback (e.g., heart rate, breathing) lets young people directly observe how their bodily state shifts as their perception of the environment changes, helping them associate specific body-environment configurations with calmer and more focused inner states.
The second is a low-threshold version of the same learning principle without a VR headset and based on a further prototype I have developed: an artificial intelligence (AI), combined with biofeedback from a smartphone or wearable, guides users through analogous exercises in their everyday surroundings via voice and screen. This dual design is essential for inclusive use across educational contexts and for learners with diverse sensory, motor, or attentional needs — including young people with concentration difficulties.
We co-design both applications with educators, special-education professionals, and young people themselves, and we test them in upper-secondary schools and in educational support settings. The aim is to generate practice-relevant evidence on how digital reality expansion, combined with biofeedback, can strengthen emotion regulation, attention, and mental well-being in adolescents and young adults.
This project is a planned BeLEARN research cooperation.
Literature:
Dobricki, M. & Pauli, P. (2016). Sensorimotor body-environment interaction serves to regulate emotional experience and exploratory behavior. Heliyon, 2, e00173. doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2016.e00173
