Portable Mindfulness: immersion and meditation on smart phones and tablets.

Terry LavenderTransforming Pain Research GroupSimon Fraser University

November 18, 2011

meditation and chronic pain

• Mindful meditation has shown promising results for alleviating chronic pain

• Our lab has extended this to the virtual world, with virtual meditation applications, as Diane Gromala has shown

HOWEVER...

However...

• pain doesn't strike when it's convenient - it can occur at any time, any place, not just when you’re in the virtual reality lab

• not everyone has access to state-of-the-art virtual reality gear

On the other hand...

• many people do have ready access to smart phones, tablets

• can these devices be used to help induce a state of mindful meditation, to help with pain?

Arguments in favour

• concentrating on small screen increases absorption

• holding the device, using headphones - increases a sense of intimacy (Bracken & Pettey, 2007)

Arguments against

• lack of visual and aural quality

• Form factor can be awkward

• greater chance of interruption

• distracting environment

Evidence?

•studies have shown presence is correlated positively with screen size (Bracken & Petty, 2007)

•However, some metrics indicate increased presence on small screens

Presence?

•presence = conscious experience, and awareness, of the present moment (Mccall et al, 2011).

•can be equated with mindfulness where attention is regulated such that increased awareness is brought to the current field of thoughts, feelings, and sensations, in addition to be immersed non-judgmentally in the present moment (Gackenbach & Bown, 2011).

Portable mindfulness: what exists

•Some iOS (iPad, iPhone) and Android “mindfulness” apps, but few worthy of attention

•most are simple guided meditations, with a few background images, ambient sounds, and static text describing how to meditate

•others are meditation timers

however, non-mindfulness apps may hold more promise...

• Osmos is an ambient game: You play a one-celled creature trying to survive in a world of smaller and larger organisms. If you touch a smaller organism, you absorb it and grow. If a larger organism touches you, it absorbs you and you lose the game. You can hunt down other organisms or run away from them, but doing so uses energy. To survive, do as little as possible.

Osmos

•Advantages:

•cross-platform - available for iPhone, iPad, desktop computers, so can measure affect of screen size

•easy to play and inexpensive (iPad version - $5; desktop version - $10)

Why a video game?

•Video game players can experience flow:

•Flow: a balance between challenge and skill; includes increased awareness, a sense of calm control, and absorption in the present activity all of which are linked to mindfulness- Marks (2008)

"You almost zone out... your mind just goes on autopilot and you become one with the system.... Sometimes, you can't believe the moves you're making" a video game player, quoted in Gackenbach & Bown (2011)

Current research

•Some research on games and mindfulness (Gackenbach and Bown, 2011)

•Also, some case studies on using games to alleviate pain dating back to 1980s (Redd, Jacobsen, et al., 1988; Kolko & Rickard-Figueroa, 1985), with more contemporary results from Gordon et al. (2011)

•But, no research exploring these four factors: chronic pain, mindfulness, games, small platforms

Research question

•Can video games on small platforms alleviate chronic pain through mindfulness?

Experimental design

•recruit volunteers to play Osmos on four platforms: iPhone, iPad, laptop, desktop computer

•measure level of perceived pain during test (heat stimulation); mindfulness post-test (Kentucky Inventory of Mindfulness Skills)

conclusion

•the research is just beginning, but if it can be shown that video games on small platforms can help induce mindfulness and consequently alleviate discomfort, we will have a new tool to help those with both chronic and acute pain.

References

Baer, R. A. (2011). Measuring mindfulness. Contemporary Buddhism, 12(1), 241-261. doi:10.1080/14639947.2011.564842

Bracken, C., & Pettey, G. (2007). It is REALLY a smaller (and smaller) world: presence and small screens. Proceedings of the 10th International Workshop on Presence.(Barcelona, Spain), 283–290.

Bracken, C., Pettey, Gary, Rubenking, Bridget, Guha, Trupti (2008). Sounding Out Small Screens and Presence: The Impact of Screen Size, Pace, and Sound. Proceedings from International Communication Association, Montreal, PQ.

Gackenbach, J., & Bown, J. (2011). Mindfulness and Video Game Play: A Preliminary Inquiry. Mindfulness, 2(2), 114-122. doi:10.1007/s12671-011-0049-2

Gordon, N. S., Merchant, J., Zanbaka, C., Hodges, L. F., & Goolkasian, P. (2011). Interactive gaming reduces experimental pain with or without a head mounted display. Computers in Human Behavior, 27(6), 2123-2128. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2011.06.006

Kolko, D. J. (1985). Effects of video games on the adverse corollaries of chemotherapy in pediatric oncology patients: A single-case analysis. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 53(2), 223-228.

Marks, D. R. (2008). The Buddha's extra scoop: Neural correlates of mindfulness and clinical sport psychology. Journal of Clinical Sport Psychology, 2, 216-241.

McCall, R., Wetzel, R., Löschner, J., & Braun, A. (2011). Using presence to evaluate an augmented reality location aware game. Pers Ubiquit Comput, 15(1), 25-35. doi:10.1007/s00779-010-0306-8

Redd, W. H., Jacobsen, P. B., & Die-Trill, M. (1987). Cognitive/attentional distraction in the control of conditioned nausea in pediatric cancer patients receiving chemotherapy. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 55(3), 391-395.