Biomusic: Listening to anxiety

Arrows connect a left column of symbols to a right column of symbols. A heart connects to a drum. Lungs connect to waves. A hand connects to a microphone. A thermometer connects to musicians.

With Dr. Elaine Biddiss and colleagues at Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital, I developed an auditory interface that helps children with communication disabilities to express their anxiety to caregivers. Our team transformed physiological indicators of anxiety into sounds, creating lively “biomusic” that lets you hear anxious feelings in musical changes. In our research, we found that our system performs with high accuracy (81%).

Publication

Cheung, S., Han, E., Kushki, A., Anagnostou, E., & Biddiss, E. (2016) “Biomusic: An auditory interface for detecting physiological indicators of anxiety in children.” Frontiers in Neuroscience. 10:401. doi:10.3389/fnins.2016.00401.

Press

Nathan Hurst, (April, 2018) “Can Biomusic Offer Kids With Autism a New Way to Communicate?” Smithsonian Magazine.

Funding

Natural Sciences and Engineering Council of Canada; Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities; Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital Foundation; Ward Family Foundation