Mind-Full – TECI – Alissa N Antle

Project Overview

The Mind-Full project started in Nepal with this question: How can we provide education for some of the world’s poorest children? Even with access to education many children are unable to stay calm and focus on learning due to the multiple traumas they have suffered: poverty, parental mental illness and addictions, homelessness and civil war. In the Mind-Full project we first explored how to design a brain-computer interface for tablet-based self-regulation games to help children living in poverty in Pokhara (Nepal) learn to self-regulate anxiety and attention. The Mind-Full brain-tablet application makes invisible brain processes visible in ways that children can understand. It is a modern take on the ancient practice of meditation using neurofeedback. Results from a 14 week field trial with an waitlist control group showed that children were able to complete the Mind-Full intervention, transfer self-regulation skills into the classroom and onto the playground, and the effects were maintained for 2 months post-intervention.

Based on these successful outcomes, we refined Mind-Full, built three new versions, Mind-Full Wind (Nepal), Mind-Full Wild (Urban), and Mind-Full Sky (Aboriginal) and released beta versions of the new Mind-Full apps on the Google Play store. In a second 16 week field trial with an waitlist control group in an urban centre in Canada, working with a population of young children (ages 6 to 8) with a history of trauma and/or anxiety and attentional challenges, we found similar results on behavioral measures and significant evidence of improvement on objective measures including repeated salivary cortisol tests (stress) and tests of executive functioning (attention).

Current Team

Alissa N. Antle: Research, Project and Design Lead
Leslie Chesick, Nepal House Society and UBC Counselling Services, Trauma Therapist
Elgin-Skye McLaren, Project Manager
Shubhra Sarker, Programming

Previous Team

Graduate Students and Staff

Srilekha Kirshnamachari Sridharan, Data Analysis
Anja Haman Consulting, Business Case Development
Randa Aljohani, Testing
Christine Best, Marketing and Web
Aaron Levisohn: Project Manager and Usability Researcher
Anna Macaranas: Project Manager

Undergraduate Students

Perry Tan, System Programming
Fan Lin, Art
Saba Nowroozi: Interaction Design
Rachael Eckersley (FCAT Undergraduate Research Award): Art
Joseph Leung: Programming
Nathan Waddington: Android-Neurosky Programming

Funded By

NSERC Discovery

NSERC Accelerate

GRAND NCE

MSR

Publications

2024
Antle, Alissa N., McLaren, Elgin-Skye

Are mobile neurofeedback games a feasible way to improve self-regulation of attention for young marginalized children? Journal Article

In: International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction, vol. 42, pp. 100690, 2024.

Abstract | Links | BibTeX

@article{ANTLE2024100690,
title = {Are mobile neurofeedback games a feasible way to improve self-regulation of attention for young marginalized children?},
author = {Alissa N. Antle and Elgin-Skye McLaren},
url = {https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221286892400059X},
doi = {doi.org/10.1016/j.ijcci.2024.100690},
year = {2024},
date = {2024-09-13},
urldate = {2024-09-13},
journal = {International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction},
volume = {42},
pages = {100690},
abstract = {Interactive technology-mediated behavioral interventions are increasingly being studied with children at risk for attentional challenges. Few technology-mediated interventions have been designed for, or studied in the field with, marginalized children, who are at an elevated risk for attentional challenges. We adapted three existing neurofeedback games to create a proof-of-concept intervention to address this research gap. To investigate preliminary feasibility and efficacy we conducted a controlled field experiment with 28 children (aged 5 to 8, 22 male) from a disadvantaged community. Findings showed that with support all children were able to complete the intervention, and most were able to transfer newly attained attention regulation skills into everyday situations and maintain those skills over time. Our work serves as a proof-of-concept for this type of technology-mediated mental health intervention research, provides an exemplar of digital health research with hard-to-reach populations, and provides preliminary evidence that this research space warrants future attention.
},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}

Close

Interactive technology-mediated behavioral interventions are increasingly being studied with children at risk for attentional challenges. Few technology-mediated interventions have been designed for, or studied in the field with, marginalized children, who are at an elevated risk for attentional challenges. We adapted three existing neurofeedback games to create a proof-of-concept intervention to address this research gap. To investigate preliminary feasibility and efficacy we conducted a controlled field experiment with 28 children (aged 5 to 8, 22 male) from a disadvantaged community. Findings showed that with support all children were able to complete the intervention, and most were able to transfer newly attained attention regulation skills into everyday situations and maintain those skills over time. Our work serves as a proof-of-concept for this type of technology-mediated mental health intervention research, provides an exemplar of digital health research with hard-to-reach populations, and provides preliminary evidence that this research space warrants future attention.

Close

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221286892400059X

doi:doi.org/10.1016/j.ijcci.2024.100690

Close
2023
Slovak, Petr, Antle, Alissa, Theofanopoulou, Nikki, Roquet, Claudia Daudén, Gross, James, Isbister, Katherine

Designing for Emotion Regulation Interventions: An Agenda for HCI Theory and Research Journal Article

In: ACM Trans. Comput.-Hum. Interact., vol. 30, no. 1, 2023, ISSN: 1073-0516.

Abstract | Links | BibTeX

@article{10.1145/3569898,
title = {Designing for Emotion Regulation Interventions: An Agenda for HCI Theory and Research},
author = {Petr Slovak and Alissa Antle and Nikki Theofanopoulou and Claudia Daudén Roquet and James Gross and Katherine Isbister},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1145/3569898},
doi = {10.1145/3569898},
issn = {1073-0516},
year = {2023},
date = {2023-03-01},
urldate = {2023-03-01},
journal = {ACM Trans. Comput.-Hum. Interact.},
volume = {30},
number = {1},
publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery},
address = {New York, NY, USA},
abstract = {There is a growing interest in human-computer interaction (HCI) to envision, design, and evaluate technology-enabled interventions that support users’ emotion regulation. This interest stems in part from increased recognition that the ability to regulate emotions is critical to mental health, and that a lack of effective emotion regulation is a transdiagnostic factor for mental illness. However, the potential to combine innovative HCI designs with the theoretical grounding and state-of-the-art interventions from psychology has yet to be fully realised. In this article, we synthesise HCI work on emotion regulation interventions and propose a three-part framework to guide technology designers in making: (i) theory-informed decisions about intervention targets; (ii) strategic decisions regarding the technology-enabled intervention mechanisms to be included in the system; and (iii) practical decisions around previous implementations of the selected intervention components. We show how this framework can both systematise HCI work to date and suggest a research agenda for future work.},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}

Close

There is a growing interest in human-computer interaction (HCI) to envision, design, and evaluate technology-enabled interventions that support users’ emotion regulation. This interest stems in part from increased recognition that the ability to regulate emotions is critical to mental health, and that a lack of effective emotion regulation is a transdiagnostic factor for mental illness. However, the potential to combine innovative HCI designs with the theoretical grounding and state-of-the-art interventions from psychology has yet to be fully realised. In this article, we synthesise HCI work on emotion regulation interventions and propose a three-part framework to guide technology designers in making: (i) theory-informed decisions about intervention targets; (ii) strategic decisions regarding the technology-enabled intervention mechanisms to be included in the system; and (iii) practical decisions around previous implementations of the selected intervention components. We show how this framework can both systematise HCI work to date and suggest a research agenda for future work.

Close

https://doi.org/10.1145/3569898

doi:10.1145/3569898

Close
2019
Antle, Alissa N., McLaren, Elgin-Skye, Fiedler, Holly, Johnson, Naomi

Evaluating the Impact of a Mobile Neurofeedback App for Young Children at School and Home Proceedings Article

In: Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 1–13, Association for Computing Machinery, Glasgow, Scotland Uk, 2019, ISBN: 9781450359702.

Abstract | Links | BibTeX

@inproceedings{10.1145/3290605.3300266,
title = {Evaluating the Impact of a Mobile Neurofeedback App for Young Children at School and Home},
author = {Alissa N. Antle and Elgin-Skye McLaren and Holly Fiedler and Naomi Johnson},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1145/3290605.3300266},
doi = {10.1145/3290605.3300266},
isbn = {9781450359702},
year = {2019},
date = {2019-01-01},
urldate = {2019-01-01},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems},
pages = {1–13},
publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery},
address = {Glasgow, Scotland Uk},
series = {CHI '19},
abstract = {About 18% of children in industrialized countries suffer from anxiety. We designed a mobile neurofeedback app, called Mind-Full, based on existing design guidelines. Our goal was for young children in lower socio-economic status schools to improve their ability to self-regulate anxiety by using Mind-Full. In this paper we report on quantitative outcomes from a sixteen-week field evaluation with 20 young children (aged 5 to 8). Our methodological contribution includes using a control group, validated measures of anxiety and stress, and assessing transfer and maintenance. Results from teacher and parent behavioral surveys indicated gains in children's ability to self-regulate anxiety at school and home; a decrease in anxious behaviors at home; and cortisol tests showed variable improvement in physiological stress levels. We contribute to HCI for mental health with evidence that it is viable to use a mobile app in lower socio-economic status schools to improve children's mental health.},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {inproceedings}
}

Close

About 18% of children in industrialized countries suffer from anxiety. We designed a mobile neurofeedback app, called Mind-Full, based on existing design guidelines. Our goal was for young children in lower socio-economic status schools to improve their ability to self-regulate anxiety by using Mind-Full. In this paper we report on quantitative outcomes from a sixteen-week field evaluation with 20 young children (aged 5 to 8). Our methodological contribution includes using a control group, validated measures of anxiety and stress, and assessing transfer and maintenance. Results from teacher and parent behavioral surveys indicated gains in children's ability to self-regulate anxiety at school and home; a decrease in anxious behaviors at home; and cortisol tests showed variable improvement in physiological stress levels. We contribute to HCI for mental health with evidence that it is viable to use a mobile app in lower socio-economic status schools to improve children's mental health.

Close

https://doi.org/10.1145/3290605.3300266

doi:10.1145/3290605.3300266

Close
Antle, Alissa N., McLaren, Elgin Skye, Fiedler, Holly, Johnson, Naomi

Design for Mental Health: How Socio-Technological Processes Mediate Outcome Measures in a Field Study of a Wearable Anxiety App Proceedings Article

In: Proceedings of the Thirteenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction, pp. 87–96, Association for Computing Machinery, Tempe, Arizona, USA, 2019, ISBN: 9781450361965.

Abstract | Links | BibTeX

@inproceedings{10.1145/3294109.3295650,
title = {Design for Mental Health: How Socio-Technological Processes Mediate Outcome Measures in a Field Study of a Wearable Anxiety App},
author = {Alissa N. Antle and Elgin Skye McLaren and Holly Fiedler and Naomi Johnson},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1145/3294109.3295650},
doi = {10.1145/3294109.3295650},
isbn = {9781450361965},
year = {2019},
date = {2019-01-01},
urldate = {2019-01-01},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the Thirteenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction},
pages = {87–96},
publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery},
address = {Tempe, Arizona, USA},
series = {TEI '19},
abstract = {Millions of children have challenges with anxiety that negatively impact their development, education and well-being. To address this challenge, we developed version 2.0 of Mind-Full, a wearable, mobile neurofeedback system, designed to teach young children to learn to self-regulate anxiety. We present a mixed methods evaluation of a seven week long intervention in schools. We report on a subset of outcome measures related to 10 children's anxiety and stress in the classroom and describe mediating socio-technological processes that may have impacted outcomes. Findings showed improvement in children's ability to self-regulate anxiety and reduced cortisol levels for some children. Qualitative findings suggested that children who made multimodal connections during system mediated learning and had teacher support for learning transfer responded well to the intervention. We suggest that framing mental health app design as a distributed, adaptive, socio-technological system enables designers to better meet individual's unique and changing mental health needs.},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {inproceedings}
}

Close

Millions of children have challenges with anxiety that negatively impact their development, education and well-being. To address this challenge, we developed version 2.0 of Mind-Full, a wearable, mobile neurofeedback system, designed to teach young children to learn to self-regulate anxiety. We present a mixed methods evaluation of a seven week long intervention in schools. We report on a subset of outcome measures related to 10 children's anxiety and stress in the classroom and describe mediating socio-technological processes that may have impacted outcomes. Findings showed improvement in children's ability to self-regulate anxiety and reduced cortisol levels for some children. Qualitative findings suggested that children who made multimodal connections during system mediated learning and had teacher support for learning transfer responded well to the intervention. We suggest that framing mental health app design as a distributed, adaptive, socio-technological system enables designers to better meet individual's unique and changing mental health needs.

Close

https://doi.org/10.1145/3294109.3295650

doi:10.1145/3294109.3295650

Close
2018
A.N. Antle, Chesick, Cramer, E

East meets west: a mobile brain-computer system that helps children living in poverty learn to self-regulate. Journal Article

In: Personal and Ubiquitous Computing , vol. 22, pp. 839–866, 2018.

Abstract | Links | BibTeX

@article{nokey,
title = {East meets west: a mobile brain-computer system that helps children living in poverty learn to self-regulate.},
author = {Antle, A.N., Chesick, L., Sridharan, S.K. and Cramer, E},
url = {https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00779-018-1166-x#article-info},
doi = {https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-018-1166-x},
year = {2018},
date = {2018-06-12},
urldate = {2018-06-12},
journal = {Personal and Ubiquitous Computing },
volume = {22},
pages = {839–866},
abstract = {Children living in poverty often suffer multiple forms of trauma, which impedes their ability to effectively self-regulate negative emotions, such as anxiety, and to focus their attention. As a result, many of these children struggle at school. Our work explores the effectiveness of using a mindfulness-oriented, neurofeedback-based, brain-computer system to help teach children living in poverty to self-regulate anxiety and attention. Our system, called Mind-Full, was specifically designed for illiterate girls who attend an NGO-funded school in Pokhara, Nepal. In this paper, we present the results of a waitlist control field experiment with 21 girls who completed an intervention using the Mind-Full system. Our results indicated that a 6-week Mind-Full intervention was viable and that children were able to transfer self-regulation skills learned using our system into real-world settings and continue to self-regulate successfully after 2 months. We present our findings as a validation of the effectiveness of mobile neurofeedback-based interventions to help young children living in poverty develop self-regulation skills. We conclude with a discussion of the results, methodological challenges of working in the developing world, and advice for future investigations of the effectiveness of neurofeedback applications for children.},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}

Close

Children living in poverty often suffer multiple forms of trauma, which impedes their ability to effectively self-regulate negative emotions, such as anxiety, and to focus their attention. As a result, many of these children struggle at school. Our work explores the effectiveness of using a mindfulness-oriented, neurofeedback-based, brain-computer system to help teach children living in poverty to self-regulate anxiety and attention. Our system, called Mind-Full, was specifically designed for illiterate girls who attend an NGO-funded school in Pokhara, Nepal. In this paper, we present the results of a waitlist control field experiment with 21 girls who completed an intervention using the Mind-Full system. Our results indicated that a 6-week Mind-Full intervention was viable and that children were able to transfer self-regulation skills learned using our system into real-world settings and continue to self-regulate successfully after 2 months. We present our findings as a validation of the effectiveness of mobile neurofeedback-based interventions to help young children living in poverty develop self-regulation skills. We conclude with a discussion of the results, methodological challenges of working in the developing world, and advice for future investigations of the effectiveness of neurofeedback applications for children.

Close

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00779-018-1166-x#article-info

doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-018-1166-x

Close
Antle, Alissa N., Chesick, Leslie, Mclaren, Elgin-Skye

Opening up the Design Space of Neurofeedback Brain--Computer Interfaces for Children Journal Article

In: ACM Trans. Comput.-Hum. Interact., vol. 24, no. 6, 2018, ISSN: 1073-0516.

Abstract | Links | BibTeX

@article{10.1145/3131607,
title = {Opening up the Design Space of Neurofeedback Brain--Computer Interfaces for Children},
author = {Alissa N. Antle and Leslie Chesick and Elgin-Skye Mclaren},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1145/3131607},
doi = {10.1145/3131607},
issn = {1073-0516},
year = {2018},
date = {2018-01-01},
urldate = {2018-01-01},
journal = {ACM Trans. Comput.-Hum. Interact.},
volume = {24},
number = {6},
publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery},
address = {New York, NY, USA},
abstract = {Brain--computer interface applications (BCIs) utilizing neurofeedback (NF) can make invisible brain states visible in real time. Learning to recognize, modify, and regulate brain states is critical to all children's development and can improve learning, and emotional and mental health outcomes. How can we design usable and effective NF BCIs that help children learn and practice brain state self-regulation? Our contribution is a list of challenges for this emerging design space and a conceptual framework that addresses those challenges. The framework is composed of five interrelated strong concepts that we adapted from other design spaces. We derived the concepts reflectively, theoretically, and empirically through a design research process in which we created and evaluated a NF BCI, called Mind-Full, designed to help children living in Nepal who had suffered from complex trauma learn to self-regulate anxiety and attention. We add rigor to our derivation methodology by horizontally and vertically grounding our concepts, that is, relating them to similar concepts in the literature and instantiations in other artifacts. We illustrate the generative power of the concepts and the inter-relationships between them through the description of two new NF BCIs we created using the framework for urban and indigenous children with anxiety and attentional challenges. We then show the versatility of our framework by describing how it inspired and informed the conceptual design of three NF BCIs for different types of self-regulation: selective attention and working memory, pain management, and depression. Last, we discuss the contestability, defensibility, and substantiveness of our conceptual framework in order to ensure rigor in our research design process. Our contribution is a rigorously derived design framework that opens up this new and emerging design space of NF BCI's for children for other researchers and designers.},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}

Close

Brain--computer interface applications (BCIs) utilizing neurofeedback (NF) can make invisible brain states visible in real time. Learning to recognize, modify, and regulate brain states is critical to all children's development and can improve learning, and emotional and mental health outcomes. How can we design usable and effective NF BCIs that help children learn and practice brain state self-regulation? Our contribution is a list of challenges for this emerging design space and a conceptual framework that addresses those challenges. The framework is composed of five interrelated strong concepts that we adapted from other design spaces. We derived the concepts reflectively, theoretically, and empirically through a design research process in which we created and evaluated a NF BCI, called Mind-Full, designed to help children living in Nepal who had suffered from complex trauma learn to self-regulate anxiety and attention. We add rigor to our derivation methodology by horizontally and vertically grounding our concepts, that is, relating them to similar concepts in the literature and instantiations in other artifacts. We illustrate the generative power of the concepts and the inter-relationships between them through the description of two new NF BCIs we created using the framework for urban and indigenous children with anxiety and attentional challenges. We then show the versatility of our framework by describing how it inspired and informed the conceptual design of three NF BCIs for different types of self-regulation: selective attention and working memory, pain management, and depression. Last, we discuss the contestability, defensibility, and substantiveness of our conceptual framework in order to ensure rigor in our research design process. Our contribution is a rigorously derived design framework that opens up this new and emerging design space of NF BCI's for children for other researchers and designers.

Close

https://doi.org/10.1145/3131607

doi:10.1145/3131607

Close
2015
Antle, Alissa N., Chesick, Leslie, Levisohn, Aaron, Sridharan, Srilekha Kirshnamachari, Tan, Perry

Using Neurofeedback to Teach Self-Regulation to Children Living in Poverty Proceedings Article

In: Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Interaction Design and Children, pp. 119–128, Association for Computing Machinery, Boston, Massachusetts, 2015, ISBN: 9781450335904.

Abstract | Links | BibTeX

@inproceedings{10.1145/2771839.2771852,
title = {Using Neurofeedback to Teach Self-Regulation to Children Living in Poverty},
author = {Alissa N. Antle and Leslie Chesick and Aaron Levisohn and Srilekha Kirshnamachari Sridharan and Perry Tan},
url = {https://doi-org.proxy.lib.sfu.ca/10.1145/2771839.2771852},
doi = {10.1145/2771839.2771852},
isbn = {9781450335904},
year = {2015},
date = {2015-01-01},
urldate = {2015-01-01},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Interaction Design and Children},
pages = {119–128},
publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery},
address = {Boston, Massachusetts},
series = {IDC '15},
abstract = {In this paper we describe a neuro-feedback system and applications we designed and deployed to help vulnerable children at an NGO-funded school, called Nepal House Kaski, in Pokhara, Nepal. The system, called Mind-Full, enables traumatized children to learn and practice self-regulation by playing simple, culturally appropriate games using an EEG headset connected to an interactive tablet. Children can interact with Mind-Full using body actions that may change their physiology and brain states, which are sensed by the EEG headset and used as input to the games. One of the key challenges was to build an application that the children could immediately understand how to use when they are illiterate, don't speak English and have no computer experience. We describe Mind-Full and highlight the design principles we used to meet these constraints. We report on a subset of findings from a 14-week field experiment in which we use a mixed-methods approach to determine if children improved their ability to self-regulate during gameplay as well as in the classroom, playground and in therapy sessions. Findings from quantitative and qualitative assessment measures suggest that the treatment group significantly improved their ability to calm down and focus in a variety of contexts.},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {inproceedings}
}

Close

In this paper we describe a neuro-feedback system and applications we designed and deployed to help vulnerable children at an NGO-funded school, called Nepal House Kaski, in Pokhara, Nepal. The system, called Mind-Full, enables traumatized children to learn and practice self-regulation by playing simple, culturally appropriate games using an EEG headset connected to an interactive tablet. Children can interact with Mind-Full using body actions that may change their physiology and brain states, which are sensed by the EEG headset and used as input to the games. One of the key challenges was to build an application that the children could immediately understand how to use when they are illiterate, don't speak English and have no computer experience. We describe Mind-Full and highlight the design principles we used to meet these constraints. We report on a subset of findings from a 14-week field experiment in which we use a mixed-methods approach to determine if children improved their ability to self-regulate during gameplay as well as in the classroom, playground and in therapy sessions. Findings from quantitative and qualitative assessment measures suggest that the treatment group significantly improved their ability to calm down and focus in a variety of contexts.

Close

https://doi-org.proxy.lib.sfu.ca/10.1145/2771839.2771852

doi:10.1145/2771839.2771852

Close

Project Overview

Current Team

Previous Team

Funded By

Publications

2024

2023

2019

2018

2015