Weixinyue Peng

How might we utilise technology to promote wellness oriented mental health care？

Cycle proposed a bespoke smartphone application that uses phone meta-data and sensor data to predict and suggest micro-interventions to guide people to cope with their mental frustrations in time. This allows users to track their daily activities and helps to draw connections between the events with stress influencing factors to better prepare themselves for future challenges.

Special Thanks to:

Videographer: Yiwan Liu

Film Cast: Lingqing Li

Currently over 15% of the global population suffer from mental and substance use disorders, more than 70% of persons who need mental health services lack access to care. Other than the unbalanced distribution of mental health service access, mental health-related stigma exerts negative influences on individuals, regardless of cultural backgrounds, as one of the main barriers that stop people from seeking professional help. There is a need to increase mental health literacy with the purpose to shape our approach to looking after our minds from an illness-based to wellness-oriented focus.

Cycle proposes a smartphone application that promotes just-in-time healthy interventions based on predictions of users’ stress levels and current status by decoding data from user’s smartphones. After the user gives consent to the smartphone data requisition and finishes the onboarding questionnaire, an algorithm will start analysing the data to decide and promote wellness intervention suggestions (soundscapes, guided input with instructions and pure texts). Over time, Cycle will visualise the collected data to help users understand their status and make mindful decisions based on the focus on mental wellness. 

In the moment when the user has too much on their minds, Cycle notifies and help them to decode the situation step by step. The intervention from Cycle is designed specifically to fit into the modern work-oriented lifestyle as an intelligent and friendly reminder considering four scenarios: commute, concentration, relax and energize. The user can set the number of interventions to engage with per day, or request interventions that fit with their need from the practice library. Cycle algorithm will be able to tell the stress level, environment, and availability of the user and promote the most appropriate selection of intervention. 

Cycle links and translates the raw data from smartphones into relatable visualization for people to better understand and compare their own wellness status in real-time.

Cycle aims to paint a picture of the future of mental health care from illness-focused to wellness-oriented.

What if we could understand ourselves better through emotional reflection?

The Boo is an artificial lung that smells, interprets and responds to our emotions and potential mental frustrations, empowering us with the abilities to navigate out of anxiety and retrieve autonomy. It provides sensory experiences to help people cope with complicated emotional feelings through gentle notifications and guided meditation sessions.

Supported by forefront olfactory sensing technology research conducted by Takeuchi Biohybrid Lab, Boo is able to identify users' stress detections of chemicals like cortisols and other VOCs from human sweat and air. Once stress is sensed, the Boo will start to give the user notifications through blinking soft lights to remind them to take a pause and interact with it. The morphing and breathing movement will provide guidance to users for a mindfulness breathing session.

The Boo is designed as an artificial organism that aims to raise emotional awareness through reflective - creature inspired interactions. With the biometric data and environmental data collected over time, the Boo system will develop to be synchronised with the household and act in response to the potential emotional needs.

During the project, I have been consulting with scientists from Takeuchi lab to validate the feasibility of the technology and the potential impact of application in the home scenario. 

When children disclose violent experiences, are we prepared for the conversation?

Most of the disclosure of sexual violence from children takes place in a rather passive manner – children are pushed by consecutive questions to recall and clarify their experience, and they risk further trauma from insensitive communication. 

Mocra creates a friendly and loving contextual environment for sensitive experience disclosure for children.

Mocra is currently showcased in the 2022 Young Designers Exhibition.

In Collaboration with:

Luqian Wang

Video Reference:

Hooligan Sparrow, 2016 ‧ Documentary/Drama, Nanfu Wang

China school abuse: Search for justice after son raped, 2015 Apr 6th, BBC News

Among China’s 7 Million Left-Behind Children, 10% Think Their Parents Have Died, 2009 Feb 3rd, Yit

In 2020, 332 cases of sexual abuse were reported in China. 74% of the cases were perpetrated by acquaintances, hinting at a possibility of more unreported incidents. Despite the increasing public attention, child molestation is still a “taboo” in daily conversations, especially for the left-behind children who are geographically separated from their parents. Apart from the limited communication with their children, parents and caregivers don’t always have the experience on how to communicate, or even guide children to speak up, resulting in non-disclosure or a delay in disclosure. 

Mocra is an AI-powered tool that aims to help caregivers and professional workers to improve their communication skills when children come to disclose sexual abuse. Users can pre-install the plugin on their messaging application of choice, and activate Mocra when needed. 

Mocra’s algorithm will be able to evaluate texts sent by users based on emotional cues, tone, preconceptions, evaluation and verbal language. It then provides support in text revision and feedback to help users deliver messages and love. 

With the current capability, we envision a promising application of Mocra in the scope of other sensitive problems such as depression, school bullying and post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) with specific treatment principles in use.