Design of Tactile Stimuli to Induce Habitual Behavior for Relieving Stress Caused by Deskwork

Abstract

This paper proposes a method to increase the frequency of“habitual behavior”during the deskwork by presenting a comfortable tactile stimulus. It is known that“ habitual behavior ”tends to appear under stress conditions. Workers seem to select familiar behaviors unconsciously in order to relieve a burden on their brain. Thus we thought that stress could be relieved while continuing deskwork if we were able to establish habitual behaviors to office workers. To induce the“habitual behavior,”we focus on the way of inducing behavior using tactile stimuli for relieving stress while working. We constructed the wearable device which can present the tactile apparent motion in accordance with the simple input action like tapping at the heel. Using this device, we conducted user studies. These results showed that fast speed tactile apparent motion is effective for inducing simple action repeatedly. It is also revealed that the simple action can be induced by presenting the tactile apparent motion, even if we continue to present tactile stimulus over the long term.