Theory-based habit modeling for enhancing behavior prediction in behavior change support systems.

Psychological theories of habit posit that when a strong habit is formed through behavioral repetition, it can trigger behavior automatically in the same environment. Given the reciprocal relationship between habit and behavior, changing lifestyle behaviors is largely a task of breaking old habits and creating new and healthy ones. Thus, representing users' habit strengths can be very useful for behavior change support systems, for example, to predict behavior or to decide when an intervention reaches its intended effect.

Patient room lighting influences on sleep, appraisal and mood in hospitalized people.

Irregular 24 h light/dark cycles with night-time light exposure and a low amplitude are disruptive for sleep, mood and circadian rhythms. Nevertheless such lighting conditions are quite common in medical care facilities. A controlled clinical trial among 196 cardiology ward patients (mean age 66.

Inducing Sadness and Anxiousness through Visual Media: Measurement Techniques and Persistence.

The persistence of negative moods (sadness and anxiousness) induced by three visual Mood Induction Procedures (MIP) was investigated. The evolution of the mood after the MIP was monitored for a period of 8 min with the Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM; every 2 min) and with recordings of skin conductance level (SCL) and electrocardiography (ECG). The SAM pleasure ratings showed that short and longer film fragments were effective in inducing a longer lasting negative mood, whereas the negative mood induced by the IAPS slideshow was short lived.

Lighting to Make You Feel Better: Improving the Mood of Elderly People with Affective Ambiences.

Current lighting technologies extend the options for changing the appearance of rooms and closed spaces, as such creating ambiences with an affective meaning. Using intelligence, these ambiences may instantly be adapted to the needs of the room's occupant(s), possibly improving their well-being. We hypothesized that ambiences with a clearly recognizable, positive affective meaning could be used to effectively mitigate negative mood in elderly.

Arm and hand skills: training preferences after stroke.

Purpose: An increasing demand for training after stroke has brought about the need to develop rehabilitation technology. This article reports an inquiry into skill preferences of persons after stroke regarding arm-hand training and examines the relationship between the use of the affected arm and the patient's training preference.

Method: Data collection involved a semi-structured interview of 20 persons in the subacute and 20 persons in the chronic stage after stroke, based on an adaptation of the motor activity log.