The fields of music, health, and technology have seen significant interactions in recent years in developing music technology for health care and well-being. In an effort to strengthen the collabor...

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/2059204321997709

Music, Computing, and Health: A Roadmap for the Current and Future Roles of Music Technology for Health Care and Well-Being:

Sound-driven design is an emerging, human-centered design practice informed by technology and listening in the multisensory dimension of interaction. In this paper we present a discourse analysis approach aimed at qualitatively understanding the constituent concepts of such a practice, by means of semi-structured interviews with sound designers, design researchers, engineers and expert users in the context of critical care. Preliminary results show that sound-driven design is inherently embodied, situated, and participatory, that the four categories of interviewees equally contribute to the definition of the design problem, and yet that a clear, shared arena is still missing.

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Conceptualising sound-driven design: an exploratory discourse analysis

As socio-technological environments shape and direct listener behaviour, an ecological account is needed that encompasses listening in complexity (i.e., multiple listeners, multiple sounds and their sources, and multiple sound-induced actions that ensure the success of a mission). In this study, we explored sound-induced action under the framework of “acoustic biotopes” (a notion of ecological acoustics by Smolders, Aertsen, and Johanessma, 1979 and 1982) in a specific socio-technological environment, i.e., the context of an orthopaedic operating room. Our approach is based on literature research into the topics of environmental psychology and auditory perception and action and in situ observations in healthcare with field recordings, participatory observations, and interviews on the spot. The results suggest a human-centered definition of sound-induced action in acoustic biotopes: Acoustic biotope is an active and shared sound environment with entangled interactions and sound-induced actions taking place in a specific space that has a critical function. Listening in highly functional environments is an individual experience and is influenced by hearing function, physical position and role in an environment, and the task at hand. There is a range of active and passive sound listeners as a function of their attentive state and listeners as sound sources within the acoustic biotope. There are many different sound sources and sound locals in socio-technological environments and sounds have great potential to serve critical information to operators. Overall, our study provides a holistic, multi-layered and yet a listener-centric view on the organisation of complex spaces and the results can immediately be applicable for rethinking the acoustic environment for ORs for better listening and sound-induced action.

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Acoustic Biotopes, Listeners and Sound-Induced Action: A Case Study of Operating Rooms

Abstract Smart wearable items are becoming more well recognized and are steadily making their way into people’s lives as a result of the ongoing advancement of technology and people’s growing concern for their health. In this work, we investigate the stimulation of physiological signals and the level of happiness indicated by people’s emotions using the linkage of smart gadgets and biological data. To reduce motion artifacts from wearable PPGs, we first suggest a sparse representation-based approach. To address the issue of poor model generalization brought on by individual signal differences (inter- and intra-individual) in human ECG data, a wearable ECG individual signal difference reduction technique based on Balanced Distribution Domain Adaptive (BDA) is also suggested. In addition to making a significant contribution to the advancement of intelligent control technology, medicine, and other fields, it provides an effective baseline for research on the satisfaction level of group music and dancing based on physiological signals. 

/pdf/efficient-modeling-and-estimation-of-group-music-and-dance-3qv9rg3h.pdf

Efficient Modeling and Estimation of Group Music and Dance Happiness via Intelligent Wearable Devices

In this paper, we discuss some uncommon settings and roles for music, demonstrating how music can aid in the design and implementation of socially responsible healthcare products that are encouraging, inclusive, and sensitive to critical contexts. We review three music-inspired design cases (CareTunes: Musical Alarms for Critical Care, Music and Senior Exercise, and We Are All Musicians and the Adaptive Use Musical Instrument) in which the authors took part. The literature review and the analysis of the case studies provide us with the following insights: music enhances sensory experiences, facilitates physical engagement with the world, music can guide medical professionals in critical contexts, and music creates social cohesion. All of these projects demonstrate the importance of involving participants (users or performers) in the process to address their life experiences.  Thus, the use of music in design applications is experienced as a positive influence that can facilitate wellbeing for community members, persons with disabilities, medical patients, and healthcare professionals in the workplace.

Lois Frankel

Papers

Uncommon music making: The functional roles of music in design for healthcare