Bodily-Contact Communication Medium Induces Relaxed Mode of Brain Activity While Increasing Its Dynamical Complexity: A Pilot Study

Abstract

We present the results of the analysis of the effect of a bodily-contact communication medium on the brain activity of the individuals during verbal communication. Our results suggest that the communicated content that is mediated through such a device induces a significant effect on electroencephalogram (EEG) time series of human subjects. Precisely, we find a significant reduction of overall power of the EEG signals of the individuals. This observation that is supported by the analysis of the permutation entropy (PE) of the EEG time series of brain activity of the participants suggests the positive effect of such a medium on the stress relief and the induced sense of relaxation. Additionally, multiscale entropy (MSE) analysis of our data implies that such a medium increases the level of complexity that is exhibited by EEG time series of our participants, thereby suggesting their sustained sense of involvement in their course of communication. These findings that are in accord with the results reported by cognitive neuroscience research suggests that the use of such a medium can be beneficial as a complementary step in treatment of developmental disorders, attentiveness of schoolchildren and early child development, as well as scenarios where intimate physical interaction over distance is desirable (e.g., distance-parenting).

Keywords: cognition; differential entropy; electroencephalography; hug; multi-scale entropy; permutation entropy; touch.

Figure 1

An experimenter demonstrates the use of Hugvie, a huggable telecommunication medium.

Figure 2

Magnitude of permutation entropies of the EEG time series of the participants (A) first experimental setting (B) second experimental setting during rest (i.e., with and without Hugvie) (C) second experimental setting during first and second storytelling sessions. ^*p < 0.05; ^**p < 0.01 ^***p < 0.001.

Figure 3

Reduction of power due to presence of Hugvie in different frequency bands of the EEG time series of participants in the first experimental setting.

Figure 4

Grand averages of the multiscale entropy (MSE) of the EEG time series of the participants.(A) first experimental setting (B) second experimental setting while resting with and without Hugvie (C) second experimental setting during the sessions one and two. We used pattern length m = 2, similarity criterion r = 0.15, and range of 1–20 for the scale factor, as suggested in (Goldberger et al., 2000).

Figure 5

Magnitude of sample entropies as computed by mutli-scale entropy (MSE) of the EEG time series of the participants for scales 1–20 (A) first experimental setting (B) second experimental setting during rest (i.e., with and without Hugvie) (C) second experimental setting during first and second storytelling sessions.

Figure 6

Reduction of power during resting in all frequency bands in the presence of the huggable communication medium and irrespective of communication content.