4.7 Article

Partial Reinforcement in Game Biofeedback for Relaxation Training

Journal

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON AFFECTIVE COMPUTING
Volume 12, Issue 1, Pages 141-153

Publisher

IEEE-INST ELECTRICAL ELECTRONICS ENGINEERS INC
DOI: 10.1109/TAFFC.2018.2842727

Keywords

Biofeedback games; deep breathing; games for health; partial reinforcement; resistance to extinction; skill transfer; stress; video games; wearable sensors

Funding

  1. NPRP grant from the Qatar National Research Fund (a member of Qatar Foundation) [5-678-2-282]

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This study investigates the impact of reinforcement schedules on biofeedback games for stress self-regulation, with findings showing that partial reinforcement can improve resistance to the extinction of relaxation behaviors, and participants under partial reinforcement learn to slow their breathing at the same pace as those under continuous reinforcement.
This paper investigates the effect of reinforcement schedules on biofeedback games for stress self-regulation. In particular, it examines whether partial reinforcement can improve resistance to extinction of relaxation behaviors, i.e., once biofeedback is removed. Namely, we compare two types of reinforcement schedules (partial and continuous) in a mobile biofeedback game that encourages players to slow their breathing during gameplay. The game uses a negative-reinforcement instrumental conditioning paradigm, removing an aversive stimulus (random actions in the game) if players slows down their breathing. We conducted an experimental trial with 24 participants to compare the two reinforcement schedules against a control condition. Our results indicate that partial reinforcement improves resistance to extinction, as measured by breathing rate and skin conductance post-treatment. In addition, based on linear regression and correlation analysis we found that participants in the partial reinforcement learned to slow their breathing at the same pace as those under continuous reinforcement. The article discusses the implications of these results and directions for future work.

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