I am interested in responses that could support regulation without asking the traveller to stop, look at a screen or consciously complete another task.

BoostMeUp stood out because the intervention is deliberately designed to sit at the edge of attention. The smartwatch produces a repeated heartbeat-like tapping rhythm while the user continues working.

That makes it relevant to my airport project. A traveller may already be navigating, listening, carrying luggage or processing changing information, so any regulation support that demands continuous attention could become another burden.

This paper also gives me a useful warning: the researchers tested both a slower and a faster rhythm, and the direction of the feedback mattered. The slower rhythm was associated with more positive outcomes, while the faster rhythm produced the opposite pattern.

What BoostMeUp is

BoostMeUp is an Apple Watch intervention that delivers personalised heartbeat-like haptic tapping.

The system is based on earlier research suggesting that people can partially associate external bodily-like signals with their own internal state.

Rather than displaying the person’s heart rate, the watch simulates a different heartbeat rhythm through repeated taps on the wrist.

The intervention was designed to work unobtrusively in parallel with the person’s main task.

The user does not have to count the taps, match their breathing to them or deliberately perform a regulation exercise.

How the rhythm was personalised

Participants first completed a relaxation period while their resting heart rate was measured.

That baseline was then used to calculate the haptic rhythm.

In the slow condition, the watch tapped approximately 30% slower than the participant’s resting heart rate, within limits of 40–65 beats per minute.

In the fast condition, the watch tapped approximately 30% faster than baseline, within limits of 80–105 beats per minute.

This is an important distinction for my project.

The haptic feedback was personalised using physiological data, but it was not continuously synchronised to the participant’s live heart rate.

The system therefore sits somewhere between a generic haptic intervention and a fully closed-loop bioresponsive system.

What the researchers tested

The study involved 72 university students aged 18–25, split evenly between a slow-feedback group and a fast-feedback group.

Participants completed challenging modular-arithmetic tests under time pressure.

The researchers deliberately increased performance pressure using the framing of an “IQ test”, financial reward and financial loss for incorrect or missed answers.

Each participant completed two math tests: one with their assigned haptic feedback and one control test with no ongoing feedback.

The order was counterbalanced.

A Polar H7 chest strap measured cardiac activity, while the Apple Watch delivered the haptic intervention.

The researchers assessed self-reported anxiety, heart-rate variability and cognitive performance.

What the results showed

Participants receiving the slow heartbeat-like feedback reported lower anxiety, showed higher heart-rate variability and performed better on the math task relative to their control condition.

Participants receiving the fast heartbeat-like feedback showed the opposite pattern: higher anxiety, lower HRV and poorer task performance.

This makes the paper particularly interesting because the haptic cue was not simply neutral background stimulation.

Its pacing appeared to matter.

For my project, that immediately raises a safety and design question: a response chosen badly may not merely fail to help; it could potentially increase demand or discomfort.

The effect is not the same as changing actual heart rate

The intervention creates the sensation of a heartbeat rhythm, but it is important not to describe it as directly controlling the participant’s real heart rate.

The strongest physiological finding reported here concerns heart-rate variability, not evidence that participants’ hearts simply slowed to match the tactile tapping.

The mechanism proposed by the authors involves the perception of bodily-like signals and their possible effect on emotional state.

That is different from demonstrating direct cardiac entrainment.

For my project, I need to preserve that distinction.

Why the unobtrusive quality interests me

One of the strongest design ideas in this paper is that participants could continue the cognitive task without having to actively attend to the intervention.

The authors describe the feedback as acting at the periphery of attention.

That feels highly relevant to an airport.

Many regulation techniques ask the user to shift attention inward, follow instructions or stop what they are doing. That may be useful in some situations, but it may be difficult during security, wayfinding or a gate change.

A background tactile rhythm could potentially reduce that interaction demand.

However, this paper tested a seated laboratory task, not mobile navigation, so that transfer remains speculative.

Passive does not mean user-controlled

The same feature that makes BoostMeUp interesting also creates a tension for my project.

The intervention is deliberately passive.

Once the experimental condition begins, the rhythm acts on the participant without requiring them to make decisions.

For the study, that helped isolate the intervention.

For my project, I would be much less comfortable with a system automatically delivering a bodily-like rhythm without the traveller knowing why it has started or being able to reject it.

A more appropriate design might preserve the low-attention output while adding clear consent, pause and stop controls.

This is not live biofeedback

Although BoostMeUp uses a physiological baseline, it is not real-time biofeedback in the same sense as the heartbeat-supplementation study I looked at previously.

In BoostMeUp:

resting heart rate → sets an altered tactile rhythm → rhythm is delivered during the task

The haptic signal does not represent the current heartbeat beat-for-beat.

It deliberately simulates a heartbeat that is slower or faster than the participant’s baseline.

That makes it closer to physiology-informed haptic modulation than direct biofeedback.

This distinction is useful because it broadens my design space beyond the assumption that a bioresponsive system must constantly stream live data.

What could biodata actually control?

In this system, biodata controls the starting tempo of the haptic feedback.

The intervention could not have been personalised in the same way without first measuring resting heart rate.

For my project, that suggests a relatively simple role for biosensing:

personal baseline → preferred rhythm range

A future system could theoretically also use live signals to decide when to offer the rhythm or whether to modify it over time.

But that would be an extension beyond what this paper tested.

The paper therefore gives me a useful comparison between baseline personalisation and more complex continuous sensing.

The fast condition is a particularly useful warning

I find the fast-feedback result almost more important than the positive slow-feedback result.

It shows that the intervention was not automatically calming simply because it was wearable, subtle or heartbeat-like.

The faster rhythm was associated with increased anxiety and poorer performance.

For my project, that reinforces a wider pattern across the literature:

the sensory response itself needs to be treated as consequential.

Intensity, rhythm, pacing and duration cannot be chosen casually.

A badly timed or badly configured haptic response could become another sensory or cognitive demand.

Autism and sensory relevance

This study did not involve autistic adults.

It therefore cannot establish that slow wrist tapping would regulate autistic travellers or reduce sensory overload.

The participants were young university students completing a laboratory maths task.

For an autism-focused design, the tactile sensation would need to be treated as highly individual.

Repeated tapping may feel discreet and grounding for some people, while others may find it distracting, irritating or impossible to ignore.

The user should therefore be able to decide whether this type of feedback is used at all, how strong it feels, its rhythm, duration and how quickly it can be stopped.

Airport relevance

The smartwatch form has obvious advantages for airport use.

It is portable, discreet, already familiar to many people and does not obstruct hearing or vision.

The output also requires very little active interaction once it has started.

However, the airport context creates several uncertainties that the study does not address.

Walking, rushing and carrying luggage can change heart rate and HRV.

A resting baseline measured beforehand may not correspond neatly to the traveller’s physiological state while moving through the airport.

The meaning of a slow rhythm may also change depending on whether the person is calmly waiting, navigating security or dealing with disruption.

So the most transferable part is the low-attention haptic principle, not the exact 30% slower rule.

Limitations

The study used a relatively narrow participant group: university students aged 18–25.

It took place in a controlled laboratory and used short maths tests rather than prolonged real-world activity.

The slow feedback was compared with no feedback for each participant, while the slow and fast groups were different participants. The study therefore demonstrates contrasting outcome patterns, but it does not establish that one fixed slower rhythm will benefit every individual.

The intervention also relies on an interpretation of externally presented heartbeat-like signals that may vary between people.

Most importantly for my project, the study does not test autism, sensory overload, airport movement or long-term use.

What this means for my project

BoostMeUp strengthens my interest in peripheral haptic support that does not demand an active regulation task.

It shows that a tactile rhythm can be personalised from a physiological baseline and can operate while the user continues a cognitively demanding activity.

At the same time, it makes the design risk much clearer.

The fast-feedback condition suggests that the wrong rhythm can push experience in the wrong direction.

That makes personalisation, testing and control essential.

It also gives me another reason not to assume that continuous biosensing is automatically necessary.

A relatively simple architecture could be:

baseline sensing → user-approved haptic rhythm → optional activation

rather than:

continuous sensing → automated interpretation → continuous adaptation.

I am keeping BoostMeUp as a strong precedent for low-attention, physiology-informed haptic regulation, while treating the transfer to autistic airport support as a design possibility that still requires evidence.

Source

Costa, J., Guimbretière, F., Jung, M. F. and Choudhury, T. (2019). BoostMeUp: Improving Cognitive Performance in the Moment by Unobtrusively Regulating Emotions with a Smartwatch. Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies, 3(2), Article 40, pp. 1–23.

Key reading from my analysis: intervention concept and peripheral haptic feedback, pp. 1–4; personalised slow/fast rhythm design, pp. 6–9; high-pressure maths protocol and measures, pp. 8–12; anxiety, HRV and cognitive-performance findings, pp. 13–17; interpretation and design implications, pp. 17–20.