May 16 2012
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Vidyarthi presents Sonic Cradle at TEDActive

By | Events

Jay Vidyarthi presented his Sonic Cradle meditative biofeedback system at TEDActive 2012, held in Palm Springs February 27-March 2.

The annual conference aims to bring together innovative doers and thinkers to soak up remarkable ideas – and in a voice uniquely theirs, reflect them out to the world, according to the TEDActive website.

In the Sonic Cradle, the participant is placed inside a sensory-deprivation chamber and given the ability to write a song by breathing—the experience is difficult for participants to describe, and since it’s in their heads, the video only documents the surroundings. “The goal,” said Vidyarthi, “is to [alleviate] stress and anxiety by helping people learn how to mediate and giving them a meditative experience well beyond their actual ability.”

For more information about the Sonic Cradle, click here.

May 15 2012
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Sonic Cradle gets honourable mention at DIS2012

By | Conferences

Sonic Cradle: Designing for an Immersive Experience of Meditation by Connecting Respiration to Music, by Jay Vidyarthi, Diane Gromala and Bernhard Riecke, has been awarded honourable mention at the ACM conference on Designing Interactive Systems 2012 conference, which takes place June 11-15 in Newcastle, UK.

Heres the description of the Sonic Cradle in the conference program: Could an interactive system trigger the psychological benefits of meditation? We are pursuing an answer to this question through a systematic research through design approach which explores a psychological framework of media immersion. Our approach has generated Sonic Cradle: an interactive system aimed at combining sensory deprivation, respiratory biofeedback and music into a mediated experience of mindfulness.

May 13 2012
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Pain Lab has a GRAND time in Montreal

By | Conferences

The Transforming Pain Research Group presented two papers and two posters at the annual GRAND NCE conference in Montreal, May 2-4, 2012.

Jay Vidyarthi presented his paper on Encouraging Meditative Experiences through Respiratory-Musical Interaction, while Terry Lavender presented his paper on Impression Management Work: How Seniors With Chronic Pain Address Disruptions in Their Interactions, which was co-written with Alison Benjamin, Jeremy Birnholtz, Ron Baecker, Diane Gromala and Andrea Furlan.

Two posters were also presented Sound Tonic: A Receptive Method for Managing Pain through Interactive Sound Design”, by Mark Nazemi, Diane Gromala and Maryam Mobini; and “Aesthetics of Experience: a Cross-Disciplinary Analysis of the Haptic Creature”, by Tyler Fox, Mark Nazemi, Diane Gromala and Karon MacLean.

Nazemi and Gromala also participated in a conference mash-up on Anxiety, Pain, Ability, Strain: Technologies to mediate the mind/body at the conference.

Apr 19 2012
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Gromala receives NSERC grant for VR research

By | Awards, Lab Updates

Transforming Pain Research Group director Dr. Diane Gromala has been awarded a National Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) grant for research into VR Systems for Body Image and Body Schema.

With the grant, the pain lab has now received research recognition and support from all of Canadas major grant-awarding bodies NSERC, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), the Canadian Institute of Health Research (CIHR) and the National Research Council (NRC).

Mar 30 2012
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Tyler Fox to present at ISEA 2012

By | Conferences, Events

Tyler Fox will be giving a workshop at ISEA 2012 (The Eighteenth International Symposium on Electronic Art) in Albuquerque, New Mexico) in September on using bioluminescent dinoflagellates along with physical computing.

Fox will also be in Open Lab, a show at Vancouvers Gallery Gachet in June, 2012. Open Lab involves artwork that encourages, and allows, the audience to change the parameters of the artwork. The show will run in conjunction with a number of workshops at Vancouver Hackspace.

Mar 08 2012
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Open House 2012

By | Events

The Transforming Pain Research Group participated in the 2012 SFU Surrey Open House on March 1. A steady stream of visitors dropped by the lab to view the exhibits and posters.

Click here to see more images from Open House 2012.

Feb 27 2012
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SFU Surrey Open House

By | Events

The Pain Lab will be participating in the annual SFU Surrey Open House on Thursday, February 29. The event takes place 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Visitors can view our walking virtual meditation project and talk to some of the Pain Lab researchers. Details on the Open House can be found at www.surrey.sfu.ca/openhouse.

Feb 11 2012
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Technology and Medicine discussions

By | Events, Other News

PainLab member Terry Lavender is moderating a discussion series on technology and medicine this spring.

The discussions are part of Simon Fraser Universitys Philosophers Cafe, and take place the third Thursday of every month at Barclay Manor in Vancouvers West End. The first talk, Technology and the Elderly: Privacy versus independence, took place in January. Further talks in the series are:

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 7:00 p.m.: Medicine in the cloud

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 7:00 p.m. Pulling the plug

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 7:00 p.m. Health technology: Is it worth the cost?

For more information about the Philosophers’ Cafes, click here.