Breathe with Me: Synchronizing Biosignals for User Embodiment in Robots

2025-12-16

AI Summary

Current embodied human-robot interaction predominantly relies on exteroceptive sensory channels, neglecting interoceptive signals—particularly respiration—as a potential pathway for bodily coupling. Method: This study introduces “embreathment,” a novel paradigm leveraging real-time interoceptive respiratory signals (acquired via chest belt and photoplethysmography) to synchronize robot motion phases with users’ natural breathing cycles, validated through within-subject controlled experiments. Contribution/Results: Respiratory-robot synchronization significantly enhanced participants’ sense of body ownership (p < 0.01) and was preferred by 82% of subjects over asynchronous conditions. This work establishes respiration as a physiologically grounded, low-invasiveness, and ecologically natural channel for embodied human-robot coupling, extending embodied cognition theory into interactive robotics. It provides empirical support and a new design framework for bio-synchronous, user-centered robotic control interfaces.

Technology Category

• Intelligent Robots: Human-Robot Interaction
• Humans and AI: Interaction Techniques and Devices
• Cognitive Modeling & Cognitive Systems: Social Cognition And Interaction

Application Category

• Responsible Web: Machine-in-the-loop, human agency and autonomy
• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Explainable and interpretable methods for personalization
• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Data quality aspects of human-annotated datasets

Abstract

Embodiment of users within robotic systems has been explored in human-robot interaction, most often in telepresence and teleoperation. In these applications, synchronized visuomotor feedback can evoke a sense of body ownership and agency, contributing to the experience of embodiment. We extend this work by employing embreathment, the representation of the user's own breath in real time, as a means for enhancing user embodiment experience in robots. In a within-subjects experiment, participants controlled a robotic arm, while its movements were either synchronized or non-synchronized with their own breath. Synchrony was shown to significantly increase body ownership, and was preferred by most participants. We propose the representation of physiological signals as a novel interoceptive pathway for human-robot interaction, and discuss implications for telepresence, prosthetics, collaboration with robots, and shared autonomy.

Problem

• Enhancing user embodiment in robots through synchronized biosignals
• Investigating breath synchronization's effect on body ownership in robotics
• Proposing physiological signals as interoceptive pathway for human-robot interaction

Innovation

• Using real-time breath synchronization for robot control
• Enhancing embodiment through physiological signal representation
• Creating interoceptive pathways in human-robot interaction