Control of personal tempo to support individual action and cognition

Abstract

We live in our own rhythms in daily lives. Human life is closely related to rhythm as the words "talk rhythm," "getting into the rhythm" and the "Biorhythm" show. The rhythm is important for us to live in order and cheerfully. Each person has his/her own action rhythm called the "Personal Tempo." It is the basic rhythm observed in person's voluntary actions, such as tapping on a table. Psychology has been studying this phenomenon for long years. By measuring the personal tempo, person's psychological condition can be inferred in all situations because personal tempo changes within a certain width according to person's psychological condition, while it basically shows homeostasis. Most studies have focused on relation between personal tempo and physiological measures, such as cardiac rate, but not on control of cognitions and actions by controlling personal tempo. In this paper, a control method of individual action by controlling the personal tempo is proposed. Drum beat pattern is used to control the personal tempo. We show the effectiveness of this method by applying this to cooking, especially chopping by a knife. © 2009 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.