One Step Beyond - persuasive sonic design and AI to prevent sports injuries

The Nano4Sports EurReg project addresses the problem of sports injuries resulting from deficits in the running technique, the use of smart technology and meaningful feedback in sonification and music.

Many people listen to music while running for motivational reasons but also to keep up the pace (tempo). This implies a fundamental relationship between music and movement that has been studied broadly from different perspectives such as neuro physiology.

Using this knowledge combined with sensor data Nano4Sports aims to provide amateur runners with audio feedback in the form of adaptive music and sonification (of their footsteps) in order to help them to improve their running technique and so preventing sport injuries.

Because the application of persuasive sonic design is highly personal, machine learning is used to give feedback at an individual level. Furthermore the project aims to identify musical elements (in structure and expression) that trigger changes in movement. These insights are used to define design patterns for persuasive sonic design but also to explore the possibilities of controlling other AIs (such as Google’s Magenta) to create the music that is the most effective for the individual runner and specific circumstances.