For my Laboratory of Self midterm I have decided to leverage the data capturing framework from my existing bio-tracking project: MoodyJulio. Here is an overview of this new project:

Name: Music Makes Me Feel (Still Under Consideration)

Question That Drives the Project:
How does the genre of the music in my daily playlist impact my emotions throughout the day? I want to understand how listening to music impacts my emotions in the short-term (while I am listening to it) and long-term (for the rest of the day).

Methodology:
To prepare for the experiment I need to: (1) create five different one and a half hour long playlists, each featuring a different genre of music; (2) fix the heart rate and gsr tracker that I created for my MoodyJulio project; (3) re-activate the mymoods journal from the MoodyJulio project; (4) update mymoods journal entry template to meet the requirements of this study.

During the study I will do the following activities everyday: (1) wear the heart rate and gsr tracker from the time after I get out of the shower through the end of the day; (2) listen to that day’s select playlist twice (three hours total) before dinner time; (3) keep a journal that is updated every time I listen to music, or randomly every 40-80 minutes whenever the MoodyJulio tracker vibrates.

Data Collection Strategy:
I plan to use two methods of data collection, similar to the methodology used in my MoodyJulio project: (1) Physiological data collection will focus on heart rate, gsr, timestamp; (2) Journal entries will include emotional valence (positive/negative scale from 5 to -5), emotion description (from categories), activity (from categories), location (from categories, people (names of people is less than 5), description (optional)

Data Analysis Strategy:
To analyze the data in search of insights I plan to use the data visualization framework that I have been creating for MoodyJulio (I will post more information about this framework in the next couple of days. I am happy to report that I have recently made a lot of progress on this front.

Timeframe: from this Sunday/Monday through the midterm.

There are many aspects of our identity that remain out of our consciousness until some internal or external catalyst forces them out of the hidden depths or our unconscious mind. Here is a personal example of this phenomena: I never realized the role that my teeth play in my own identity until I almost had to undergo a teeth transplant surgery last year. This situation brought to my consciousness the fact that my teeth (I mean, having a full set of teeth) do play a role in my identity.

Each of us has our own sets of conscious and hidden identity markers. These sets are constantly evolving as we grow and change. Enhancement technologies are closely related to identities because people in our society use these types of technologies to affect things they consider important to their identity. This is why the debate regarding enhancement technologies often focuses on issues related to identity, such as: (a) to what extent can/should our identity be based on artificial — man made — attributes versus natural ones; (b) to what extent is our identity about self versus self-presentation.

My answers to these questions continues to oscillate. On the one hand, I am technophile who believes that enhancement technologies can provide real benefits (after all I am enrolled in a this course). On the other hand, I also see the potential for people to abuse or misuse these technologies in harmful ways to themselves or others (I guess this also another reason why I took this course, I want to take part in the shaping of these types technologies).

Proust does a masterful job at describing the vivid memories and emotions that can be conjured up by smells and taste. We can relate to his story because we’ve all had similar experiences in our own lives. Each of us has an intimate collection of scents that are able trigger powerful emotional responses and memories. Every time I smell clove cigarettes I am transported back over 15 years to my last year of high school in Indonesia.

Why are smells more intimate and emotionally powerful then our other senses? What role does our physiology play in this difference? How does the nature of sounds, sights, smells, tastes and touches impact this difference?

From a physiological perspective we know that the olfactory nerve is intimately connected to the limbic system and it also passes directly to the allocortext rather than going through other structures first. The limbic system strongly influences our emotional behavior. This physiological link definitely plays an important role in the manner in which we experience smells.

What about the nature of smell has led us to treat it in this special manner from an evolutionary standpoint? How does the nature of smell compare to the nature of sights, sounds, tastes and touches (current ones only for now)?

Let’s start by looking at the physicality of different types of sensory inputs. Sights and sounds are created by the interplay of wavelengths of various different frequencies. These types of senses enable us to interact with the world beyond our direct physical grasp. We can see things that are far away in front of us with our eyes, and we can situate happenings within our 3-dimensional world using our ears.

Smell, taste and touch are more physical. This by itself makes them more intimate than sights and sounds. Our sense of smell is created when microscopic particles bind to receptors in our nasal tract. Tastes are sensed in a similar manner. Our sense of touch is activate when our body encounters another object or force. Smells are the least physical of these senses.  In a way they enable us to taste things without actually tasting them (though in actuality we are tasting it since physical particles from that object are attaching themselves to our olfactory receptors).

More thoughts are trying to spill out but they are becoming increasingly incoherent. So I’ll call it a night.