Empirical Efficacy of Tangible Exposure to Negative Affect

Determine the empirical efficacy of tangible systems that intentionally elicit, capture, or replay negative emotional experiences under controlled and professionally supervised conditions to support mindful processing and emotional regulation.

Background

The paper distinguishes between using tangible systems to evoke positive affect and using them to engage constructively with negative affect. It discusses SpriteCatcher as a system designed to capture and later replay negative emotions in the presence of a therapist.

Although this approach is presented as potentially supporting non-judgmental reflection and therapeutic processing, the authors explicitly state that its efficacy has not been adequately evaluated. The unresolved issue is therefore empirical: whether this controlled form of tangible emotional exposure produces the intended mindfulness and emotion-regulation benefits.

References

However, the efficacy of such a system remains insufficiently explored through empirical evaluation.

— Grounding Mindfulness in Embodied Tangibles: A Scoping Review & Theoretical Framework for HCI Design  (2608.19673 - Ratnayake et al., 20 Aug 2026) in Section 5.1, paragraph “Research Gaps--Embodied Sensory Anchoring model”