Psychology Commons^™

Musical Stairs: Encouraging Physical Activity Through Persuasive Technology, Meagan Combs

Honor Scholar Theses

This study examined persuasive technology and its effect on participants’ motivation to engage in physical activity. A set of musical stairs was built using infrared proximity sensors, designed to make the experience of climbing the stairs more “fun”. The software was written in such a way that each step a participant took on the stairs provided a musical response. The experiment tested three conditions: the control condition (without sounds), a condition with piano note sounds, and a condition with guitar chord sounds. The results suggest that more participants interacted with the stairs during the conditions with sound compared to the …