  Anxiety is a common health issue that can occur throughout one's existence.
In this pilot study we explore an alternative technique to regulate it:
biofeedback. The long-term objective is to offer an ecological device that
could help people cope with anxiety, by exposing their inner state in a
comprehensive manner. We propose a first iteration of this device, "Inner
Flower", that uses heart rate to adapt a breathing guide to the user, and we
investigate its efficiency and usability. Traditionally, such device requires
user's full attention. We propose an ambient modality during which the device
operates in the peripheral vision. Beside comparing "Ambient" and "Focus"
conditions, we also compare the biofeedback with a sham feedback (fixed
breathing guide). We found that the Focus group demonstrated higher relaxation
and performance on a cognitive task (N-back). However, there was no noticeable
effect of the Ambient feedback, and the biofeedback condition did not yield any
significant difference when compared to the sham feedback. These results, while
promising, highlight the pitfalls of any research related to biofeedback, where
it is difficult to fully comprehend the underlying mechanisms of such
technique.
