  The incorporation of empathic systems in everyday life draws a lot of
attention from society. Specifically, the use of wearables to perform stress
regulation is a growing field of research. Among techniques explored, the
haptic emulation of lowered physiological signals has been suggested to be
promising. However, some discrepancies remain in empirical research focusing on
such biofeedback (BF) regarding their efficacy, and the mechanisms underlying
the effects of these wearables remains unclear. Moreover, the influence of
individual traits on the efficiency of BF has been marginally studied, while it
has been shown that personality could impact both stress and its regulation.
The aim of this study is to investigate the outcome of interactions with these
technologies from a psycho-physiological standpoint, but also to explore
whether personality may influence its efficiency when other interaction devices
are present. Participants had to play a challenging game while a lowered haptic
BF of their heart rate was induced on their wrist. Results showed variable
efficiency of the wearable among the participants: a subjective relaxation was
evident for the participants exhibiting the highest neurotic and extraverted
traits score. Our results highlight the plurality of the modes of action of
these techniques, depending on the individual and on the level of stress to
regulate. This study also suggests that tailoring these regulation methods to
individual characteristics, such as personality traits, is important to
consider, and proposes perspectives regarding the investigation of stress and
regulation systems embedded in wearables.
