News Finding: After all the years of development, though, the Doppel is finally ready for a wide launch -- it'll be available on the company's website today for $219.
Paper Finding: Participants in the doppel active condition displayed lower increases in skin conductance responses relative to baseline and reported lower anxiety levels compared to the control group.
News Context: The touch capabilities were definitely hit-or-miss, and Doppel's head of marketing Georgina Orso admitted it wasn't perfect -- but she also said they were pushing software updates out to improve the device over time, touch sensitivity included. After all the years of development, though, the Doppel is finally ready for a wide launch -- it'll be available on the company's website today for $219. That's not an insignificant investment for a single-use device, but if you're the kind of person who needs help calming down it might be worth a shot.
Paper Context: Vickhoff and colleagues 6 monitored the heart rates of singers and found that as the members sang in unison, their pulses began to speed up and slow down at the same rate. Participants in the doppel active condition displayed lower increases in skin conductance responses relative to baseline and reported lower anxiety levels compared to the control group. Therefore, the presence, as opposed to its absence, of a slow rhythm, which in the present study was instantiated as an auxiliary slow heartbeat delivered through doppel, had a significant calming effect on physiological arousal and subjective experience during a socially stressful situation.