Brush and learn : transforming tooth brushing behavior through interactive materiality, a design exploration

To counteract the increased tendency in skill learning addressing our cognitive abilities we discuss an opportunity on how performance skills can be trained by means of inherent feed forward through interactive materiality. We address this approach in the context of designing an interactive toothbrush that supports users in learning a complex brushing technique by relying solely on their perceptual motor skills. We discuss how we designed a natural coupling according to the Frogger framework in the action-perception loops with the interactive toothbrush. We evaluated the toothbrush in context. The experimental results indicate that complex movements can be learned by providing inherent feed forward on the actions of users in skill training. This supports our argument and vision that the design-inspired approach or interactive materiality may offer new opportunities for behavioral transformation.