"my Tummy Has a Little Dragon": From Everyday Experiences of Gut Sounds to Interoceptive Interaction Design
- Publisher:
- ASSOC COMPUTING MACHINERY
- Publication Type:
- Conference Proceeding
- Citation:
- Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems Proceedings, 2026
- Issue Date:
- 2026-04-13
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Gastrointestinal sounds are a constant part of human physiology, offering potential insights into digestive functions and everyday bodily awareness. However, these sounds are rarely noticed and often socially stigmatised, remaining underexplored in HCI despite calls to recognise the gut as a site for embodied awareness. We extend HCI's engagement with involuntary biosignals by positioning gut sounds as a uniquely generative context for interoceptive interaction design, where systems can scaffold awareness, reflection, and care. We conducted a week-long in-the-wild qualitative study with ten participants, which showed how making gut sounds audible reshaped bodily awareness, provoked affective responses, and prompted acts of reflection and tinkering. From these insights, we contribute four bodily perspectives - Registering, Reacting, Reflecting, and Responding- that capture the oscillatory nature of interoceptive engagement and offer design strategies that position biosignals as sites of curiosity, care, and awareness that are socially situated.
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