Personalized healing sounds database

• US 9,710,551 B2
• Filed: 12/21/2011
• Issued: 07/18/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 01/07/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Koninklijke Philips N.V.
• Original Assignee: Koninklijke Philips N.V.
• Inventors: De Bruijn, Werner Paulus Josephus, Kohlrausch, Armin Gerhard, Barroso, Andre Melon, Van Schijndel, Nicolle Hanneke, Falck, Thomas, Decr, Michel Marcel Jose
• Primary Examiner(s): Hasan, Syed
• Assistant Examiner(s): Ahmed, Saba
• Application Number:
  US13/996,185
• Publication Number:
  US 20140181127A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,036 Days
• Field of Search: 707754
• CPC Class Codes: A61M 2021/0027 by the hearing sense
• CPC Class Codes: A61M 21/00 Other devices or methods to cause a change in the state of consciousness; Devices for producing or ending sleep by mechanical, optical, or acoustical means, e.g. for hypnosis
• CPC Class Codes: A61M 2230/06 Heartbeat rate only
• CPC Class Codes: A61M 2230/10 Electroencephalographic signals
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/435 Filtering based on additional data, e.g. user or group profiles
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/436 using biological or physiological data of a human being, e.g. blood pressure, facial expression, gestures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/635 Filtering based on additional data, e.g. user or group profiles

Abstract

The invention relates to the field of music therapy. In particular the invention is related to a method for producing a personalized database of sounds and music tracks by filtering and combining personal and hospital databases of sounds which induces variations of the physiological state of a listener.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method of producing a personalized sounds database comprising:

determining preferred values of sound features of elements of a first database comprising elements of sound, thereby creating a first filter, wherein the first database is a personal database of a patient of a hospital, the sound features are sound features preferred by the patient, and the sound features are determined through automatic content analysis;

applying said first filter to a second database comprising elements of sound, thereby producing a filtered second database, wherein the second database is a hospital database of healing sounds known to produce desired effects on listeners, and the filtered second database include only sounds having the preferred values of sound features of elements of the personal database;

applying a second filter to the first database comprising elements of sound, thereby producing a filtered first database including only a collection of personal sounds having a characteristic of producing a desired effect on the patient;

combining said filtered first database with said filtered second database, thereby providing said personalized sounds database; and

playing the sounds provided on the personalized sounds database to the patient, thereby eliciting the desired effect on the patient.

2. The computer-implemented method according to claim 1, wherein said first database is a database comprising user favorite sounds.

3. The computer-implemented method according to claim 1, wherein said first filter comprises a digital signal processing algorithm, said digital signal processing algorithm, when applied to said second database, selects, from said second database, those elements having features with values similar to said preferred values of said sound features of said elements of said first database.

4. The computer-implemented method according to claim 1, wherein said sound features are tonality, percussiveness, and spectral bandwidth.

5. The computer-implemented method according to claim 1, wherein said second filter comprises a digital signal processing algorithm, said digital signal processing algorithm, when applied to said first database, determines said sound features of elements in said first database and selects elements from said first database having values of said sound features corresponding to pre-determined values.

6. The computer-implemented method according to claim 1, wherein said sound features are the perceived tempo of the elements.

7. The computer-implemented method according to claim 1, further comprising,

exposing a listener to said elements from said personalized sounds database.

8. The computer-implemented method according to claim 1, wherein said preferred values of sound features are further determined by:

exposing a listener to elements from said personalized sounds database;

monitoring variations of at least one physiological condition of said listener during the exposure to said elements;

extracting said preferred values of sound features from the elements of said personalized sounds database to which said listener is exposed to, when said at least one physiological condition of said listener have a pre-determined magnitude.

9. The computer-implemented method according to claim 7, further comprising:

monitoring variations of at least one physiological condition of said listener during the exposure to said elements;

removing from said personalized sounds database elements producing undesired variations of at least one physiological condition of said listener during the exposure to said elements.

11. A computer-readable storage medium having stored therein computer readable instructions, which, when loaded in and executed by a computer causes a computer to perform the steps as defined by the method in claim 1.

12. The computer-implemented method according to claim 1, further comprising:

wherein combining said filtered first database with said filtered second database includes weighting a first sound in said filtered first database having a higher healing character than a second sound in said filtered first database with a first weight and weighting the second sound with a second weight, wherein the first weight is greater than the second weight.

13. The computer-implemented method according to claim 1, further comprising:

selecting sounds from the second database based on similarities matching between combinations of sound features; and

ranking, based on the similarities, the sounds within the second database to form a play list of the most similar songs.

14. The computer-implemented method according to claim 13, further comprising:

selecting a pre-determined sub-set of the sounds within the second database based on the ranking.

15. The computer-implemented method according to claim 1, further comprising:

selecting sounds from the first database based on a matching between combinations of sound features having desired pre-determined values.

16. The computer-implemented method according to claim 15, wherein the combination is a pre-determined combination of values of tempo, tonality and spectral bandwidth which produce a relaxing effect on a listener.

17. The computer-implemented method according to claim 1, further comprising:

monitoring at least one physiological signal of the patient to determine a healing sound that produces a desired effect on the patient.

18. The computer-implemented method according to claim 1,

wherein the at least one physiological signal includes at least one of brain activity or heat beat rate.

19. The computer-implemented method according to claim 1, further comprising:

wherein playing the sounds includes randomly playing the sounds.

20. The computer-implemented method according to claim 1, further comprising:

wherein playing the sounds includes playing the sounds with a pre-determined order.

10. A computer based system for producing a personalized sounds database comprising:

at least one electronic data processor;

a data communication interface connected to said data processor;

wherein said computer based system is configured to;

determine, through automatic content analysis, preferred values of sound features of elements of a first database comprising elements of sound, thereby creating a first filter, wherein the first database is a personal database of a patient of a hospital, and the sound features are sound features preferred by the patient;

apply said first filter to a second database comprising elements of sound, thereby producing a filtered second database, wherein the second database is a hospital database of healing sounds known to produce desired effects on listeners, and the filtered second database include only sounds having the preferred values of sound features of elements of the personal database,

apply a second filter to a first database comprising elements of sound, thereby producing a filtered first database including only a collection of personal sounds having a characteristic of producing a desired effect on the patient,

combine said filtered first database with said filtered second database, thereby providing said personalized sounds database; and

play the sounds provided on the personalized sounds database to the patients, thereby eliciting the desired effect on the patient.