Data processing: financial – business practice – management – or co – Automated electrical financial or business practice or... – Discount or incentive
Reexamination Certificate
1999-06-19
2003-05-20
Sough, Hyung-Sub (Department: 3621)
Data processing: financial, business practice, management, or co
Automated electrical financial or business practice or...
Discount or incentive
C368S089000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06567785
ABSTRACT:
RELATED PATENT APPLICATIONS
This patent application is a Continued Prosecution Application of the above-referenced utility patent application filed prior to May 29, 2000 by the same inventor for the same invention without adding new subject matter.
BACKGROUND
1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to self-administered training and behavior modification devices, specifically to a discrete operator-prompting reminder system and method that are iterative and recursive, using a combination of manual operator input and prior history to establish the timing of each next prompting signal. The device does not provide its user with a programmed schedule of future events, but instead calculates the timing of each next prompting signal based in part upon the most recent operator entry identifying whether the operator was engaged in the monitored behavior at the time the last prompting signal was generated. Therefore, each next prompting signal brings a user successively closer to the desired behavior modification goal, all the while adapting, even when the user has a “bad day”. Applications may include, but are not limited to help in changing undesirable or unwanted behavior such as the correction of poor posture, cessation of nail biting, overcoming a tendency to pull on or twirl hair, reduction of elevated blood pressure levels, overcoming negative reactions to stress, improvement in attitude and a sense of well-being, and enhancing one's ability to concentrate or focus.
2. Description of Prior Art
A parent concerned about a child's future behavior, social acceptability, and general sense of well-being and self-worth is a valuable iterative instrument in conditioning the child and shaping the behavioral patterns that the child will carry forward into a successful adulthood. In essence, the reminding parent can continually assist a child in remembering to pick up and straighten the belongings in his or her room, stand up straight, use good manners while eating, stop nail biting, eat the proper foods for good nutrition, stop squirming, use socially acceptable language, be fiscally conservative, and the like, until the repetition yields results successively closer to the desired result of conditioning the child to function in a positive and productive manner. Although children may not always appreciate the constant reinforcement, they rely on it to learn acceptable behavior until they can become sufficiently self-disciplined to correct bad habits and undesirable behavior on their own. However, in spite of the best efforts of even the most concerned parents, most children will experience a variety of bad habits as they grow up and most will enter adulthood with at least a few which they have been unable to overcome. In addition, many adults become so busy in their daily lives that they are not able to find the extra energy or focus necessary to correct such bad habits or other recognized unwanted behavior without some assistance. These adults would benefit from a companion device that would take the place of a reminding or nagging parent and provide them with an automated reminder on a periodic basis to stop performing a selected type of behavior, which they consider undesirable and sincerely want to correct or improve, but have otherwise been unable to do so.
Many conditioning, memory enhancing, and behavior modification devices are known. They have been used for weight control, posture monitoring and training, diabetes management, sports training, timed medication dispensing, prenatal breathing control, pulmonary tract sensitivity testing, and swallowing rehabilitation. Some involve biofeedback where respiration or electrical impulses are measured and used as a basis for timing the next generated signal. Others provide for randomly generated prompting signals after which the operator may be offered one or more alternative choices of response behavior, and still others set target times and schedules for operator performance. However, none offer the iterative or recursive combination of continued adjustment and fine-tuning of interval length, while not allowing the user to anticipate a next signaling prompt, that leads the user ever closer to the desired behavior modification result. The prior art believed to be the most closely related to the present invention is the invention disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,853,854 to Behar (1989). The Behar method and apparatus initially establishes baseline behavior for a user, then generates a fixed withdrawal schedule for the user. The only way for a user of the Behar invention to obtain any variation in the prompting schedule needed to adapt to newly encountered distractions not present during the baseline phase, would be to start over and reestablish a new baseline from which a different fixed schedule of events is then calculated. Through use of the Behar invention, the user is placed upon a time schedule of smoking events, being notified by the Behar device of the time when a “next smoke” is permitted. After the baseline phase, Behar provides one-way communication, with the machine telling the user when to engage in the undesired behavior. In contrast, the present invention remains in two-way communication with a user during the entire period of use. The Behar invention has distinct “baseline”, “withdrawal”, and “non-smoker” phases, as well as a “curfew” phase when a “don't smoke” icon is displayed. While this is convenient to smokers who crave a next smoke and must extend the time periods between smoking events or overcome habit, such an ever-increasing time between successive events will not necessarily be successful to stop hair pulling or the correction of poor posture. In the Behar invention, transfer from one phase to another is automatic, usually with the sounding of an audio signal to make the user aware of the transition. After the “baseline” data is collected, a schedule is set and remains fixed, the time interval only changing from that in the originally calculated schedule when the user smokes early, whereby the schedule from a given day may be repeated. Otherwise, the only way for a user of the Behar invention to obtain any variation in the prompting schedule needed to adapt to newly encountered distractions not present during the baseline phase, would be to start over and reestablish a new baseline from which a different fixed schedule of events is then calculated. The decision whether to repeat a day will be made by the Behar device according to the number of days to go in the schedule. Also, there are a limited number of restarts once the “non-smoker” phase is reached. The user is reminded of the next time to smoke through timely audio or visual signals. The Behar device can also have a display that identifies to a user the number of days left in the schedule and the time remaining until the next signal. In contrast, the present invention does not provide a schedule divided into “baseline”, “withdrawal”, and “non-habit” phases, in fact there is no fixed schedule at all. Instead, the present invention is iterative and recursive, with each next signaling prompt being calculated on the basis of a finite number of previous user responses, with the fluid, continual adaptation involved in the calculation of future signaling prompts successively bringing a user closer to his or her behavior modification goals. In the preferred embodiment of the present invention the time remaining until the next prompting signal is variable and purposefully remains an unknown factor for the operator so that he or she is not able to anticipate the next prompting signal and thereby skew the history available for use in determining the timing of future prompting signals. Instead of providing a non-variable withdrawal schedule once a baseline data collection phase, as in Behar, the present invention continuously updates the baseline data by incorporating each new operator entry into the prior history. Thus, each operator entry is an interactive response, that affects the timing of the next response, in contrast to the Behar response which
Morse Dorothy S.
Reagan James A.
Sough Hyung-Sub
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