Purrble
Find out more about this smart toy designed to guide emotion regulation for children and young people struggling with their mental health.
About Purrble
Purrble asks ‘how can digital design help us better understand our minds and bodies?’. Visitors have the chance to meet Purrble, the cuddly companion designed to guide emotion regulation for children and young people struggling to manage their emotional wellbeing and mental health.
Purrble has a dynamic heartbeat and sensors that respond to touch, enabling users to calm and ground themselves as they soothe their companion. This is one of the technology-enabled mental health interventions being examined by Dr Petr Slovak and his team, re-envisioning mental health promotion in children and young people across a range of projects spanning interventions for anxiety, self-harm, parenting and body awareness.
Read an interview with Dr Jess Williams, Postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Informatics and a member of the project team behind Purrble.
Are you interested in contributing to future research relating to Purrble? Sign up for studies here.
Please visit Seeking Connection: Living Well with Technology to see other featured artworks.
Credits & Supporters
Project team
Dr Petr Slovak, Dr A. Jess Williams, Dr Seray Ibrahim, Nikki Theofanopoulou, Melina Petsolari, Phoebe Staab. Read more about the research group behind Purrble.
Funded by UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship under grant no. MR/T041897/1 and Medical Research Council, under grant no. MR/W002450/1
Collaborators
Purrble development:
Prof Katherine Isbister, University of California Santa Cruz
Purrble at Oxford:
Maureen Freed & Dr Timothy Knowlson, Oxford University
Prof James Gross, Stanford University
Dr Jessica Schleider, Stony Brook University
Claudine Tinsman, Oxford University
Purrble w/ self-harm:
Prof Ellen Townsend, Dr Chris Trench & Prof Chris Hollis, University of Nottingham
Dr Seonaid Cleare, University of Glasgow
Dr Rohan Borschmann, Oxford University & Melbourne University
Prof James Gross, Stanford University
Public and Patient Involvement group, Sprouting Minds
Purrble w/ ADHD:
Dr Seonaid Cleare, University of Glasgow
Purrble for families - funded by UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship (award reference MR/T041897/1), and UKRI EPSRC Studentship (award reference 2436440):
Dr Crispin Day, IoPPN, KCL and South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust
Prof Alissa N. Antle, Simon Fraser University
SPARKLE Trial - funded by UKRI ESRC:
Prof Edmund Sonuga-Barke, Dr Katarzyna Kostyrka-Allchorne, Dr Melanie Palmer IoPPN, KCL
Dr Crispin Day, IoPPN, KCL and South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust
Prof Cathy Creswell, University of Oxford
EPEC studies:
Dr Crispin Day, IoPPN, KCL and South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust
The Imagine Neighborhood Trial:
Scotty Iseri, Committee for Children and Dr Sherri Widen
Department of Informatics at King’s
Natural, Mathematical & Engineering Sciences