Pocket Lab App - a simple program with AI assistance for smartphone-guided experiments

Abstract

Abstract The demand for mobile participants' involvement in research, such as field studies, necessitates research software that functions on mobile devices, providing instructions and collecting self-reports. While numerous solutions exist, they often face challenges related to complexity, cost, adoption difficulties (including inadequate support), and security concerns. In response, we introduce the Pocket Lab App (PoLA), a complimentary, free, open-source, user-centric, and offline-capable research application for Android devices. PoLA simplifies the presentation of instructions, management of timers and alarms, and collecting participants' responses. We demonstrate PoLA's effectiveness through a case study involving 60 hours of data collection in an outdoor gaming project in social psychophysiology, validating its performance and participants' approval. Furthermore, we present PoLA's Helpful Assistant (HeLA), an AI tool that enhances PoLA's functionality and facilitates the experiment development process. HeLA can generate executable protocols for experiments based on natural language instructions. The combined use of PoLA and HeLA is the first solution where natural language is sufficient to turn a research concept into content directly delivered to participants. Our solution marks a significant advancement in mobile behavioral research tools, highlighting user-friendliness and operational efficiency and promoting widespread adoption of smartphone-based experimental guidance. The synergy between PoLA and HeLA lays the groundwork for a new era of research tools programmable in natural language, aligning with the ongoing advancements in artificial intelligence.