Both Muse and GoDeeper need a sample of your baseline normal consciousness brainwaves. Both apps use the difference between your baseline brainwaves and your meditation brainwaves to measure your depth of meditation. For example, some people naturally have more alpha or beta thus calibration allows us to take that into account when measuring depth.
Muse requires a fresh calibration sample every session. GoDeeper records your baseline and uses it for every meditation session. A single, stable baseline has several benefits:
- It lets you know that your performance in any one session is comparable to other days and not just due to a particularly good or bad baseline that day. If you start out with a busy mind, the Muse software might rate your mediation as extra calm that day. If you start with a calm mind, Muse might rate your mediation as less calm because there isn’t as much of a state change.
- A non-changing baseline sample more accurately measures progress over months and years. Software that recalibrates every day isn’t as good at measuring long-term progress. It’s a well-documented phenomenon that normal consciousness brainwaves in advanced meditators start to resemble the brainwave patterns of their mediation states. This permanent change is called a “trait effect,” as opposed to the changes during meditation, which are called “State effects.” The Muse calibration cannot pick up on trait effects, GoDeeper can.
- Not calibrating at the beginning of each session saves time. This is particularly useful for Mindfulness practitioners who like to switch protocols during a session as they go from breath watching to thought watching to loving-kindness in a single session.
- Many research studies report that eyes-closed rest is a problematic calibration for advanced meditators because they have a hard time NOT slipping into meditation as soon as they close their eyes. We feel it is better to make a long, high-quality calibration once at the beginning to remind meditators not to go into meditation during calibration.
More on calibrations for Geeks for neurohackers.
GoDeeper does two types of calibration:
- We use at the mean and standard deviation of the two minute baseline recording to set the 0 and 1000 scores as equal to a Z-score of -3 and +3.
- We use a scatterplot of your scores during the 300 seconds of protocol calibration to determine where to set the green-blue threshold to get a targeted reward rate based on your level (80% for level 1 to 50% for level 4). After the blue threshold is established we set the red-green threshold to split what remains in half. For example: Level 2 targets a 70% reward rate. We set the Green-Red threshold where each would get 15% of the 300 scores.