Combining EEG-guided HD-tACS and Immersive Virtual Reality for Social Prediction Training in Congenital and Acquired Cerebellar Damage: A randomized sham-controlled trial protocol.

Sensor-based mobile app for assessment and tracking (SMAAT) is a research platform that allows users to design and deploy mobile surveys and ecological momentary assessments (EMAs) via a web dashboard and companion iOS (Apple Inc) and Android (Google) apps. The platform provides a visual survey builder with a broad range of item types (including traditional types such as multiple choice or Likert scales and innovative formats such as swiping and AI chatbots), multiple notification schedules (eg, fixed, random, interval, event-based, and geofenced prompts), gamification mechanics, collection of sensor data (eg, location, accelerometer, and device motion), and tools to monitor participant compliance. In this work, we describe the development of SMAAT and report initial usability findings from a cross-sectional study using a novel swiping response format. Research in psychology and health sciences has increasingly turned to EMA and related experience-sampling methods as alternatives to retrospective questionnaires. First systematized by Csikszentmihalyi and Larson [] and later reviewed by Shiffman et al [], EMA involves repeated real-time sampling of participants’ behaviors, experiences, and psychological states in their natural environments, rather than asking them to recall past states in a clinic or laboratory. The core methodological advantages include the reduction of recall bias, higher ecological validity, and the ability to capture within-person temporal dynamics and contextual associations that are systematically missed by single-occasion retrospective measures [-]. The widespread availability of smartphones has made EMA substantially easier to implement in large and diverse samples, because participants can receive prompts and complete short surveys on their own devices at any time and location []. Smartphone-based EMA eliminates the burden of carrying dedicated research hardware, and the ubiquity of iOS and Android devices allows researchers to reach populations that were previously difficult to recruit into intensive longitudinal designs. However, leveraging the full potential of smartphone EMA while maintaining high data quality and participant engagement requires platforms that are both technically robust and easy and pleasant to interact with repeatedly across the day [].