Learning and enactive interfaces

International audienceEnactive Learning is a relatively new expression, used in enactive community, to desinate the process of learning by doing. In human sciences, several theories/models are confronted concerning the learning process

Percepção de estudantes cegos sobre características geométricas 3D utilizando sistemas hápticos

As tecnologias hápticas de software e hardware permitem o toque em objetos virtuais de uma cena com três direções e com feedback de força para que os usuários percebam a sensibilidade háptica dos efeitos, das texturas, das formas, do peso e das dimensões. O objetivo desta pesquisa é verificar como os sistemas hápticos apoiam os estudantes cegos na percepção de propriedades geométricas 2D ou 3D. A revisão sistemática foi guiada pelo processo de Kitchenham (2004). Dessa maneira, as buscas foram realizadas de setembro a outubro de 2017 em bases de dados internacionais – Springer, Sage Journals, ACM Digital Library (Association for Computing Machinery) e IEEE Xplore Digital Library – com o propósito de identificar trabalhos na área da ciência da computação, interação humano-computador, seguindo o protocolo de investigação entre os anos de 2000 a 2017. Os resultados demonstram que os Ambientes Virtuais Hápticos permitem aos estudantes cegos a identificação das características das formas geométricas 3D apesar das limitações de exploração possibilitadas pelos dispositivos hápticos. Dessa forma, as tecnologias hápticas de hardware e software podem proporcionar aos estudantes cegos a compreensão dos conceitos geométricos por meio de vários cenários de problemas contextualizados com o mundo real ou com a própria ciência matemática

O ambiente virtual áudio-háptico como instrumento para a Aprendizagem de geometria : estudo das formas para estudantes cegos

O desenvolvimento das habilidades para os objetos de conhecimento da geometria está relacionado com as formas de organização de aprendizagem matemática e com os recursos didáticos utilizados para a construção de competências para o pensamento matemático (BRASIL, 2017). Esta tese se propõe a investigar como um ambiente virtual áudio-háptico pode contribuir na aprendizagem de geometria para estudantes cegos no Ensino Fundamental, com base em uma sequência de tarefas que contemplem os objetivos de conhecimento e habilidades previstos na Base Nacional Comum Curricular (BNCC). O referencial teórico proposto para esta pesquisa destaca os seguintes temas: a Teoria da Abstração Reflexionante de Piaget (1995), que traz contribuições para a compreensão da construção de conhecimentos; a percepção háptica humana na perspectiva de Lederman e Klatzky (1987), que propõem um conjunto de procedimentos exploratórios (Exploratory Procedure – EPs) para uma pessoa examinar um objeto com ou sem visão no intuito de perceber propriedades por intermédio do tato, bem como discutem as sensações que são convertidas pelo cérebro em informações cutâneas e cinestésica; a tecnologia háptica de hardware, em que se apresentam os dispositivos que permitem a interação de pessoas com ambientes virtuais por meio do tato e feedback de força; e o estudo da geometria, evidenciando a importância da aprendizagem dos conceitos geométricos no Ensino Fundamental, e a Tecnologia Assistiva digital com foco no sentido tátil-cinestésico para inclusão de estudantes cegos no estudo da geometria. A pesquisa apresenta abordagem qualitativa de natureza aplicada e foi realizada no Instituto Benjamin Constant, instituição de ensino para deficientes visuais localizada no bairro da Urca, na cidade e no estado do Rio de Janeiro. Para a coleta de dados, foram utilizadas as técnicas de observação participante, gravação de vídeo e Think Aloud, com o intuito de explorar os fatores de eficácia e eficiência e o mecanismo de abstração reflexionante na construção de conhecimentos geométricos. Os dados coletados foram analisados por meio da técnica de análise categorial prevista no método de análise de conteúdo (BARDIN, 2016). Acredita-se que esta tese possa contribuir como um recurso assistivo que apoie a aprendizagem de geometria – estudo das formas para estudantes cegos no Ensino Fundamental.The development of skills for the objects of knowledge of geometry is related to the forms of organization of mathematical learning and the didactic resources used to build competencies for mathematical thinking (BRASIL, 2017). This thesis aims to investigate how an audiohaptic virtual environment can contribute to Geometry Learning for Blind Elementary School Students, based on a sequence of tasks that address the objectives of knowledge and skills foreseen in the Common National Curriculum Base (BNCC). The theoretical framework proposed for this research highlights the following themes: Piaget's theory of reflect abstraction, Piaget (1995), which brings contributions to the understanding of the construction of knowledge; the human pain perception from the perspective of Lederman and Klatzky (1987), who propose a set of Exploratory Procedures (EPs) for a person to examine an object with or without vision in order to perceive properties through touch, as well as discuss the sensations that are converted by the brain into cutaneous and kinesthetic information; the political technology of hardware, in which the devices that allow the interaction of people with virtual environments through touch and force feedback are presented; and the study of geometry, evidencing the importance of learning geometric concepts in Elementary School, and digital assistive technology focused on the tactile-kinesthetic sense for the inclusion of blind students in the study of geometry. The research presents a qualitative approach of an applied nature and was held at the Benjamin Constant Institute, an educational institution for the visually impaired located in the Urca neighborhood, in the city and in the state of Rio de Janeiro. For data collection of this investigation, participant observation, video recording and Think Aloud techniques were used in order to explore the factors of efficacy and efficiency and the mechanism of reflecting abstraction in the construction of geometric knowledge. The collected data were analyzed using the category analysis technique provided for in the content analysis method (BARDIN, 2016). It is believed that this can contribute as an assistive resource that supports the learning of geometry – study of forms for blind students in Elementary School

Softwares de Geometria Interativa para Deficientes Físicos e Intelectuais: Um Mapeamento Sistemático

O uso de softwares de Geometria Interativa pode facilitar o aprendizado e melhorar a qualidade de ensino para pessoas que possuem limitações físicas e intelectuais. Apesar disto, as abordagens sobre o desenvolvimento destes softwares são pouco investigadas. Para oferecer uma visão geral dos resultados já obtidos nesta área, um mapeamento sistemático foi conduzido com o objetivo de analisar quais softwares atendem este público e em quais dispositivos adicionais estes softwares utilizam. No total foram 451 estudos analisados em mais de 10 anos de pesquisa na área de geometria interativa. Dentre estes estudos, 24 deles estavam relacionados com softwares de geometria interativa e apenas 20 deles satisfizeram os critérios de inclusão e exclusão definidos neste trabalho. Como resultado, verificou-se que maioria dos estudos apresentam softwares voltados para deficientes visuais e auditivos, sendo sua maioria para crianças. Este resultado demonstra que existem diversas oportunidades de pesquisa no desenvolvimento de softwares para deficientes físicos e intelectuais para aprendizagem de geometria

Virtual Reality Games for Motor Rehabilitation

This paper presents a fuzzy logic based method to track user satisfaction without the need for devices to monitor users physiological conditions. User satisfaction is the key to any product’s acceptance; computer applications and video games provide a unique opportunity to provide a tailored environment for each user to better suit their needs. We have implemented a non-adaptive fuzzy logic model of emotion, based on the emotional component of the Fuzzy Logic Adaptive Model of Emotion (FLAME) proposed by El-Nasr, to estimate player emotion in UnrealTournament 2004. In this paper we describe the implementation of this system and present the results of one of several play tests. Our research contradicts the current literature that suggests physiological measurements are needed. We show that it is possible to use a software only method to estimate user emotion

Haptic cues as a utility to perceive and recognise geometry

Publisher's version (útgefin grein)Research has been conducted on how to aid blind peoples’ perceptions and cognition of scientific data and, specifically, on how to strengthen their background in mathematics as a means of accomplishing this goal. In search of alternate modes to vision, researchers and practitioners have studied the opportunities of haptics alone and in combination with other modes, such as audio. What is already known, and has motivated research in this area, is that touch and vision might form a common brain representation that is shared between the visual and haptic modalities and through haptics learning is active rather than passive. In spite of extensive research on haptics in the areas of psychology and neuropsychology, recent advances and rare experiences in using haptic technology have not caused a transfer from basic knowledge in the area of haptics to learning applications and practical guidelines on how to develop such applications. Thus motivated, this study investigates different haptic effects, such as free space, magnetic effects and the bounded box when blind people are given the task of recognising and manipulating classes of 3D objects with which they have varying familiarity. In parallel, this study investigates the applicability of Sjöström’s guidelines on haptic applications development and uses his problem classification to capture knowledge from the experiments. The results of this study show that users can easily recognise and manipulate familiar objects, albeit with some assistance. There is an indication that users completed tasks faster and needed less assistance with magnetic effects. However, they were not as satisfied with this mode. While the results of this study show that haptics have the potential to allow students to conceptualise 3D objects, much more work is needed to exploit this technology to the fullest. Objects with higher complexity are difficult for students, and, in their opinion, the virtual objects (as presented) leave much room for improvement. Sjöström’s error taxonomy proved useful, and four of five sub-guidelines tested were confirmed to be useful in this study.Peer Reviewe

Tabletop tangible maps and diagrams for visually impaired users

En dépit de leur omniprésence et de leur rôle essentiel dans nos vies professionnelles et personnelles, les représentations graphiques, qu'elles soient numériques ou sur papier, ne sont pas accessibles aux personnes déficientes visuelles car elles ne fournissent pas d'informations tactiles. Par ailleurs, les inégalités d'accès à ces représentations ne cessent de s'accroître ; grâce au développement de représentations graphiques dynamiques et disponibles en ligne, les personnes voyantes peuvent non seulement accéder à de grandes quantités de données, mais aussi interagir avec ces données par le biais de fonctionnalités avancées (changement d'échelle, sélection des données à afficher, etc.). En revanche, pour les personnes déficientes visuelles, les techniques actuellement utilisées pour rendre accessibles les cartes et les diagrammes nécessitent l'intervention de spécialistes et ne permettent pas la création de représentations interactives. Cependant, les récentes avancées dans le domaine de l'adaptation automatique de contenus laissent entrevoir, dans les prochaines années, une augmentation de la quantité de contenus adaptés. Cette augmentation doit aller de pair avec le développement de dispositifs utilisables et abordables en mesure de supporter l'affichage de représentations interactives et rapidement modifiables, tout en étant accessibles aux personnes déficientes visuelles. Certains prototypes de recherche s'appuient sur une représentation numérique seulement : ils peuvent être instantanément modifiés mais ne fournissent que très peu de retour tactile, ce qui rend leur exploration complexe d'un point de vue cognitif et impose de fortes contraintes sur le contenu. D'autres prototypes s'appuient sur une représentation numérique et physique : bien qu'ils puissent être explorés tactilement, ce qui est un réel avantage, ils nécessitent un support tactile qui empêche toute modification rapide. Quant aux dispositifs similaires à des tablettes Braille, mais avec des milliers de picots, leur coût est prohibitif. L'objectif de cette thèse est de pallier les limitations de ces approches en étudiant comment développer des cartes et diagrammes interactifs physiques, modifiables et abordables. Pour cela, nous nous appuyons sur un type d'interface qui a rarement été étudié pour des utilisateurs déficients visuels : les interfaces tangibles, et plus particulièrement les interfaces tangibles sur table. Dans ces interfaces, des objets physiques représentent des informations numériques et peuvent être manipulés par l'utilisateur pour interagir avec le système, ou par le système lui-même pour refléter un changement du modèle numérique - on parle alors d'interfaces tangibles sur tables animées, ou actuated. Grâce à la conception, au développement et à l'évaluation de trois interfaces tangibles sur table (les Tangible Reels, la Tangible Box et BotMap), nous proposons un ensemble de solutions techniques répondant aux spécificités des interfaces tangibles pour des personnes déficientes visuelles, ainsi que de nouvelles techniques d'interaction non-visuelles, notamment pour la reconstruction d'une carte ou d'un diagramme et l'exploration de cartes de type " Pan & Zoom ". D'un point de vue théorique, nous proposons aussi une nouvelle classification pour les dispositifs interactifs accessibles.Despite their omnipresence and essential role in our everyday lives, online and printed graphical representations are inaccessible to visually impaired people because they cannot be explored using the sense of touch. The gap between sighted and visually impaired people's access to graphical representations is constantly growing due to the increasing development and availability of online and dynamic representations that not only give sighted people the opportunity to access large amounts of data, but also to interact with them using advanced functionalities such as panning, zooming and filtering. In contrast, the techniques currently used to make maps and diagrams accessible to visually impaired people require the intervention of tactile graphics specialists and result in non-interactive tactile representations. However, based on recent advances in the automatic production of content, we can expect in the coming years a growth in the availability of adapted content, which must go hand-in-hand with the development of affordable and usable devices. In particular, these devices should make full use of visually impaired users' perceptual capacities and support the display of interactive and updatable representations. A number of research prototypes have already been developed. Some rely on digital representation only, and although they have the great advantage of being instantly updatable, they provide very limited tactile feedback, which makes their exploration cognitively demanding and imposes heavy restrictions on content. On the other hand, most prototypes that rely on digital and physical representations allow for a two-handed exploration that is both natural and efficient at retrieving and encoding spatial information, but they are physically limited by the use of a tactile overlay, making them impossible to update. Other alternatives are either extremely expensive (e.g. braille tablets) or offer a slow and limited way to update the representation (e.g. maps that are 3D-printed based on users' inputs). In this thesis, we propose to bridge the gap between these two approaches by investigating how to develop physical interactive maps and diagrams that support two-handed exploration, while at the same time being updatable and affordable. To do so, we build on previous research on Tangible User Interfaces (TUI) and particularly on (actuated) tabletop TUIs, two fields of research that have surprisingly received very little interest concerning visually impaired users. Based on the design, implementation and evaluation of three tabletop TUIs (the Tangible Reels, the Tangible Box and BotMap), we propose innovative non-visual interaction techniques and technical solutions that will hopefully serve as a basis for the design of future TUIs for visually impaired users, and encourage their development and use. We investigate how tangible maps and diagrams can support various tasks, ranging from the (re)construction of diagrams to the exploration of maps by panning and zooming. From a theoretical perspective we contribute to the research on accessible graphical representations by highlighting how research on maps can feed research on diagrams and vice-versa. We also propose a classification and comparison of existing prototypes to deliver a structured overview of current research

Designing a New Tactile Display Technology and its Disability Interactions

People with visual impairments have a strong desire for a refreshable tactile interface that can provide immediate access to full page of Braille and tactile graphics. Regrettably, existing devices come at a considerable expense and remain out of reach for many. The exorbitant costs associated with current tactile displays stem from their intricate design and the multitude of components needed for their construction. This underscores the pressing need for technological innovation that can enhance tactile displays, making them more accessible and available to individuals with visual impairments. This research thesis delves into the development of a novel tactile display technology known as Tacilia. This technology's necessity and prerequisites are informed by in-depth qualitative engagements with students who have visual impairments, alongside a systematic analysis of the prevailing architectures underpinning existing tactile display technologies. The evolution of Tacilia unfolds through iterative processes encompassing conceptualisation, prototyping, and evaluation. With Tacilia, three distinct products and interactive experiences are explored, empowering individuals to manually draw tactile graphics, generate digitally designed media through printing, and display these creations on a dynamic pin array display. This innovation underscores Tacilia's capability to streamline the creation of refreshable tactile displays, rendering them more fitting, usable, and economically viable for people with visual impairments

Developing an interactive overview for non-visual exploration of tabular numerical information

This thesis investigates the problem of obtaining overview information from complex tabular numerical data sets non-visually. Blind and visually impaired people need to access and analyse numerical data, both in education and in professional occupations. Obtaining an overview is a necessary first step in data analysis, for which current non-visual data accessibility methods offer little support. This thesis describes a new interactive parametric sonification technique called High-Density Sonification (HDS), which facilitates the process of extracting overview information from the data easily and efficiently by rendering multiple data points as single auditory events. Beyond obtaining an overview of the data, experimental studies showed that the capabilities of human auditory perception and cognition to extract meaning from HDS representations could be used to reliably estimate relative arithmetic mean values within large tabular data sets. Following a user-centred design methodology, HDS was implemented as the primary form of overview information display in a multimodal interface called TableVis. This interface supports the active process of interactive data exploration non-visually, making use of proprioception to maintain contextual information during exploration (non-visual focus+context), vibrotactile data annotations (EMA-Tactons) that can be used as external memory aids to prevent high mental workload levels, and speech synthesis to access detailed information on demand. A series of empirical studies was conducted to quantify the performance attained in the exploration of tabular data sets for overview information using TableVis. This was done by comparing HDS with the main current non-visual accessibility technique (speech synthesis), and by quantifying the effect of different sizes of data sets on user performance, which showed that HDS resulted in better performance than speech, and that this performance was not heavily dependent on the size of the data set. In addition, levels of subjective workload during exploration tasks using TableVis were investigated, resulting in the proposal of EMA-Tactons, vibrotactile annotations that the user can add to the data in order to prevent working memory saturation in the most demanding data exploration scenarios. An experimental evaluation found that EMA-Tactons significantly reduced mental workload in data exploration tasks. Thus, the work described in this thesis provides a basis for the interactive non-visual exploration of a broad range of sizes of numerical data tables by offering techniques to extract overview information quickly, performing perceptual estimations of data descriptors (relative arithmetic mean) and managing demands on mental workload through vibrotactile data annotations, while seamlessly linking with explorations at different levels of detail and preserving spatial data representation metaphors to support collaboration with sighted users