Psychology applied : a fusion of abduction and ergonomics

The world has an increasing number of problems, many of which involve a human­ technological component, the solution of which requires strong methods. To explore problem solving methods, I proposed the development of an abductive-ergonomics framework. This framework must support the generation of theories that will support design. To achieve this, I discussed psychology's current method, the hypothetico­-deductive method, suggesting that it is not a general method. As an alternative I discussed abduction, which provides a strong general method. I also explored the aims, perspectives, and unit of analysis offered by ergonomics. In the last chapter I proposed that abduction provides the control task structure to the real world domain described by ergonomics. The fusion between abduction and ergonomics provides the basis for the real world problem solving framework proposed in this thesis

Case board, traces, & chicanes: Diagrams for an archaeology of algorithmic prediction through critical design practice

This PhD thesis utilises diagrams as a language for research and design practice to critically investigate algorithmic prediction. As a tool for practice-based research, the language of diagrams is presented as a way to read algorithmic prediction as a set of intricate computational geometries, and to write it through critical practice immersed in the very materials in question: data and code. From a position rooted in graphic and interaction design, the research uses diagrams to gain purchase on algorithmic prediction, making it available for examination, experimentation, and critique. The project is framed by media archaeology, used here as a methodology through which both the technical and historical "depths" of algorithmic systems are excavated. My main research question asks: How can diagrams be used as a language to critically investigate algorithmic prediction through design practice? This thesis presents two secondary questions for critical examination, asking: Through which mechanisms does thinking/writing/designing in diagrammatic terms inform research and practice focused on algorithmic prediction? As algorithmic systems claim to produce objective knowledge, how can diagrams be used as instruments for speculative and/or conjectural knowledge production? I contextualise my research by establishing three registers of relations between diagrams and algorithmic prediction. These are identified as: Data Diagrams to describe the algorithmic forms and processes through which data are turned into predictions; Control Diagrams to afford critical perspectives on algorithmic prediction, framing the latter as an apparatus of prescription and control; and Speculative Diagrams to open up opportunities for reclaiming the generative potential of computation. These categories form the scaffolding for the three practice-oriented chapters where I evidence a range of meaningful ways to investigate algorithmic prediction through diagrams. This includes, the 'case board' where I unpack some of the historical genealogies of algorithmic prediction. A purpose-built graph application materialises broader reflections about how such genealogies might be conceptualised, and facilitates a visual and subjective mode of knowledge production. I then move to producing 'traces', namely probing the output of an algorithmic prediction system|in this case YouTube recommendations. Traces, and the purpose-built instruments used to visualise them, interrogate both the mechanisms of algorithmic capture and claims to make these mechanisms transparent through data visualisations. Finally, I produce algorithmic predictions and examine the diagrammatic "tricks," or 'chicanes', that this involves. I revisit a historical prototype for algorithmic prediction, the almanac publication, and use it to question the boundaries between data-science and divination. This is materialised through a new version of the almanac - an automated publication where algorithmic processes are used to produce divinatory predictions. My original contribution to knowledge is an approach to practice-based research which draws from media archaeology and focuses on diagrams to investigate algorithmic prediction through design practice. I demonstrate to researchers and practitioners with interests in algorithmic systems, prediction, and/or speculation, that diagrams can be used as a language to engage critically with these themes

A world beside itself : Jakob von Uexküll, Charles S. Peirce, and the genesis of a biosemiotic hypothesis

This thesis explores the conceptual origins of a biosemiotic understanding of the human as a consequence of the vital role of signs in the evolution of life. According to this challenge to definitions of man as the sole bearer of knowledge, human society and culture are not only characterised by the use and production of signs, human life and thought are the products of ongoing processes of semiosis. Along with Thomas Sebeok’s argument concerning animal architecture, examples from Modernist and Contemporary art are presented to introduce a new perspective on the natural and cultural significance of acts of inhabitation. By tracing its historical development in the nineteenth and twentieth century via the concept of the environment, this perspective on both human and non-human life is shown to contest those methods of modern science that are rooted in anthropocentrism The precedents of this perspective are then elaborated through an explication of the work of two of the forefathers of biosemiotics: the biologist Jakob von Uexküll and the philosopher Charles S. Peirce. Uexküll’s theory of the Umwelt demonstrated that in order to make sense of its surroundings each living organism must be situated within an integral world of signs. Peirce’s philosophical account of semiotics explained the evolution of signs in terms of processes of habit formation and the abductive power of thought. Together Uexküll and Peirce provide an impetus for reconsidering the metaphorical implications of aesthetics in terms of the semiotic inheritance of ecological systems. While having critically interrogated their differences especially with respect to their derivation from Kantian philosophy and German Idealism, in conclusion, the ideas of Peirce and Uexküll on the reciprocity of life and signs are shown to mutually contribute to a more advanced comprehension of human subjectivity

What can a sonic assemblage do? A biopsychosocial approach to post-acousmatic composition

Thinking and sounding are two terms which complicate one another, hence this thesis follows two trajectories each of which make an original contribution to knowledge. Part 1 (thinking sound) proposes to reground composition away from historically authoritative humanist models, instead suggesting a biopsychosocial approach for a post-acousmatic music. I elaborate a set of models and key concepts, chiefly an eliminativist account of the listener-sound relation; neurocognitively discrete musical domains and dimensions of the Kmatrix; model-based reasoning through a Reception-Interpretation-Action helix; and, mentalizing listening stances based upon dual-process cognition models. This is combined with an art-activist stance where composition is concerned with the effects that a sonic artobject exerts in its vicinity. I propose composition as experimentally concerned with generating new epistemic things through a process of assemblage and heterogeneous engineering. Part 2 (sounding thinking) discusses fixed and live compositions which initiated and respond to my proposed approach. In my practice, I focus on the disruption of specific aesthetic regimens to bring listening into attentional focus, engaging the specificity of the mnemonic traces that sound leaves. The pieces are largely concerned with sonic cultures related to Islam and the MENASA region

Understanding performance measurement from a social systems perspective

This thesis was previously held under moratorium from 3 December 2019 to 3 December 2021.Performance measurement (PM) systems fail to predict organisational outcomes reliably because organisations face futures so inherently unknowable that it is impossible to comprehend the full range of potential outcomes open to them. Organisations are complex, adaptive, social systems whose distinctive activity is decision-making. They are heterogeneous entities whose capabilities, behaviours, and circumstances are unique, emerging from their histories and previous decisions. Organisational reality is a social construct delivered through practice. This thesis investigates whether considering PM from a social systems perspective improves PM’s effectiveness. The argument made is organisations connect through social systems and operate through practice with people, processes, and their interactions fundamental to how they perform. A middle-range management theory is presented aimed at making organisations the best they can be with the resources available to them and in the economic circumstances they find themselves. It does this by understanding and reconfiguring the organisation’s social system using a structured approach to optimise business processes and performance measures based on a combination of emergent behaviour and practice. Given the reality of radical uncertainty the focus is not on predicting outcomes but on uncovering the explanatory mechanisms behind events caused by specific managed improvement interventions. Understanding the behaviour of dynamically interacting components is done using realist evaluation based on social interactions, emergent powers and social intervention mechanisms. This approach changed behaviours and performance outcomes in case study organisations. The use of an ‘inside-out’ social systems perspective, coupled to critical realism with its focus on explanation, enabled the causal relationships of importance to be identified and the performance ‘black box’ to be opened up. This research contributes to closing the PMM theory-practice gap by proposing the performance focus needs to be on the social system rather than the measures, that is, on the ‘means’ rather than the ‘ends’. It also offers a competing theoretical framework to organisational control theory for PMM, one grounded in social systems and practice theory. The social systems perspective is not considered specific to PM and potentially can be applied to all other business processesPerformance measurement (PM) systems fail to predict organisational outcomes reliably because organisations face futures so inherently unknowable that it is impossible to comprehend the full range of potential outcomes open to them. Organisations are complex, adaptive, social systems whose distinctive activity is decision-making. They are heterogeneous entities whose capabilities, behaviours, and circumstances are unique, emerging from their histories and previous decisions. Organisational reality is a social construct delivered through practice. This thesis investigates whether considering PM from a social systems perspective improves PM’s effectiveness. The argument made is organisations connect through social systems and operate through practice with people, processes, and their interactions fundamental to how they perform. A middle-range management theory is presented aimed at making organisations the best they can be with the resources available to them and in the economic circumstances they find themselves. It does this by understanding and reconfiguring the organisation’s social system using a structured approach to optimise business processes and performance measures based on a combination of emergent behaviour and practice. Given the reality of radical uncertainty the focus is not on predicting outcomes but on uncovering the explanatory mechanisms behind events caused by specific managed improvement interventions. Understanding the behaviour of dynamically interacting components is done using realist evaluation based on social interactions, emergent powers and social intervention mechanisms. This approach changed behaviours and performance outcomes in case study organisations. The use of an ‘inside-out’ social systems perspective, coupled to critical realism with its focus on explanation, enabled the causal relationships of importance to be identified and the performance ‘black box’ to be opened up. This research contributes to closing the PMM theory-practice gap by proposing the performance focus needs to be on the social system rather than the measures, that is, on the ‘means’ rather than the ‘ends’. It also offers a competing theoretical framework to organisational control theory for PMM, one grounded in social systems and practice theory. The social systems perspective is not considered specific to PM and potentially can be applied to all other business processe

A world beside itself : Jakob von Uexküll, Charles S. Peirce, and the genesis of a biosemiotic hypothesis

This thesis explores the conceptual origins of a biosemiotic understanding of the human as a consequence of the vital role of signs in the evolution of life. According to this challenge to definitions of man as the sole bearer of knowledge, human society and culture are not only characterised by the use and production of signs, human life and thought are the products of ongoing processes of semiosis. Along with Thomas Sebeok’s argument concerning animal architecture, examples from Modernist and Contemporary art are presented to introduce a new perspective on the natural and cultural significance of acts of inhabitation. By tracing its historical development in the nineteenth and twentieth century via the concept of the environment, this perspective on both human and non-human life is shown to contest those methods of modern science that are rooted in anthropocentrism The precedents of this perspective are then elaborated through an explication of the work of two of the forefathers of biosemiotics: the biologist Jakob von Uexküll and the philosopher Charles S. Peirce. Uexküll’s theory of the Umwelt demonstrated that in order to make sense of its surroundings each living organism must be situated within an integral world of signs. Peirce’s philosophical account of semiotics explained the evolution of signs in terms of processes of habit formation and the abductive power of thought. Together Uexküll and Peirce provide an impetus for reconsidering the metaphorical implications of aesthetics in terms of the semiotic inheritance of ecological systems. While having critically interrogated their differences especially with respect to their derivation from Kantian philosophy and German Idealism, in conclusion, the ideas of Peirce and Uexküll on the reciprocity of life and signs are shown to mutually contribute to a more advanced comprehension of human subjectivity

A layered abductive inference framework for diagramming group motions

Many events in different domains are characterized by a large number of individual moving elements, either in pursuit of a goal in groups (as in military operations), or subject to underlying physical forces that group elements with similar motion (as in weather phenomena). Visualizing and reasoning about happenings in such domains are often facilitated by abstracting the mass of spatiotemporal data into spatial diagrams of group motions, and overlaying them on abstractions of static features, like maps. The standard approach has been to use a clustering algorithm to group the entities and extract their motions, which often produces unsatisfactory results when the data is noisy and incomplete. In this paper, we present for the task a multilayered abductive inference framework where hypotheses largely flow upwards from raw data to a diagram, but there is also a top-down control that asks lower levels to supply alternatives if the higher level hypotheses are not deemed sufficiently coherent. This top-down-bottom-up interplay to combine numerical clustering algorithms with symbolic knowledge about consistency models the flexibility of human reasoning in such tasks that enables the framework to successfully deal with extremely noisy and incomplete data. We present experimental results as obtained by deploying the proposed framework and discuss several issues related to construction of such diagrams, from data sets over a few days of a large number of military units engaged in exercises at the National Technical Center, California, USA. © 2006 Oxford University Press

A framework for guiding the interdisciplinary design of mHealth intervention apps for physical activity behaviour change

The global pandemic of noncommunicable diseases and its associated premature mortality rates and socioeconomic burden have led to increasingly intensified efforts towards designing and delivering health promotion interventions aimed at addressing the leading modifiable health risk behaviours, such as physical inactivity. Developing physical activity behaviour change interventions that target individuals at the dual intra-interpersonal socioecological levels of health promotion has become a key objective worldwide. Digital and mobile technology is revolutionising the ways in which health behaviour change interventions are delivered to individuals across the world, with mobile health applications (mHealth apps) increasingly recognised as a powerful means of promoting physical activity behaviour change. However, with the growth and opportunities of mHealth apps, come several design challenges. Key design challenges concern the integration of theory, the incorporation of evidence-based behaviour change techniques, the application of persuasive systems design principles, and the importance of multi- and interdisciplinary collaborative design, development and evaluation approaches. These key challenges influence the output product design and effectiveness of mHealth physical activity behaviour change intervention apps. There exists a paucity of approaches for guiding and supporting the multi- and interdisciplinary collaborative design, development and evaluation of mHealth physical activity behaviour change intervention apps. To address this gap, this research study proposes an Interdisciplinary mHealth App Design Framework, framed by a novel boundary object view. This view considers the diverse communities of practice, boundary objects and supporting artefacts, process activities, and knowledge sharing practices necessary and relevant to the design of effective mHealth physical activity behaviour change intervention apps. The framework’s development is guided by a Design Science Research (DSR) approach. Its core components are based on the findings of a critical theoretical analysis of twenty existing multi- and interdisciplinary digital health development approaches. Once developed, the framework is evaluated using a qualitative DSR linguistic interpretivist approach, with semi-structured interviews as the research instrument. The thematic analysis findings from interviews with thirty-one international academic researchers and industry practitioners informs the iterative modification and revision of an enhanced Interdisciplinary mHealth App Design Framework, constituting the main DSR artefact contribution of the research study. In addition, four theoretical contributions are made to the mHealth intervention app design body of knowledge, and a practical contribution is made through the provision of guideline recommendations for academics and industry practitioners. Methodological contributions are also made in terms of applying DSR, adopting a hybrid cognitive reasoning strategy, and employing a qualitative linguistic interpretivist approach to evaluation within a DSR project.Thesis (PhD) -- Faculty of Commerce, Information Systems, 202

An Analysis of a Public Health Media Campaign in Switzerland

This multidisciplinary, grounded theory study analyses public health media communication for Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and Sexually Transmitted Infections (STI) prevention in Switzerland. Health communication researchers measure the effects of media campaigns on populations to improve prevention. However, such effects may evade measurement due to complex interactions between audiences, media channels and ecology, message content, and targeting strategies. Competing theories explain media effects on health behaviours but there is a dearth of research examining upstream planning and stakeholder perceptions of media campaigns. In effect, interactions between communities, health officials, practitioners, and communication/media stakeholders are politically sensitive, and inaccessible to researchers. Whereas national HIV and STI prevalence was relatively low, the Swiss government aimed to raise general public awareness about risks and prevention. LOVE LIFE 2019 was a multimedia public health campaign centred on a video series promoting male condom use as well as a Safer Sex Check questionnaire providing tailored recommendations. This case study utilises innovative triangulation of media analysis methods including content analysis; digital ecosystem analysis; Goffmann’s theatrical frame and gender display; grammar of visual design and social semiotics; intervention theoretical indicators; and social marketing and extended social marketing, to retroactively understand encoded values and underlying mechanics of the media strategy. Concurrently, international and national authorities and practitioners with diverse stakeholder viewpoints were interviewed regarding media campaign planning in general and LOVE LIFE 2019 specifically. As a complement to grounded theory, thematic analysis elucidated interview and media themes, leading to insights into stakeholder environments and media effects. Grounded theory methodology resulted in a substantive theory comprising four testable propositions to guide further research, identifying relationships between culture, ideology, and values, with implications for public health media communication. Based on the substantive theory, practical recommendations were formulated to address contextual issues: (a) a content strategy for HIV and STI prevention targeting the general public; (b) HIV and STI federal policies; (c) inclusive design processes for human-centered planning; and (d) ethical considerations for public health utilisation of digital media