ARTIFICIAL AGENTS MODELING FOR INTIMATE TELEPRESENCE

Ph.DDOCTOR OF PHILOSOPH

From rituals to magic: Interactive art and HCI of the past, present, and future

The connection between art and technology is much tighter than is commonly recognized. The emergence of aesthetic computing in the early 2000s has brought renewed focus on this relationship. In this article, we articulate how art and Human–Computer Interaction (HCI) are compatible with each other and actually essential to advance each other in this era, by briefly addressing interconnected components in both areas—interaction, creativity, embodiment, affect, and presence. After briefly introducing the history of interactive art, we discuss how art and HCI can contribute to one another by illustrating contemporary examples of art in immersive environments, robotic art, and machine intelligence in art. Then, we identify challenges and opportunities for collaborative efforts between art and HCI. Finally, we reiterate important implications and pose future directions. This article is intended as a catalyst to facilitate discussions on the mutual benefits of working together in the art and HCI communities. It also aims to provide artists and researchers in this domain with suggestions about where to go next

Exploring multimedia and interactive technologies

The goal of multimedia design strategies and innovation is to produce meaningful learning environments that relate to and build upon what the learner already knows and what the learner seeks. The multimedia tools used to achieve knowledge transfer should activate recall or prior knowledge and help the learner alter and encode new structures. Traditionally, multimedia has been localized to specific delivery systems and demographics based on the government, industry, or academic concentration. The presenter will explore the introduction of immersive telecommunications technologies, constructivist learning methodologies, and adult learning models to standardize networking and multimedia-based services and products capable of adapting to wired and wireless environments, different devices and conditions on a global scale

The Psychosocial Reality of Digital Travel

This open access book takes a fresh look at the nature of the digital travel experience, at a time when more and more people are engaged in online social interaction, games, and other virtual experiences essentially involving online visits to other places. It examines whether these experiences can seem real to the virtual traveller and, if so, under what conditions and on what grounds. The book unpacks philosophical theories relevant to the feeling of being somewhere, emphasising the importance of perception and being-in-the-world. Notions of place are outlined, based on work in tourism studies, human geography, and other applied social fields, with an aim to investigate how and when different experiences of place arise for the traveller and how these relate to telepresence – the sense of being there in another place through digital media. Findings from recent empirical studies of digital travel are presented, including a survey from which the characteristics of “digital travellers” are identified. A review of selected interactive design trends and possibilities leads to the conclusion, which draws these strands together and looks to the future of this topical and expanding field

Creating robotic characters for long-term interaction

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 2012.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 177-181).Researchers studying ways in which humans and robots interact in social settings have a problem: they don't have a robot to use. There is a need for a socially expressive robot that can be deployed outside of a laboratory and support remote operation and data collection. This work aims to fill that need with DragonBot - a platform for social robotics specifically designed for long-term interactions. This thesis is divided into two parts. The first part describes the design and implementation of the hardware, software, and aesthetics of the DragonBot-based characters. Through the use of a mobile phone as the robot's primary computational device, we aim to drive down the hardware cost and increase the availability of robots "in the wild". The second part of this work takes an initial step towards evaluating DragonBot's effectiveness through interactions with children. We describe two different teleoperation interfaces for allowing a human to control DragonBot's behavior differing amounts of autonomy by the robot. A human subject study was conducted and these interfaces were compared through a sticker sharing task between the robot and children aged four to seven. Our results show that when a human operator is able to focus on the social portions of an interaction and the robot is given more autonomy, children treat the character more like a peer. This is indicated by the fact that more children re-engaged the robot with the higher level of autonomy when they were asked to split up stickers between the two participants.by Adam Setapen.S.M

Haptic Media Scenes

The aim of this thesis is to apply new media phenomenological and enactive embodied cognition approaches to explain the role of haptic sensitivity and communication in personal computer environments for productivity. Prior theory has given little attention to the role of haptic senses in influencing cognitive processes, and do not frame the richness of haptic communication in interaction design—as haptic interactivity in HCI has historically tended to be designed and analyzed from a perspective on communication as transmissions, sending and receiving haptic signals. The haptic sense may not only mediate contact confirmation and affirmation, but also rich semiotic and affective messages—yet this is a strong contrast between this inherent ability of haptic perception, and current day support for such haptic communication interfaces. I therefore ask: How do the haptic senses (touch and proprioception) impact our cognitive faculty when mediated through digital and sensor technologies? How may these insights be employed in interface design to facilitate rich haptic communication? To answer these questions, I use theoretical close readings that embrace two research fields, new media phenomenology and enactive embodied cognition. The theoretical discussion is supported by neuroscientific evidence, and tested empirically through case studies centered on digital art. I use these insights to develop the concept of the haptic figura, an analytical tool to frame the communicative qualities of haptic media. The concept gauges rich machine- mediated haptic interactivity and communication in systems with a material solution supporting active haptic perception, and the mediation of semiotic and affective messages that are understood and felt. As such the concept may function as a design tool for developers, but also for media critics evaluating haptic media. The tool is used to frame a discussion on opportunities and shortcomings of haptic interfaces for productivity, differentiating between media systems for the hand and the full body. The significance of this investigation is demonstrating that haptic communication is an underutilized element in personal computer environments for productivity and providing an analytical framework for a more nuanced understanding of haptic communication as enabling the mediation of a range of semiotic and affective messages, beyond notification and confirmation interactivity

The Psychosocial Reality of Digital Travel

This open access book takes a fresh look at the nature of the digital travel experience, at a time when more and more people are engaged in online social interaction, games, and other virtual experiences essentially involving online visits to other places. It examines whether these experiences can seem real to the virtual traveller and, if so, under what conditions and on what grounds. The book unpacks philosophical theories relevant to the feeling of being somewhere, emphasising the importance of perception and being-in-the-world. Notions of place are outlined, based on work in tourism studies, human geography, and other applied social fields, with an aim to investigate how and when different experiences of place arise for the traveller and how these relate to telepresence – the sense of being there in another place through digital media. Findings from recent empirical studies of digital travel are presented, including a survey from which the characteristics of “digital travellers” are identified. A review of selected interactive design trends and possibilities leads to the conclusion, which draws these strands together and looks to the future of this topical and expanding field