Ologism: Normalising Science One Lyric at a Time

Like many other countries, Australia is concerned about the public\u27s declining interest and performance in science. Many agencies and organisations, including Australia\u27s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), are exploring ways to engage the public in science. CSIRO Education sponsors a band called Ologism that writes and performs songs about science. Our goal was to develop a website to display the band\u27s lyrics and interpret and embellish on the science concepts they present to better engage adults aged 17–30. Through rapid prototyping we evaluated the content, design, and functionality of the website, and determined how Ologism and CSIRO Education could develop the site further to engage a larger audience more effectively

Signifying the autobiographical memory on social media a semiotic analysis of food-themed imagery on Instagram

Dissertation (MA (Digital Culture & Media Studies))--University of Pretoria, 2021.During the last decade, digitisation has become a pervasive influence on social culture, a trend largely due to the widespread emergence inter-alia, of the Internet, personal computers, smartphones and other devices as affordable and effective means of mass digital communication. As people spend more time online, their interactions, behaviours, sense of self and self-representation are progressively shaped and influenced by their social media engagements and the social context in which online users and their digital interactions are embedded (Framroze 2017). Social networking sites have become a principal avenue of self-expression and representation (Rettberg 2014); a digital space to share one’s unique life narrative through the use of images and words, enabling new and creative opportunities for self-expression and memory creation. One core element of our contemporary lifestyles increasingly influenced by digitisation, is that of food - the most basic and fundamental element of human nourishment and survival. Accompanying the increasing prevalence of digital media in society is the simultaneous acknowledgement of the “complex entanglements between the digital realm, and food” to the extent that food and food culture have become firmly entrenched as mainstream features of contemporary digital culture (Lewis 2018:3). As such, food-themed imagery shared within the digital space constitutes a worthwhile focus for enquiry to enhance the understanding of self-representation and autobiographical memory. This study explores the phenomena of food and food-culture and investigates how social media users utilise the online space to express their self-identity and to catalogue their autobiographical experiences and memories. To do so, I apply a semiotic analysis to a data set of online images selected from three Instagram hashtag categories. In conducting a semiotic analysis of various posts shared on Instagram, it is confirmed that food-themed images form an inherent part of a user’s self-identity and autobiographical memory. The study applied semiotic analysis to review a data set of food-themed images posted across three Instagram hashtag trends (#foodiesofinstagram, #foodmemories and #homechef). The semiotic analysis exhibited how individuals utilise food-themed digital imagery as a form of self-expression; as a platform to share, communicate and engage with memories and experiences that connotate meaningful symbolism and interpretation. Connotations included, for example, notions of wholesome, healthy and natural living (Fig. 26), cultural authenticity (Fig. 29), familial warmth and cultural familiarity (Fig. 33). These connotations were considered as an extension of a user’s sense of self and autobiographical memory. The conclusions identify how in the contemporary digital age, users’ embodied food-themed experiences and memories are being extended into the digital realm.Visual ArtsMA (Digital Culture & Media Studies)Unrestricte

How sketches work: a cognitive theory for improved system design

Evidence is presented that in the early stages of design or composition the mental processes used by artists for visual invention require a different type of support from those used for visualising a nearly complete object. Most research into machine visualisation has as its goal the production of realistic images which simulate the light pattern presented to the retina by real objects. In contrast sketch attributes preserve the results of cognitive processing which can be used interactively to amplify visual thought. The traditional attributes of sketches include many types of indeterminacy which may reflect the artist's need to be "vague". Drawing on contemporary theories of visual cognition and neuroscience this study discusses in detail the evidence for the following functions which are better served by rough sketches than by the very realistic imagery favoured in machine visualising systems. 1. Sketches are intermediate representational types which facilitate the mental translation between descriptive and depictive modes of representing visual thought. 2. Sketch attributes exploit automatic processes of perceptual retrieval and object recognition to improve the availability of tacit knowledge for visual invention. 3. Sketches are percept-image hybrids. The incomplete physical attributes of sketches elicit and stabilise a stream of super-imposed mental images which amplify inventive thought. 4. By segregating and isolating meaningful components of visual experience, sketches may assist the user to attend selectively to a limited part of a visual task, freeing otherwise over-loaded cognitive resources for visual thought. 5. Sequences of sketches and sketching acts support the short term episodic memory for cognitive actions. This assists creativity, providing voluntary control over highly practised mental processes which can otherwise become stereotyped. An attempt is made to unite the five hypothetical functions. Drawing on the Baddeley and Hitch model of working memory, it is speculated that the five functions may be related to a limited capacity monitoring mechanism which makes tacit visual knowledge explicitly available for conscious control and manipulation. It is suggested that the resources available to the human brain for imagining nonexistent objects are a cultural adaptation of visual mechanisms which evolved in early hominids for responding to confusing or incomplete stimuli from immediately present objects and events. Sketches are cultural inventions which artificially mimic aspects of such stimuli in order to capture these shared resources for the different purpose of imagining objects which do not yet exist. Finally the implications of the theory for the design of improved machine systems is discussed. The untidy attributes of traditional sketches are revealed to include cultural inventions which serve subtle cognitive functions. However traditional media have many short-comings which it should be possible to correct with new technology. Existing machine systems for sketching tend to imitate nonselectively the media bound properties of sketches without regard to the functions they serve. This may prove to be a mistake. It is concluded that new system designs are needed in which meaningfully structured data and specialised imagery amplify without interference or replacement the impressive but limited creative resources of the visual brain

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

“Focus on the Users”: Empathy, Anticipation, and Perspective-taking in Healthcare Architecture

This dissertation is a phenomenological anthropology of intersubjectivity in the design of healthcare architecture. Based on 12 months of ethnographic fieldwork with architectural designers in the San Francisco Bay Area, this dissertation details how architectural designers derive and enact their understandings of the healthcare professionals and patients for whom they design. Since the 1960s, many architects have taken up an orientation toward design that I herein refer to as “Methodological User-Centricity” (MUC). The premise is simple: better design hinges on better empirical knowledge of the people being designed for, and that knowledge is best acquired by what are often social-science-inspired methods. One of the most influential encapsulations of this orientation in design today (in architecture and beyond) is “empathy”. The healthcare architects in this ethnographic study believed “empathic” knowledge of “users”—including patients, doctors, nurses—was essential to improving healthcare, and sought to develop this understanding of occupants through games, interviews, and other methods for learning about users’ needs, values, and experiences. Situated in this context, this dissertation examines the background premises and methods through which these architectural designers enact their specific forms of constituting others and intervening in the built environment on their behalf. Working from data running the gamut of architectural activities from initial stages of user research and conceptualization, to completion and retrospective evaluation by both designers and end-users, the dissertation analyzes the diverse modalities of experience by which members of architectural project teams orient themselves to users’ needs and possibilities. In doing so, the dissertation approaches architecture as a polymorphous response to others, one ultimately rooted in manifold forms intersubjectivity and degrees of social understanding. Nevertheless, this dissertation also presents a critical analysis of unintentional shortcomings arising through unequal user representation in architectural designers’ research with healthcare institutions