Dynamic mapping strategies for interactive art installations: an embodied combined HCI HRI HHI approach

This paper proposes a theoretical framework for dealing with the paradigm of interactivity in new media art, and how the broad use of the term in different research fields can lead to some misunderstandings. The paper addresses a conceptual view on how we can implement interaction in new media art from an embodied approach that unites views from HCI, HRI and HHI. The focus is on an intuitive mapping of a multitude of sensor data and to extend upon this using the paradigm of (1) finite state machines (FSM) to address dynamic mapping strategies, (2) mediality to address aisthesis and (3) embodiment to address valid mapping strategies originated from natural body movements. The theory put forward is illustrated by a case study

In-service Initial Teacher Education in the Learning and Skills Sector in England: Integrating Course and Workplace Learning

The aim of the paper is to advance understanding of in-service learning and skills sector trainee teachers’ learning and propose ways of improving their learning. A conceptual framework is developed by extending Billett’s (International Journal of Educational Research 47:232–240, 2008) conceptualisation of workplace learning, as a relationally interdependent process between the opportunities workplaces afford for activities and interactions and how individuals engage with these, to a third base of participation, the affordances of the initial teacher education course. Hager and Hodkinson’s (British Educational Research Journal 35:619–638, 2009) metaphor of ‘learning as becoming’ is used to conceptualise the ways trainees reconstruct learning in a continuous transactional process of boundary crossing between course and workplace. The findings of six longitudinal case studies of trainees’ development, and evidence from other studies, illustrate the complex interrelationships between LSS workplace affordances, course affordances and trainee characteristics and the ways in which trainees reconstruct learning in each setting. The experience of teaching and interacting with learners, interactions with colleagues, and access to workplace resources and training are important workplace affordances for learning. However, some trainees have limited access to these affordances. Teaching observations, course activities and experiences as a learner are significant course affordances. Trainees’ beliefs, prior experiences and dispositions vary and significantly influence their engagement with course and workplace affordances. It is proposed that better integration of course and workplace learning through guided participation in an intentional workplace curriculum and attention to the ways trainees choose to engage with this, together with the use of practical theorising has the potential to improve trainee learning

Networks of Gratitude: Structures of Thanks and User Expectations in Workplace Appreciation Systems

Appreciation systems--platforms for users to exchange thanks and praise--are becoming common in the workplace, where employees share appreciation, managers are notified, and aggregate scores are sometimes made visible. Who do people thank on these systems, and what do they expect from each other and their managers? After introducing the design affordances of 13 appreciation systems, we discuss a system we call Gratia, in use at a large multinational company for over four years. Using logs of 422,000 appreciation messages and user surveys, we explore the social dynamics of use and ask if use of the system addresses the recognition problem. We find that while thanks is mostly exchanged among employees at the same level and different parts of the company, addressing the recognition problem, managers do not always act on that recognition in ways that employees expect.Comment: in Tenth International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media, 201

Sociomateriality and disabled individuals’ identity work: a critical poststructuralist research agenda

This paper responds to calls to rebalance the role of materiality in identity work. Taking a critical poststructuralist approach to identity work and a relational ontology perspective on sociomateriality, we explore how a ‘disabled’ person’s identity work is shaped by and responds to the influences of embodied practices and material arrangements within the workplace. We achieve this by reviewing the notion of sociomateriality as a "constitutive entanglement" (Orlikowski, 2007: 1437) of the material and the human. More specifically, we discuss how disabled individuals are constituted through sociomaterial relations and practices involving the body, assistive technology and mundane artefacts. This paper, therefore, contributes to the emerging interest, in identity studies, on the role of the material within identity work, and, in Disability Studies, to the entanglement of the social and material in constructions of disability as difference

Driver-Vehicle Interactions in 4WDs: A Theoretical Review

With the escalating number of four-wheel drive (4WD) vehicles present on Australian roads, it is becoming increasingly important to understand the factors contributing to 4WD crashes. While 4WDs and other cars often differ in their performance characteristics, it is also possible that there are differences in driver-vehicle interactions which go beyond performance characteristics and relate more to social and personal perceptions. This paper reviews the theoretical approaches and concepts that may be used to understand the relationship between drivers and vehicles. It is noted that in recent sociological and psychological literature the conceptualization of driving has varied across multiple theoretical approaches. Some have constructed driving as a set of social practices, embodied dispositions, cybernetic associations and physical affordances, while other approaches have constructed the vehicle as a territory, and the vehicle as an extension of the driver (Dant, 2004; Fraine, 1999; Sheller, 2004). This review will discuss how these constructs may be applied to 4WD driver behaviour. Further, it will provide suggestions for methodology for future studies that aim to enhance knowledge of 4WD driver behaviour and the factors which contribute to 4WD crashes

Socially extending the mind through social affordances

The extended mind thesis claims that at least some cognitive processes extend beyond the organism’s brain in that they are constituted by the organism’s actions on its surrounding environment. A more radical move would be to claim that social actions performed by the organism could at least constitute some of its mental processes. This can be called the socially extended mind thesis. Based on the notion of affordance as developed in the ecological psychology tradition, I defend the position that perception extends to the environment. Then I will expand the notion of affordance to encompass social affordances. Thus, perception can in some situations also be socially extended

Intuitive Cities: Pre-Reflective, Aesthetic and Political Aspects of Urban Design

Evidence affirms that aesthetic engagement patterns our movements, often with us barely aware. This invites an examination of pre-reflective engagement within cities and also aesthetic experience as a form of the pre-reflective. The invitation is amplified because design has political implications. For instance, it can draw people in or exclude them by establishing implicitly recognized public-private boundaries. The Value Sensitive Design school, which holds that artifacts embody ethical and political values, stresses some of this. But while emphasizing that design embodies implicit values, research in this field lacks sustained attention to largely unconscious background biases or values, rooted in cultural attitudes and personal interests, that lead theorists and planners—often too narrowly—to promote design organized around specific values such as defensibility. In examining these points, I draw on J. J. Gibson, a central figure for some writing on aesthetics and cities, and whom pragmatists and phenomenologists in turn influenced. Taking a cue from pragmatists in particular, I argue Gibson’s perceptual theory of affordances entails a theory of values, meaning our perception and therewith movements are inherently value-based. I advocate design that accounts for relatively constantly held values such as safety, while also handling the vast pluralism that exists and not crushing the aesthetic vibrancy of city life