The Users’ Body and Their Digital Representation in Interactive Installation- a Mereological Perspective

This article examines the relationship between the users’ body and its digital representations in digital body interactive installations, a sub-category of digital interactive art. Due to the reflective capacity of the interfaces incorporated in these artworks, the researchers designate the connection between the body and its digital embodied image as identification, or self- identification, terms which are not contextualized and detailed, leading to theoretical misinterpretations. To approach the problem, we use an ontological branch of study- mereology, and we discuss the membership of the body within the interactive system and the connection between the users’ body and the digital embodied self: component-integral relationship, functional, mandatory, and configurational, separation, encapsulation, and exchange relationships. Afterwards, we use the composition as identity thesis to show that instead of identification or self-identification, we characterize the connection between the users’ body and the digital body as “partial, temporary and stationary exchange” based on active engagement, self- consciousness, and body awareness. The relevance and novelty of the article tackle two directions: first, the interdisciplinary combination of logical philosophy and digital art, and secondly, the lack of ontological explanations regarding the structural relations in digital interactive art

A socializing interactive installation for the urban environments

In this paper we present the LEDs Urban Carpet: an interactive urban installation using a body-input as a form of a non-traditional user interface. The installation was tested in various locations around the city of Bath, UK. We selected locations with low, medium and high pedestrian flows. The aim is to generate a novel urban experience, which can be introduced in different locations in the city and with different social situations. The installation represents a game with a grid of LEDs that can be embedded as an interactive carpet into the urban context. A pattern of lights is generated dynamically following the pedestrians movement over the carpet. In this case the pedestrians become active participants that influence the generative process and make the pattern of LED-s change. The paper suggests that introducing this kind of display in a social scenario can enrich the casual interaction of people nearby and this might enhance social awareness and engagement. However, we should point out that a number of factors need to be taken into consideration when designing an interactive installation, especially when situated within the urban space. The experience we present here can assist designers in understanding difficulties and issues that need to be taken into account during the design of an interactive urban project of this nature

保育者としての身体的感性の育成：授業での身体表現の経験による"共振"の段階の変化

The main object of this paper is to investigate how to establish the education program for preschool teachers, in order for developing hearty and sympathetic body awareness when interacting with children. Due to the lack of decent discussion on how to measure the quality of care provided by preschool teachers that is associated with their sensitivity and creativity, to our best knowledge, there has been little empirical research on how efficient a specific education program is. Numbers of studies have proved that proceeding "interactive psycho-physical synchronization (kyoshin)" plays a significant role for preschool teachers to develop their "adaptable and compassionate body attentiveness." In order to develop the empirical model assessing how the "interactive physical synchronization" on expressive body movement will be expanding, we collect 15 principal indicators measuring the degree of "interactive psycho-physical synchronization" for approximately 250 males and females at age of 20 and older years old and we apply hierarchical cluster method for our data. Finally, we examine the effectiveness of the established model for 12 students who are taking our course at Toyo Eiwa University. Consequently, we found that our training program would motivate students to achieve higher degree of interactive physical synchronization compared to the status before the class, with respect to 4 out of 15 indicators representing intersubjectivity" and "physical sensitivity," in average. Further, using multidimensional scaling method, we observed that 8 out of 12 students have attained higher degree of interactive psycho-physical synchronization. Based on our empirical results in this study, therefore, we conclude that a specific professional training program might be very effective for preschool teachers to develop hearty and sympathetic body awareness when interacting with children

Embodied Creation and Perception in Olafur Eliasson’s and Carsten Höller’s Projects

This paper examines the relationship between somaesthetics and several art projects by Olafur Eliasson and Carsten Höller. Involving an embodied, perceptual, and interactive dialogue between artist, viewer, and the environmental surroundings, these artworks aim not only to enhance our aesthetic experience and to increase our awareness of the body in space and in action, but also, through their artistic means of enhancing embodied and environmental awareness, to benefit life more generally

Beginning Readers Have No Prior Experience with Sound Segmentation

This article reviews the research literature regarding the overpowering impact of the interactive whiteboard on improving EFL beginning readers’ phonemic segmentation skill. EFL beginning readers must be exposed to phonemic awareness from the very beginning of their education in order to gain the required foundation needed to become better readers. Teachers of beginning readers should use different methods in order to help students become phonemically aware. In order to support EFL beginning readers in becoming phonemically aware, one of the recent educational trends is to use technology inside classroom. It is obvious that literature support the technology of integrating the interactive whiteboard as an instructional tool and its leading role in enhancing the educational process.  It can also motivate and boost student engagement. Although there has been a growing body of research that shows a general positive relationship between instructional technology and reading achievement since the last two decades, there is little research about integrating interactive whiteboard as an instructional tool into the EFL classrooms to help students develop their phonemic segmentation skill. Keywords: Phonemic awareness, Phoneme segmentation, Interactive whiteboard (IWB), EFL                        beginning readers

Emotional valence and arousal affect reading in an interactive way: neuroimaging evidence for an approach-withdrawal framework

A growing body of literature shows that the emotional content of verbal material affects reading, wherein emotional words are given processing priority compared to neutral words. Human emotions can be conceptualised within a two-dimensional model comprised of emotional valence and arousal (intensity). These variables are at least in part distinct, but recent studies report interactive effects during implicit emotion processing and relate these to stimulus-evoked approach-withdrawal tendencies. The aim of the present study was to explore how valence and arousal interact at the neural level, during implicit emotion word processing. The emotional attributes of written word stimuli were orthogonally manipulated based on behavioural ratings from a corpus of emotion words. Stimuli were presented during an fMRI experiment while 16 participants performed a lexical decision task, which did not require explicit evaluation of a word's emotional content. Results showed greater neural activation within right insular cortex in response to stimuli evoking conflicting approach-withdrawal tendencies (i.e., positive high-arousal and negative low-arousal words) compared to stimuli evoking congruent approach vs. withdrawal tendencies (i.e., positive low-arousal and negative high-arousal words). Further, a significant cluster of activation in the left extra-striate cortex was found in response to emotional than neutral words, suggesting enhanced perceptual processing of emotionally salient stimuli. These findings support an interactive two-dimensional approach to the study of emotion word recognition and suggest that the integration of valence and arousal dimensions recruits a brain region associated with interoception, emotional awareness and sympathetic functions

Establishing the design knowledge for emerging interaction platforms

While awaiting a variety of innovative interactive products and services to appear in the market in the near future such as interactive tabletops, interactive TVs, public multi-touch walls, and other embedded appliances, this paper calls for preparation for the arrival of such interactive platforms based on their interactivity. We advocate studying, understanding and establishing the foundation for interaction characteristics and affordances and design implications for these platforms which we know will soon emerge and penetrate our everyday lives. We review some of the archetypal interaction platform categories of the future and highlight the current status of the design knowledge-base accumulated to date and the current rate of growth for each of these. We use example designs illustrating design issues and considerations based on the authors’ 12-year experience in pioneering novel applications in various forms and styles

Therapeutic and educational objectives in robot assisted play for children with autism

“This material is presented to ensure timely dissemination of scholarly and technical work. Copyright and all rights therein are retained by authors or by other copyright holders. All persons copying this information are expected to adhere to the terms and constraints invoked by each author's copyright. In most cases, these works may not be reposted without the explicit permission of the copyright holder." “Copyright IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or to reuse any copyrighted component of this work in other works must be obtained from the IEEE.” DOI: 10.1109/ROMAN.2009.5326251This article is a methodological paper that describes the therapeutic and educational objectives that were identified during the design process of a robot aimed at robot assisted play. The work described in this paper is part of the IROMEC project (Interactive Robotic Social Mediators as Companions) that recognizes the important role of play in child development and targets children who are prevented from or inhibited in playing. The project investigates the role of an interactive, autonomous robotic toy in therapy and education for children with special needs. This paper specifically addresses the therapeutic and educational objectives related to children with autism. In recent years, robots have already been used to teach basic social interaction skills to children with autism. The added value of the IROMEC robot is that play scenarios have been developed taking children's specific strengths and needs into consideration and covering a wide range of objectives in children's development areas (sensory, communicational and interaction, motor, cognitive and social and emotional). The paper describes children's developmental areas and illustrates how different experiences and interactions with the IROMEC robot are designed to target objectives in these areas.Final Published versio

Therapeutic and educational objectives in robot assisted play for children with autism

“This material is presented to ensure timely dissemination of scholarly and technical work. Copyright and all rights therein are retained by authors or by other copyright holders. All persons copying this information are expected to adhere to the terms and constraints invoked by each author's copyright. In most cases, these works may not be reposted without the explicit permission of the copyright holder." “Copyright IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or to reuse any copyrighted component of this work in other works must be obtained from the IEEE.” DOI: 10.1109/ROMAN.2009.5326251This article is a methodological paper that describes the therapeutic and educational objectives that were identified during the design process of a robot aimed at robot assisted play. The work described in this paper is part of the IROMEC project (Interactive Robotic Social Mediators as Companions) that recognizes the important role of play in child development and targets children who are prevented from or inhibited in playing. The project investigates the role of an interactive, autonomous robotic toy in therapy and education for children with special needs. This paper specifically addresses the therapeutic and educational objectives related to children with autism. In recent years, robots have already been used to teach basic social interaction skills to children with autism. The added value of the IROMEC robot is that play scenarios have been developed taking children's specific strengths and needs into consideration and covering a wide range of objectives in children's development areas (sensory, communicational and interaction, motor, cognitive and social and emotional). The paper describes children's developmental areas and illustrates how different experiences and interactions with the IROMEC robot are designed to target objectives in these areas