897 research outputs found
Enaction-Based Artificial Intelligence: Toward Coevolution with Humans in the Loop
This article deals with the links between the enaction paradigm and
artificial intelligence. Enaction is considered a metaphor for artificial
intelligence, as a number of the notions which it deals with are deemed
incompatible with the phenomenal field of the virtual. After explaining this
stance, we shall review previous works regarding this issue in terms of
artifical life and robotics. We shall focus on the lack of recognition of
co-evolution at the heart of these approaches. We propose to explicitly
integrate the evolution of the environment into our approach in order to refine
the ontogenesis of the artificial system, and to compare it with the enaction
paradigm. The growing complexity of the ontogenetic mechanisms to be activated
can therefore be compensated by an interactive guidance system emanating from
the environment. This proposition does not however resolve that of the
relevance of the meaning created by the machine (sense-making). Such
reflections lead us to integrate human interaction into this environment in
order to construct relevant meaning in terms of participative artificial
intelligence. This raises a number of questions with regards to setting up an
enactive interaction. The article concludes by exploring a number of issues,
thereby enabling us to associate current approaches with the principles of
morphogenesis, guidance, the phenomenology of interactions and the use of
minimal enactive interfaces in setting up experiments which will deal with the
problem of artificial intelligence in a variety of enaction-based ways
Designing Performer Training: Digital Encounters with Things and People
This article investigates how digital technologies can be used to enhance the relational aspects of performer training. Saner and Robinson reflect on a practice as research project, Enactive Encounters, where they use poor technology and everyday objects to create participatory learning environments. The teacher- student relationship is challenged and transformed into playful interactions between participants through enactive encounters that aim to embody different aspects of specific training practices.
Keywords: digital training, relational pedagogy, enactivism
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 designâas 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 messagesâyet 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
Landscapes of Affective Interaction: Young Children's Enactive Engagement with Body Metaphors
Empirical research into embodied meaning making suggests specific
sensorimotor experiences can support childrenâs understanding of abstract
science ideas. This view is aligned with enactive and grounded cognition
perspectives, both centred in the view that our ability to conceptualise emerges
from our experiences of interaction with our environment. While much of this
research has focused on understanding action and action processes in
individual children or children in pairs, less attention has been paid to affective
dimensions of young childrenâs group interaction, and how this relates to
meaning making with body metaphors. Indeed, Gallagher describes how no
action exists in a vacuum, but rather revolves around a complex web of
affective-pragmatic features comprising a âLandscape of Interactionâ (2020,
p.42).
This research project addresses gaps in research in understanding young
childrenâs affective engagement from an enactivist cognition perspective. It
takes a Design-Based Research approach with an iterative design orientation
to examine young childrenâs interaction with multisensory body-based
metaphors through an embodied participation framework. A series of empirical
studies with young children, aged 2-7 years, comprising of experiential
workshops, build iteratively upon each other. A novel theoretically informed
method, Affective Imagination in Motion, is developed involving several
purpose-built multisensory body metaphors prompts to enable access to
dimensions of young childrenâs affective engagement.
This research makes theoretical and methodological contributions. It extends
the theoretical notion of âaffectâ from enactive and grounded cognition
perspectives through identifying key interactive processes in young childrenâs
engagement with multisensory action metaphors. In addition, the novel
method offers a contribution as a way of âlookingâ at affect within a group
situation from affective-pragmatic and social embodiment perspectives.
Finally, the research contributes to embodied learning design frameworks
offering a guideline for designers wishing to inform their work from enactive
cognition perspective
Amplifying Actions - Towards Enactive Sound Design
Recently, artists and designers have begun to use digital technologies in order to
stimulate bodily interaction, while scientists keep revealing new findings about
sensorimotor contingencies, changing the way in which we understand human
knowledge. However, implicit knowledge generated in artistic projects can become
difficult to transfer and scientific research frequently remains isolated due to
specific disciplinary languages and methodologies. By mutually enriching holistic
creative approaches and highly specific scientific ways of working, this doctoral
dissertation aims to set the foundation for Enactive Sound Design. It is focused
on sound that engages sensorimotor experience that has been neglected within
the existing design practices. The premise is that such a foundation can be best
developed if grounded in transdisciplinary methods that bring together scientific
and design approaches.
The methodology adopted to achieve this goal is practice-based and supported
by theoretical research and project analysis. Three different methodologies were
formulated and evaluated during this doctoral study, based on a convergence of existing
methods from design, psychology and human-computer interaction. First, a
basic design approach was used to engage in a reflective creation process and to extend
the existing work on interaction gestalt through hands-on activities. Second,
psychophysical experiments were carried out and adapted to suit the needed shift
from reception-based tests to a performance-based quantitative evaluation. Last,
a set of participatory workshops were developed and conducted, within which the
enactive sound exercises were iteratively tested through direct and participatory
observation, questionnaires and interviews.
A foundation for Enactive Sound Design developed in this dissertation includes
novel methods that have been generated by extensive explorations into the fertile
ground between basic design education, psychophysical experiments and participatory
design. Combining creative practices with traditional task analysis further
developed this basic design approach. The results were a number of abstract sonic
artefacts conceptualised as the experimental apparatuses that can allow psychologists
to study enactive sound experience. Furthermore, a collaboration between
designers and scientists on a psychophysical study produced a new methodology
for the evaluation of sensorimotor performance with tangible sound interfaces.These performance experiments have revealed that sonic feedback can support
enactive learning. Finally, participatory workshops resulted in a number of novel
methods focused on a holistic perspective fostered through a subjective experience
of self-producing sound. They indicated the influence that such an approach may
have on both artists and scientists in the future. The role of designer, as a scientific
collaborator within psychological research and as a facilitator of participatory
workshops, has been evaluated.
Thus, this dissertation recommends a number of collaborative methods and strategies
that can help designers to understand and reflectively create enactive sound
objects. It is hoped that the examples of successful collaborations between designers
and scientists presented in this thesis will encourage further projects and
connections between different disciplines, with the final goal of creating a more
engaging and a more aware sonic future.European Commission 6th Framework and European Science Foundation (COST Action
Misplacing memories? An enactive approach to the virtual memory palace
In this paper, we evaluate the pragmatic turn towards embodied, enactive thinking in cognitive science, in the context of recent empirical research on the memory palace technique. The memory palace is a powerful method for remembering yet it faces two problems. First, cognitive scientists are currently unable to clarify its efficacy. Second, the technique faces significant practical challenges to its users. Virtual reality devices are sometimes presented as a way to solve these practical challenges, but currently fall short of delivering on that promise. We address both issues in this paper. First, we argue that an embodied, enactive approach to memory can better help us understand the effectiveness of the memory palace. Second, we present design recommendations for a virtual memory palace. Our theoretical proposal and design recommendations contribute to solving both problems and provide reasons for preferring an embodied, enactive account over an information-processing treatment of the memory palace
Ageing Futures: Towards Cognitively Inclusive Digital Media Products
This thesis is situated in a moment when the theory and practice of inclusive design appears to be significantly implicated in the social and economic response to demographic changes in Western Europe by addressing the need to reconnect older people with technology. In light of claims that cognitive ageing results in an increasing disconnection from novel digital media in old age, inclusive design is apparently trapped in a discourse in which digital media products and interfaces are designed as a response to a deterministic decline in abilities.
The thesis proceeds from this context to ask what intellectual moves are required within the discourses of inclusive design so that its community of theorists and practitioners can both comprehend and afford the enaction of cognitive experience in old age? Whilst influential design scholarship actively disregards reductionist cognitive explanations of human and technological relationships, it appears that inclusive design still requires an explanation of temporal changes to human cognition in later life. Whilst there is a burgeoning area of design related research dealing with this issueâan area this thesis defines as âcognitively inclusive designââthe underlying assumptions and claims supporting this body of research suggests its theorists and practitioners are struggling to move beyond conceptualising older people as passive consumers suffering a deterioration in key cognitive abilities. The thesis argues that, by revisiting the cognitive sciences for alternative explanations for the basis of human cognition, it is possible to relieve this problem by opening up new spaces for designers to critically reflect upon the manner in which older people interact with digital media. In taking a position that design is required to support human cognitive enactment, the thesis develops a new approach to conceptualising temporal changes in human cognition, defined as âsenescent cognitionâ. From this new critical lens, the thesis provides an alternative âsenescentechnicâ explanation of cognitive disconnections between older people and digital media that eschews reductionism and moves beyond a deterministic process of deterioration. In reassessing what ageing cognition means, new strategies for the future of inclusive design are proposed that emphasise the role of creating space for older people to actively explore, reflect upon and enact their own cognitive couplings with technology.Arts and Humanities Research Counci
In Gameplay : the invariant structures and varieties of the video game gameplay experience
This dissertation is a multidisciplinary study on video game gameplay as an autonomous form of vernacular experience. Plays and games are traditional research subjects in folkloristics, but commercial video games have not been studied yet. For this reason, methods and concepts of the folkloristic research tradition have remained unknown in contemporary games studies. This thesis combines folkloristics, game studies and phenomenological enactive cognitive science in its investigations into playerâgame interaction and the video game gameplay experience at large.
In this dissertation, three representative survey samples (N=2,594, N=845, N=1,053) on âRewarding gameplay experienceâ are analyzed using statistical analysis methods. The samples were collected in 2014â2017 from Finnish and Danish adult populations. This dissertation also analyzes data from 32 interviews, through which the survey respondentsâ gameplay preferences, gaming memories, and motivations to play were further investigated. By combining statistical and qualitative data analyses, this work puts forward a mixed-methods research strategy and discusses how the findings relate to prior game research from several disciplines and schools of thought.
Based on theoretical discussions, this dissertation argues that the video game gameplay experience as a cultural phenomenon consists of eight invariants in relation to which each individual gameplay experience can be interpreted: The player must demonstrate a lusory attitude (i), and a motivation to play (ii). The gameplay experience consists of explorative and coordinative practices (iii), which engender a change in the playerâs self-experience (iv). This change renders the gameplay experience inherently emotional (v) and performative (vi) in relation to the gameworld (vii). The gameplay experience has the dramatic structure of a prototypical narrative (viii) although a game as an object cannot be regarded a narrative in itself.
As a key result of factor analytical studies and qualitative interview analyses, a novel approach to understanding playerâgame interaction is put forward. An original gameplay preference research tool and a player typology are introduced. This work argues, that, although video games as commercial products would not be intuitive research subjects for folkloristics, video game gameplay, playerâgame interaction, and the traditions in experiencing and narrating gameplay do not differ drastically from those of traditional social games. In contrast to this, all forms of gameplay are argued to be manifestations of the same vernacular phenomenon. Indeed, folkloristic research could pay more attention to how culture is experienced, modified, varied and expressed, regardless of whether the research subject is a commercial product or not.KĂ€sillĂ€ oleva vĂ€itöskirja on monitieteellinen tutkimus videopelien pelaamisesta itsenĂ€isenĂ€ kansanomaisen kokemuksen muotona. Pelien ja leikkien tutkimus on perinteikĂ€s tutkimusaihe folkloristiikassa, mutta kaupallisten videopelien tutkimusta ei ole juuri tehty. TĂ€stĂ€ syystĂ€ folkloristiikan tutkimusmenetelmĂ€t ja -kĂ€sitteet ovat jÀÀneet tuntemattomaksi nykyaikaisessa pelitutkimuksessa. Tutkimus yhdistÀÀ folkloristiikan ja pelitutkimuksen nĂ€kökulmien lisĂ€ksi enaktiivisen kognition fenomenologista teoriaa pelaajaâpeli-vuorovaikutuksen tutkimukseen sekĂ€ pelikokemuksen analyysiin.
Tutkimuksessa analysoidaan tilastotieteellisin menetelmin kolmea aikuisvĂ€estöÀ edustavaa âPalkitseva pelikokemusâ -kyselytutkimusaineistoa (N=2,594, N=845, N=1,053), jotka kerĂ€ttiin Suomesta ja Tanskasta vuosina 2014â2017. Kyselytutkimusaineiston rinnalla analysoidaan 32 teemahaastattelun aineistoa. Haastatteluilla tuotettiin syvempÀÀ ymmĂ€rrystĂ€ kyselyyn vastanneiden henkilöiden pelimieltymyksistĂ€, pelimuistoista ja pelimotivaatioista. Tilastoaineiston ja haastatteluaineiston analyysi tuodaan yhteen monimenetelmĂ€llisellĂ€ ja dialogisella tutkimusotteella, joka yhdistÀÀ havainnot usealla eri tutkimusalalla tehtyyn pelitutkimukseen.
Teoreettisen analyysin tuloksena argumentoidaan, ettÀ videopelien pelikokemusta ilmiönÀ mÀÀrittÀÀ kahdeksan muuttumatonta ominaisuutta, joiden suhteen kunkin yksittÀisen pelikokemuksen ainutlaatuisuutta voidaan tarkastella: Pelaajalla tulee olla leikkisÀ asenne (i) ja motivaatio pelaamiseen (ii). Pelaamisen kokemus rakentuu tutkivista ja suorittavista kÀyntÀnteistÀ (iii), jotka tuovat vÀliaikaisen muutoksen pelaavan henkilön minÀkokemukseen (iv). TÀmÀn muutoksen myötÀ pelaajuudesta muodostuu emotionaalinen (v) ja performatiivinen (vi) positio suhteessa pelimaailmaan (vii). NÀin syntyvÀn omakohtaisen pelikokemuksen rakenne vastaa kertomuksen dramaattista perusrakennetta (viii), vaikka peliÀ itsessÀÀn ei voida pitÀÀ kertomuksena.
Tutkimuksen empiirisenĂ€ tuloksena esitellÀÀn faktorianalyyttisiin tapaustutkimuksiin ja laadullisten aineistojen analyysiin perustuva uudenlainen nĂ€kökulma ja menetelmĂ€ pelaajaâpeli-vuorovaikutuksen ja pelimieltymyksen tutkimukseen, sekĂ€ edelliseen perustuva pelaajatyyppiluokittelu. Samalla vĂ€itetÀÀn, ettĂ€ vaikka videopelit kaupallisina esineinĂ€ eivĂ€t olisi folkloristiikan tutkimuskohteita, videopelien pelaaminen, pelaajaâpeli-vuorovaikutus ja pelien kokemisen tavat eivĂ€t eroa ratkaisevasti pihaleikeistĂ€ vaan ovat saman kansanomaisen ilmiön esiintymiĂ€. Folkloristisen tutkimuksen soisikin kiinnittĂ€vĂ€n nykyistĂ€ painokkaampaa huomiota kulttuurin kokemisen, muokkaamisen ja ilmaisun tapoihin riippumatta siitĂ€, onko tarkastelun kohteena kaupallinen tuote vai ei
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