Presence and rehabilitation: toward second-generation virtual reality applications in neuropsychology

Virtual Reality (VR) offers a blend of attractive attributes for rehabilitation. The most exploited is its ability to create a 3D simulation of reality that can be explored by patients under the supervision of a therapist. In fact, VR can be defined as an advanced communication interface based on interactive 3D visualization, able to collect and integrate different inputs and data sets in a single real-like experience. However, "treatment is not just fixing what is broken; it is nurturing what is best" (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi). For rehabilitators, this statement supports the growing interest in the influence of positive psychological state on objective health care outcomes. This paper introduces a bio-cultural theory of presence linking the state of optimal experience defined as "flow" to a virtual reality experience. This suggests the possibility of using VR for a new breed of rehabilitative applications focused on a strategy defined as transformation of flow. In this view, VR can be used to trigger a broad empowerment process within the flow experience induced by a high sense of presence. The link between its experiential and simulative capabilities may transform VR into the ultimate rehabilitative device. Nevertheless, further research is required to explore more in depth the link between cognitive processes, motor activities, presence and flow

The Distant Heart: Mediating Long-Distance Relationships through Connected Computational Jewelry

In the world where increasingly mobility and long-distance relationships with family, friends and loved-ones became commonplace, there exists a gap in intimate interpersonal communication mediated by technology. Considering the advances in the field of mediation of relationships through technology, as well as prevalence of use of jewelry as love-tokens for expressing a wish to be remembered and to evoke the presence of the loved-one, developments in the new field of computational jewelry offer some truly exciting possibilities. In this paper we investigate the role that the jewelry-like form factor of prototypes can play in the context of studying effects of computational jewelry in mediating long-distance relationships

Tensions of Data-Driven Reflection: A Case Study of Real-Time Emotional Biosensing

Biosensing displays, increasingly enrolled in emotional reflection, promise authoritative insight by presenting users’ emotions as discrete categories. Rather than machines interpreting emotions, we sought to explore an alternative with emotional biosensing displays in which users formed their own interpretations and felt comfortable critiquing the display. So, we designed, implemented, and deployed, as a technology probe, an emotional biosensory display: Ripple is a shirt whose pattern changes color responding to the wearer’s skin conductance, which is associated with excitement. 17 participants wore Ripple over 2 days of daily life. While some participants appreciated the ‘physical connection’ Ripple provided between body and emotion, for others Ripple fostered insecurities about ‘how much’ feeling they had. Despite our design intentions, we found participants rarely questioned the display’s relation to their feelings. Using biopolitics to speculate on Ripple’s surprising authority, we highlight ethical stakes of biosensory representations for sense of self and ways of feeling

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

Television and the future internet: the NoTube project

[1st paragraph] 'New technology is transforming the TV industry', Mark Thompson, BBC Director General told the newspaper The Observer. The classic notion of TV being a set in the living room with finite channels and linear programming is already gone: TV has moved into the world of Internet and mobile technology and content is growing exponentially in terms of number and diversity. The notion of channels is being replaced by individual choice and on-demand programming. Distinctions between TV and other streaming content are blurred: both live in a shared connected online world. We expect that as the Future Internet develops, TV will complete this disruptive paradigm shift into becoming ubiquituous, always-available, and increasingly personalized. NoTube is a EU funded project (in the Objective 4.3 Intelligent Information Management) which began February 2009 and runs for three years, with the goal to prepare TV for the Future Internet – addressing challenges of TV content ubiquity and choice, personalization and integration