On <i>The Magic Mountain</i>: The novel as liminal affective technology

In this paper we build on Szakolczai’s analysis of the sociological relevance of the novel to propose that novels can be regarded as a historically specific instance of what we call ‘liminal affective technologies’. We develop this proposition through a psychosocial reading of Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain, to demonstrate that this novel not only represents – as Szakolczai already argues – the reflexive culmination of a historical movement towards permanent liminality, but also a performative meditation on the role of ‘liminal affective technologies’ in metabolising experience and channelling psychosocial transformations

Unveiling Emotions: Attitudes Toward Affective Technology

With its ability to sense and/or generate human emotions, affective computing calls for a new generation of technology. This study brings affective technologies into focus which can sense human emotions. Compared to other types of technology, affective technologies have distinct characteristics—anthropomorphism, uncontrollability, capturing of highly sensitive data, unfamiliarity, and complexity—with fundamental effects on the interaction with humans. These characteristics of affective technology create a feeling of uncertainty about how such a system works. However, the attitudes people exhibit toward the usage, notably trust, such as affective assistance systems has received only scant attention. Hence, we define attitudes toward affective technology and contribute to the literature by proposing a research model that we analyzed using a quantitative methodology with 303 participants. From the theoretical model, we derive implications for theory, practice, and design

Using Affective Technologies to Increase Engagement and Motivation in Fitness and Sports

Work by Picard and others has created considerable awareness for the role of affect in human-computer interaction. In fact, a strong new field is emerging in computer science: affective computing. In my presentation, I presented first ideas to make use of affective technologies in fitness and sports

Biosensing and Actuation—Platforms Coupling Body Input-Output Modalities for Affective Technologies

Research in the use of ubiquitous technologies, tracking systems and wearables within mental health domains is on the rise. In recent years, affective technologies have gained traction and garnered the interest of interdisciplinary fields as the research on such technologies matured. However, while the role of movement and bodily experience to affective experience is well-established, how to best address movement and engagement beyond measuring cues and signals in technology-driven interactions has been unclear. In a joint industry-academia effort, we aim to remodel how affective technologies can help address body and emotional self-awareness. We present an overview of biosignals that have become standard in low-cost physiological monitoring and show how these can be matched with methods and engagements used by interaction designers skilled in designing for bodily engagement and aesthetic experiences. Taking both strands of work together offers unprecedented design opportunities that inspire further research. Through first-person soma design, an approach that draws upon the designer’s felt experience and puts the sentient body at the forefront, we outline a comprehensive work for the creation of novel interactions in the form of couplings that combine biosensing and body feedback modalities of relevance to affective health. These couplings lie within the creation of design toolkits that have the potential to render rich embodied interactions to the designer/user. As a result we introduce the concept of “orchestration”. By orchestration, we refer to the design of the overall interaction: coupling sensors to actuation of relevance to the affective experience; initiating and closing the interaction; habituating; helping improve on the users’ body awareness and engagement with emotional experiences; soothing, calming, or energising, depending on the affective health condition and the intentions of the designer. Through the creation of a range of prototypes and couplings we elicited requirements on broader orchestration mechanisms. First-person soma design lets researchers look afresh at biosignals that, when experienced through the body, are called to reshape affective technologies with novel ways to interpret biodata, feel it, understand it and reflect upon our bodies

Experiencing discomfort: designing for affect from first-person perspective

In this paper, we describe how by embracing a first-person design perspective we engaged with the uncomfortable to successfully gain insight into the design of affective technologies. Firstly, we experience estrangement that highlights and grounds our bodies as desired in the targeted technology interaction. Secondly, we understand design preconceptions, risks and limitations of the design artifacts

Using affective avatars and rich multimedia content for education of children with autism

Autism is a communication disorder that mandates early and continuous educational interventions on various levels like the everyday social, communication and reasoning skills. Computer-aided education has recently been considered as a likely intervention method for such cases, and therefore different systems have been proposed and developed worldwide. In more recent years, affective computing applications for the aforementioned interventions have also been proposed to shed light on this problem. In this paper, we examine the technological and educational needs of affective interventions for autistic persons. Enabling affective technologies are visited and a number of possible exploitation scenarios are illustrated. Emphasis is placed in covering the continuous and long term needs of autistic persons by unobtrusive and ubiquitous technologies with the engagement of an affective speaking avatar. A personalised prototype system facilitating these scenarios is described. In addition the feedback from educators for autistic persons is provided for the system in terms of its usefulness, efficiency and the envisaged reaction of the autistic persons, collected by means of an anonymous questionnaire. Results illustrate the clear potential of this effort in facilitating a very promising autism intervention

Assemblages of desire

This paper considers the operations of affective technology within contemporary technocapitalism through affect theory. It is argued that affective technologies enter into power arrangements with political and corporate interests, altering an acting bodies’ affect — in the Spinozan definition, the “capacity to affect and be affected” — within social and political life. Affective computation uses machine learning techniques to ‘capture’ and quantify affective intensities in data form, automating a normalizing logic of division and categorization that classifies bodies, emotions, and objects. Affective technologies invoke what Luciana Parisi called “automated decisionism,” where machine learning processes digitize incomputable states in order to impose a self-rationalizing logic structure that regulates a user-subject’s actions (Parisi, “Reprogramming Decisionism”). Affective technologies exert biopolitical control over users through quantified logics of division and devaluation. It is suggested that affect might simultaneously operate as an analytic lens to speculate on whether collective affectivity and political agency might be reclaimed through using these technologies. The following concludes with an engagement with Deleuze and Guattari’s “assemblages of desire” to suggest that affective technologies might produce other micropolitical arrangements that increase user agency as social and political subjects

Automatic music playlist generation using affective technologies

This paper discusses how human emotion could be quantified using contextual and physiological information that has been gathered from a range of sensors, and how this data could then be used to automatically generate music playlists. I begin by discussing existing affective systems that automatically generate playlists based on human emotion. I then consider the current work in audio description analysis. A system is proposed that measures human emotion based on contextual and physiological data using a range of sensors. The sensors discussed to invoke such contextual characteristics range from temperature and light to EDA (electro dermal activity) and ECG (electrocardiogram). The concluding section describes the progress achieved so far, which includes defining datasets using a conceptual design, microprocessor electronics and data acquisition using MatLab. Lastly, there is brief discussion of future plans to develop this research

Come, see and experience affective interactive art

The progress in the field of affective computing enables the realization of affective consumer products, affective games, and affective art. This paper describes the affective interactive art system Mood Swings, which interprets and visualizes affect expressed by a person. Mood Swings is founded on the integration of a framework for affective movements and a color model. This enables Mood Swings to recognize affective movement characteristics as expressed by a person and display a color that matches the expressed emotion. With that, a unique interactive system is introduced, which can be considered as art, a game, or a combination of both