AmbiGaze:direct control of ambient devices by gaze

Eye tracking offers many opportunities for direct device control in smart environments, but issues such as the need for calibration and the Midas touch problem make it impractical. In this paper, we propose AmbiGaze, a smart environment that employs the animation of targets to provide users with direct control of devices by gaze only through smooth pursuit tracking. We propose a design space of means of exposing functionality through movement and illustrate the concept through four prototypes. We evaluated the system in a user study and found that AmbiGaze enables robust gaze-only interaction with many devices, from multiple positions in the environment, in a spontaneous and comfortable manner

TraceMatch:a computer vision technique for user input by tracing of animated controls

Recent works have explored the concept of movement correlation interfaces, in which moving objects can be selected by matching the movement of the input device to that of the desired object. Previous techniques relied on a single modality (e.g. gaze or mid-air gestures) and specific hardware to issue commands. TraceMatch is a computer vision technique that enables input by movement correlation while abstracting from any particular input modality. The technique relies only on a conventional webcam to enable users to produce matching gestures with any given body parts, even whilst holding objects. We describe an implementation of the technique for acquisition of orbiting targets, evaluate algorithm performance for different target sizes and frequencies, and demonstrate use of the technique for remote control of graphical as well as physical objects with different body parts

Quantifying epistemic actions in human-computer interaction

As digital systems move away from traditional desktop setups, new interaction paradigms are emerging that better integrate with users’ realworld surroundings, and better support users’ individual needs. While promising, these modern interaction paradigms also present new challenges, such as a lack of paradigm-specific tools to systematically evaluate and fully understand their use. This dissertation tackles this issue by framing empirical studies of three novel digital systems in embodied cognition – an exciting new perspective in cognitive science where the body and its interactions with the physical world take a central role in human cognition. This is achieved by first, focusing the design of all these systems on a contemporary interaction paradigm that emphasizes physical interaction on tangible interaction, a contemporary interaction paradigm; and second, by comprehensively studying user performance in these systems through a set of novel performance metrics grounded on epistemic actions, a relatively well established and studied construct in the literature on embodied cognition. The first system presented in this dissertation is an augmented Four-in-a-row board game. Three different versions of the game were developed, based on three different interaction paradigms (tangible, touch and mouse), and a repeated measures study involving 36 participants measured the occurrence of three simple epistemic actions across these three interfaces. The results highlight the relevance of epistemic actions in such a task and suggest that the different interaction paradigms afford instantiation of these actions in different ways. Additionally, the tangible version of the system supports the most rapid execution of these actions, providing novel quantitative insights into the real benefits of tangible systems. The second system presented in this dissertation is a tangible tabletop scheduling application. Two studies with single and paired users provide several insights into the impact of epistemic actions on the user experience when these are performed outside of a system’s sensing boundaries. These insights are clustered by the form, size and location of ideal interface areas for such offline epistemic actions to occur, as well as how can physical tokens be designed to better support them. Finally, and based on the results obtained to this point, the last study presented in this dissertation directly addresses the lack of empirical tools to formally evaluate tangible interaction. It presents a video-coding framework grounded on a systematic literature review of 78 papers, and evaluates its value as metric through a 60 participant study performed across three different research laboratories. The results highlight the usefulness and power of epistemic actions as a performance metric for tangible systems. In sum, through the use of such novel metrics in each of the three studies presented, this dissertation provides a better understanding of the real impact and benefits of designing and developing systems that feature tangible interaction

Orbits: enabling gaze interaction in smart watches using moving targets

In this paper we demonstrate Orbits, a novel gaze interaction technique that accounts for both the reduced size of smart watch displays and the hands-free nature of conventional watches. Orbits combines graphical controls that display one or multiple targets moving on a circular path, with input that is provided by users as they follow any of the targets briefly with their eyes. This gaze input triggers the functionality associated with the followed target -- be it answering a call, playing a song or managing multiple notifications

Characterisation of microbial attack on archaeological bone

As part of an EU funded project to investigate the factors influencing bone preservation in the archaeological record, more than 250 bones from 41 archaeological sites in five countries spanning four climatic regions were studied for diagenetic alteration. Sites were selected to cover a range of environmental conditions and archaeological contexts. Microscopic and physical (mercury intrusion porosimetry) analyses of these bones revealed that the majority (68%) had suffered microbial attack. Furthermore, significant differences were found between animal and human bone in both the state of preservation and the type of microbial attack present. These differences in preservation might result from differences in early taphonomy of the bones. © 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved