NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATION WITH PHYSIOLOGICAL SENSORS. THE AESTHETIC DOMAIN OF WEARABLES AND NEURAL NETWORKS

Historically, communication implies the transfer of information between bodies, yet this phenomenon is constantly adapting to new technological and cultural standards. In a digital context, it’s commonplace to envision systems that revolve around verbal modalities. However, behavioural analysis grounded in psychology research calls attention to the emotional information disclosed by non-verbal social cues, in particular, actions that are involuntary. This notion has circulated heavily into various interdisciplinary computing research fields, from which multiple studies have arisen, correlating non-verbal activity to socio-affective inferences. These are often derived from some form of motion capture and other wearable sensors, measuring the ‘invisible’ bioelectrical changes that occur from inside the body. This thesis proposes a motivation and methodology for using physiological sensory data as an expressive resource for technology-mediated interactions. Initialised from a thorough discussion on state-of-the-art technologies and established design principles regarding this topic, then applied to a novel approach alongside a selection of practice works to compliment this. We advocate for aesthetic experience, experimenting with abstract representations. Atypically from prevailing Affective Computing systems, the intention is not to infer or classify emotion but rather to create new opportunities for rich gestural exchange, unconfined to the verbal domain. Given the preliminary proposition of non-representation, we justify a correspondence with modern Machine Learning and multimedia interaction strategies, applying an iterative, human-centred approach to improve personalisation without the compromising emotional potential of bodily gesture. Where related studies in the past have successfully provoked strong design concepts through innovative fabrications, these are typically limited to simple linear, one-to-one mappings and often neglect multi-user environments; we foresee a vast potential. In our use cases, we adopt neural network architectures to generate highly granular biofeedback from low-dimensional input data. We present the following proof-of-concepts: Breathing Correspondence, a wearable biofeedback system inspired by Somaesthetic design principles; Latent Steps, a real-time auto-encoder to represent bodily experiences from sensor data, designed for dance performance; and Anti-Social Distancing Ensemble, an installation for public space interventions, analysing physical distance to generate a collective soundscape. Key findings are extracted from the individual reports to formulate an extensive technical and theoretical framework around this topic. The projects first aim to embrace some alternative perspectives already established within Affective Computing research. From here, these concepts evolve deeper, bridging theories from contemporary creative and technical practices with the advancement of biomedical technologies.Historicamente, os processos de comunicação implicam a transferência de informação entre organismos, mas este fenómeno está constantemente a adaptar-se a novos padrões tecnológicos e culturais. Num contexto digital, é comum encontrar sistemas que giram em torno de modalidades verbais. Contudo, a análise comportamental fundamentada na investigação psicológica chama a atenção para a informação emocional revelada por sinais sociais não verbais, em particular, acções que são involuntárias. Esta noção circulou fortemente em vários campos interdisciplinares de investigação na área das ciências da computação, dos quais surgiram múltiplos estudos, correlacionando a actividade nãoverbal com inferências sócio-afectivas. Estes são frequentemente derivados de alguma forma de captura de movimento e sensores “wearable”, medindo as alterações bioeléctricas “invisíveis” que ocorrem no interior do corpo. Nesta tese, propomos uma motivação e metodologia para a utilização de dados sensoriais fisiológicos como um recurso expressivo para interacções mediadas pela tecnologia. Iniciada a partir de uma discussão aprofundada sobre tecnologias de ponta e princípios de concepção estabelecidos relativamente a este tópico, depois aplicada a uma nova abordagem, juntamente com uma selecção de trabalhos práticos, para complementar esta. Defendemos a experiência estética, experimentando com representações abstractas. Contrariamente aos sistemas de Computação Afectiva predominantes, a intenção não é inferir ou classificar a emoção, mas sim criar novas oportunidades para uma rica troca gestual, não confinada ao domínio verbal. Dada a proposta preliminar de não representação, justificamos uma correspondência com estratégias modernas de Machine Learning e interacção multimédia, aplicando uma abordagem iterativa e centrada no ser humano para melhorar a personalização sem o potencial emocional comprometedor do gesto corporal. Nos casos em que estudos anteriores demonstraram com sucesso conceitos de design fortes através de fabricações inovadoras, estes limitam-se tipicamente a simples mapeamentos lineares, um-para-um, e muitas vezes negligenciam ambientes multi-utilizadores; com este trabalho, prevemos um potencial alargado. Nos nossos casos de utilização, adoptamos arquitecturas de redes neurais para gerar biofeedback altamente granular a partir de dados de entrada de baixa dimensão. Apresentamos as seguintes provas de conceitos: Breathing Correspondence, um sistema de biofeedback wearable inspirado nos princípios de design somaestético; Latent Steps, um modelo autoencoder em tempo real para representar experiências corporais a partir de dados de sensores, concebido para desempenho de dança; e Anti-Social Distancing Ensemble, uma instalação para intervenções no espaço público, analisando a distância física para gerar uma paisagem sonora colectiva. Os principais resultados são extraídos dos relatórios individuais, para formular um quadro técnico e teórico alargado para expandir sobre este tópico. Os projectos têm como primeiro objectivo abraçar algumas perspectivas alternativas às que já estão estabelecidas no âmbito da investigação da Computação Afectiva. A partir daqui, estes conceitos evoluem mais profundamente, fazendo a ponte entre as teorias das práticas criativas e técnicas contemporâneas com o avanço das tecnologias biomédicas

The Case for Public Interventions during a Pandemic

Funding Information: This work has been supported by Marie Skłodowska Curie Actions ITN AffecTech (ERC H2020 Project 1059 ID: 722022). Publisher Copyright: © 2022 by the authors.Within the field of movement sensing and sound interaction research, multi-user systems have gradually gained interest as a means to facilitate an expressive non-verbal dialogue. When tied with studies grounded in psychology and choreographic theory, we consider the qualities of interaction that foster an elevated sense of social connectedness, non-contingent to occupying one’s personal space. Upon reflection of the newly adopted social distancing concept, we orchestrate a technological intervention, starting with interpersonal distance and sound at the core of interaction. Materialised as a set of sensory face-masks, a novel wearable system was developed and tested in the context of a live public performance from which we obtain the user’s individual perspectives and correlate this with patterns identified in the recorded data. We identify and discuss traits of the user’s behaviour that were accredited to the system’s influence and construct four fundamental design considerations for physically distanced sound interaction. The study concludes with essential technical reflections, accompanied by an adaptation for a pervasive sensory intervention that is finally deployed in an open public space.publishersversionpublishe

How do dancers want to use interactive technology? Appropriation and layers of meaning beyond traditional movement mapping

There has been an increased interest in HCI research regarding the possibilities of interactive technology applied to the field of dance performance, particularly contemporary dance. This has produced numerous strategies to capture data from the moving bodies of the dancers and to map that data into different types of display formats. In this paper, we look at the role of interactive technology in dance performance from a broader perspective, aiming at understanding the needs of dancers and their relation with the audience. To this end, we ran a focus group with ten dancers with expertise in technology. We analysed the focus group using thematic analysis. We discuss the implications for design of our results by framing the role of technology in dance performance, proposing design guidelines related to the communication to the audience, use of technology, and mapping. Moreover, we propose different levels of ambiguity and appropriation related to the creators of the performance and the audience

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

Exploring Awareness of Breathing through Deep Touch Pressure

Deep Pressure Therapy relies on exerting firm touch to help individuals with sensory sensitivity. We performed first-person explorations of deep pressure enabled by shape-changing actuation driven by breathing sensing. This revealed a novel design space with rich, evocative, aesthetically interesting interactions that can help increase breathing awareness and appreciation through: (1) applying symmetrical as well as asymmetrical pressure on the torso; (2) using pressure to direct attention to muscles or bone structure involved in different breathing patterns; (3) apply synchronous as well as asynchronous feedback following or opposing the user’s breathing rhythm through applying rhythmic pressure. Taken together these explorations led us to design (4) breathing correspondence interactions – a balance point right between leading and following users’ breathing patterns by first applying deep pressure – almost to the point of being unpleasant – and then releasing in rhythmic flow.QC 20210521</p