Where The Action Is

On Embodied Interaction & Psychology

Jan Smeddinck (#1976868)jan83 # tzi.de

Psychological Foundations of Embodiment, Marion Wittstock

Uni Bremen, Germany (2009)

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The Book

• Where The Action Is: The Foundations of Embodied Interaction– 2001, Cambridge, MIT Press

• Paul Dourish:– Prof. of Informatics @ Univ. of

California– Glasgow > Uni. Edinburgh >

Cambridge (EuroPARC) > London (UCL, PhD) > Palo Alto (Xerox) > Cupertino (Apple) > Los Angeles (UCI)(http://www.dourish.com/)

• Underline the big picture!

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Presentation Content

Background Framework

Embodiment

Towards Design

Reflections

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Approaching Embodiment

• TED Talk:– Michael Merzenich:

Exploring the rewiring of the brain

– Neuroscience (@ 11:02 – 14:07)

– http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/michael_merzenich_on_the_elastic_brain.html

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Dourish‘s Foundations of

Embodiment

• Observations in:– Tangible computing

• physical, distributed interaction

• augmented reality (vs. VR)

• computation in the physical world (ref. ubiq. comp.), non-sequencial

– Social Computing• human interaction has social factors

• observe real social behavior to createbeneficial designs

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Tangible Computing

• Dourish gives many examples from the80s and 90s– Wellner’s Digital Desk

– Jeremijenko’s Live Wire

– Bishop’s Marble Answering Machine• Great concept, everybody loved it, but it never

kicked off … why?

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HCI History

• HCI and interaction paradigms

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electronic symbolic textual graphical

• More symbolic … less physical• Flexibility vs. Affordance / Usability• Information appliances (later)

Tangible Computing Today

• TED Talk:

– David Merrill: Siftables: The Toy Blocks That Think

– http://www.ted.com/talks/david_merrill_demos_siftables_the_smart_blocks.html

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Social Computing

social behavior ethnography computer systems

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• != James Surowiecki's “The Wisdom of Crowds”

• Examples: Air Traffic Control, Printshop

• Cultural, social, organizational context

• Focus on setting & practices

• Accountability

Drawn Together

• Focus on human skills & activities

• Participation in the world (physical andsocial reality)

• Spread in space & time (not systemtime)

• -> Context (actions <-> settings)

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Embodiment

• Theory of interaction

• Presence & Practice

– About engaged participation

– Pre-ontological

• Relation to Phenomenology (Philosophy)

– Study of phenomena of experience & perception

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Biologically Inspired RoboticsAuke Ijspeert, EPFL Lausanne, Switzerland

• Extensive experiments with segmented, amphibian robots

• Animal locomotion:– Movement is fundamental to animals– They coordinate motion towards and end-point

trajectory– Rhythms for locomotion are due to central pattern

generators– General Model:– CPGs (central pattern generators) can also produce

fictive locomotion

• In segmented amphibian robots, multiple oscillator networks (one per segment, all identical) generate complex motion patterns

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Cerebal

Cortex

•define motor

plan

Cerebellum

•timing,

coordination,

learning

Brain Stem

•selection of

motor program

Spinal Cord

•CPGs and

reflexes

• Animals can run / walk / fly with most of their brains removed (via electrical spinal chord stimulation)

• CPGs can be activated / entrained by sensory signals

Phenomenology

• Away from Cartesian dualism

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Edmund Husserl

•Founder of

Phenomenology

•From abstract

Galilean science

to things that

matter

•Questions of

experience,

memory, mind,

cognition

Martin Heidegger

•Ending

Cartesianism

(separation of

inner mental life

and outside

world)

•Dasein (being-

in-the-world)

•No theory prior

to praxis

Alfred Schutz

•The

Phenomenology

of the Social

World

•Life-world &

intersubjectivity

Maurice Merleau-

Ponty

•The

Phenomenology

of Perception

•Body + phisical

& social skills

•Embodiment

Ludwig

Wittgenstein

•Semiotician

•„The meaning of

a word is how

we use it.“

•There is no

truth

•language games

Embodiment & Meaning

• Because interaction is about conveying meaning…

• Three aspects of meaning:– Ontology (entities, concepts,

objects)– Intersubjectivity (how to share

meaning)– Intentionality (directedness ->

semiotics)

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Embodied Interaction in

Practice• Media Space

– Awareness & hybrid spaces

• Document Management– The HOW of structures is

important

• Today we have much more:– Social networks– Agile management– Embodied agents– Touch / Multitouch

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Design Principles

1. Computation is a medium (communication)

2. Meaning arises on multiple levels (objects, signs, metaphors)

3. Users, not designers, create and communicate meaning

– Now: User generated context (UGX)

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Design Principles

4. Users, not designers, manage coupling– relating entities for the purpose of action

5. Embodied technologies participate in the world they represent– artifacts-in-use vs. separation of object

and representation

6. Embodied interaction turns action into meaning– no meaning in the system itself, but in the

way it is used

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Conclusions & Directions

After Dourish• Information appliances vs.

convergence– No conflict, really…

• Invisible interfaces– Not a good idea in terms of embodiment

– Maybe just a bad term…

• System design – psychology – HCI –CSCW – social sciences

• Persistence of symbolic interaction…

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Reflections

• Missing reference to emotions and emphasis on learning…

• Won’t embodiment limit the power of software?– Well, we can increase the bandwidth of

embodied interfaces… (6th sense)

• Embodiment is popular andmany more pieces are addedto the big puzzle…

• Huge impact on modernPsychology (Biopsychology)– Richard David Precht

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Pushing the Boundaries of

Embodiment

• TED Talk:

– Pattie Maes: Sixth Sense (@ 02:10 - …)– http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/pattie_maes_demos

_the_sixth_sense.html

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That’s it!

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Sources & References

• Paul Dourish @ ICS

• http://www.ics.uci.edu/~jpd/embodied/

• Please also refer to the links on the slides…

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