The Mind Cupola And Enactive Ecology
- 1. The Mind Cupola and Enactive Ecology : Designing technologically mediated experiences for the Aging Mind Dr. Brigitta Zics 1,2 and John Vines 1 1 Transtechnology Research Room B321 Portland Square University of Plymouth Drake Circus Plymouth PL4 8AA 2 University of Wales Newport School of Art, Media and Design Room J 14 Caerleon Campus Lodge Road, Caerleon Newport NP18 3QT
- 2. The manner in which the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and design communities provide solutions to the issue of the Aging Mind. The Problem
- 3. The Problem The way HCI and interaction designers make the learning of new technological interfaces more inclusive for older individuals. remediation metaphor
- 4. An Alternative Approach The learning process of the user will be handled as a distinction between two cognitive properties: invisible usability transparent creation of novel meaning
- 5. An example of a technological system that incorporates the concept of transparency is the Affective Environment of the Mind Cupola (Zics 2008) Application of Transparency
- 6. Inclusive HCI: ‘The Mind Cupola’ Affective Environment The Mind Cupola provides a perspective on Inclusive HCI: meaning being enacted by human beings in an emergent system of affordances between the participant, the technological system and the designer Transparency Applied: A Fluctuation between conscious reflection in the participant (visibility) and the level of unconscious immersion (invisibility) (that is normally the intent of the designer)
- 7. Contemporary Inclusive HCI and Invisible Learning
- 8. Inclusive philosophy to design Making products, services and built environments accessible to as many people as possible. Ageing population. Cognitive Modelling of older people has had a significant role upon the design and usability guidelines of Inclusive HCI.
- 9. Cognitive Modelling (CM) processes of the mind can be separated from the perception of information in the world and resulting behaviours (Niesser 1967)
- 10. Cognitive Modelling (CM) CM rationalises human behaviour and suggest that a particular person, given a certain sensory input, the behavioural output could be somewhat predetermined . (Winograd and Flores 1986)
- 11. Cognitive Modelling as Prominent Approach to Inclusive HCI CM suggests that designer can plan for how a user may act by understanding the various systems and sub-systems of their internal cognitive schema. Although highly criticised... Inclusive HCI for the aging population: appears to be a reluctance to move away from such a method
- 12. Why might Cognitive Modelling, heavily criticised by HCI discourse, still be popular within the domain of HCI and ageing?
- 13. It may be in part down to their being a broad consensus that the measurable cognitive changes that occur in later life have a significant relation to changes in human behaviour . (Stuart-Hamilton 2006)
- 14. Cognitive Modelling of Older People suggests that older people will always struggle to make sense of the new once their working memory, attention and fluid intelligence capabilities decrease beyond a certain point There is ‘...not only a need for familiar technology but for a learning method which makes the user feels more confident in their own ability to learn’ (Zajicek 2001 p. 2) More Familiar technological interactions for old people
- 15. The prominence of remediation throughout HCI history a legacy in which the hardware and software followed a largely symbolic and metaphorical form of communication to the user.
- 16. The Problematic Application of Cognitive Modelling in Aging ‘ ...the re-introduction of electro-mechanical style concepts such as the one-to-one relation between function and button’ and ‘...understandable direct feedback about the state of the device’ increase the straightforwardness of the older persons use of the technology and to ‘....reduce the load on a number of cognitive skills that are known to decline with age’. (Docampo Rama 2001 p.108)
- 17. these ideas are influencing the prevailing thought in design and HCI interventions for the aged, relying increasingly upon metaphors to past technologies in order to decrease complexity and improve the intuitive properties of the interface. (such as Wright 2009; Blacker, Popovic and Mahar 2003, Lewis 2007)
- 18. It is down to the designer to restrict and determine what constitutes these ‘past experiences’ as they rely upon generalisations of past experiences of technology constant focus on invisible learning avoids the key issue restrictions of these approaches
- 19. Moving from Remediated Invisibility Towards Novel Transparency
- 20. Invisibility in HCI It was pointed out that HCI community continually looking to achieve interactions affording continuous and immersive states.
- 21. ready-at-handiness where the user is already a master of the tool INVISIBILITY Heidegger’s ‘tool’ Invisibility and Visibility present-at-handiness describe situations where a person attends directly to the object with conscious intent VISIBILITY
- 22. Invisibility Versus Transparency It could be suggested, that a distinction can be made between facilitating a stage between the purely invisible and visible stages of interaction, through understanding the interactive process as levels of transparency (Zics 2008)
- 23. Transparency and the Transparent Medium man meaning production transparency interface mastering the tool Transparency in the human – technology relationship could be considered as an oscillating process where the designer allows interactions that are in a constant state of flux between reflection and pellucidity.
- 24. Transparency and the Transparent Medium man meaning production transparency Transparent medium mastering the tool The ‘ enactive interface ’ will be termed here as the Transparent Medium.
- 25. Transparent Medium – Dynamic Meaning Production This implies that these interfaces incorporates a reflection process (being visible) as a meaning creation into the interaction, favouring a learning process of the user to inhabit novel meaning. This approach, which also resolve the limitation of Heidegger's concept explaining only two possible states of the tool user (Ihde 1991), suggests a great spectrum of states of the user accommodating dynamic evolving of new meaning.
- 26. Transparency and Invisibility in HCI Although invisibility and transparency have been discussed in the HCI community it has remained a confused concept. This may be a result of there been little phenomenological differentiation between the state of being pellucid (invisible) and being reflective (non-invisible).
- 27. Transparency and Invisibility through Artistic Interfaces HCI might gain new insights from art communities, where scholars have argued that HCI should ‘ explore the meaning of the interface itself ’ (Rokeby 1995, p.133) as opposed to a designerly interest the illusion of invisibility. Tiffany Holmes (2002) provides a useful example in the notion of Dynamic Seeing. Holmes argued: ...that the most engaging component of interactive works is not the actual action or gesture performed by the navigator but rather, the process of actively learning to self-direct one’s own passage through a piece. The interactive art experience is one that blends together two individualized narratives. The first is the story of mastering the interface and the second is about uncovering the content that the artist brings to the work. (Holmes 2002, p.90)
- 28. Whereas the contemporary Inclusive HCI community provide an invisible process of interaction and use, artists inventing interfaces argue for a greater account of visibility. Remediation Novel Transparency
- 29. This move revolves around technological systems that enable a participant to enact their own meaning and experience as opposed to a reconstructed creation of meaning, as determined by the designer. The Mind Cupola will now be introduced as an example of a Transparent Medium, emphasising the role of enacted human experience.
- 30. The Mind Cupola: A Transparent Medium and Orchestration of Enaction
- 31. Feedback Loops in the Mind Cupola This dynamic is formed through a continuously changing collection of feedback-loops between the technological system, the responses of the participant and the sensitivity of the couplings as determined by the designer .
- 32. The Mind Cupola: An Affective Environment Users are invited to step into the immersive surroundings and relax. The interaction process fluctuates between the natural reactions of facial and eye movement and controlled responses through which the user learns to produce meaning.
- 33. The Mind Cupola interface is formed of three interconnected systems; a biofeedback perceptive system (face/eye capture system), a frequency-generating affective system, and a real-time visualisation
- 35. According to the user’s responses and level of enaction, the system produces affections by altering certain environmental qualities (such as vibration, heating, cooling, sound affect) and challenging the user’s attention (through affective visualisation, peripheral vision affect). The Mind Cupola: An Affective Environment
- 36. Affective Visualisation through Eye-tracking The visualisation engages the user with perceptive affection that requires both instinctual and conscious control to form a relationship through interaction. Whilst the user might look for hidden messages on the display by using the gaze of their eyes as a control mechanism, at the same time they change their environment through the behavioural analysis of the system.
- 38. Enactive Ecology: Artist-Environment-User During the mastering the interface process the user reaches immersive states that go beyond typical everyday experiences of technology, more alike to a process of self-observation . Experiences that bridge the artist’s anticipation of enaction and the user’s interaction in the environment provide what may be described as an Enactive Ecology
- 39. From Cognitive Modelling to Cognitive Feedback Loop in the Mind Cupola
- 40. Enacted Perspective on Cognition (Varela et al. 1991) Physiological Feedback Cognitive Modelling: removes the mental apparatus from perception and action where meaning is predetermined by the designer of the interface. Cognitive Feedback Loop: Mind Cupola meaning is co-constructed relationally between what the capacities of the user affords the technological system, and what the capacities of the technological system affords a this particular user.
- 41. New Meaning Production: Self-reflective Processes The Transparent Medium is a result of self-reflective process when the user re-evaluates his/her knowledge of ‘being-in the-world’ attaching new meaning to it. This new meaning production: fluctuates with the instinct and unconscious actions of human enaction which helps to maintain the cognitive flow in the interaction.
- 42. Future Research: Integrating Transparency into Inclusive HCI
- 43. Interactive environments such as the Mind Cupola may provide insight into a new area of HCI research situated at the intersection of inclusive design, artificial intelligence and consciousness studies . speculation and future
- 44. Cognitive modelling... is it so bad? speculation and future
- 45. Cognitive modelling... is it so bad? Possibly not. Although it is limited by a top-down description of consciousness, it is useful to designers of technologies inclusive of older people. speculation and future
- 46. Naive interpretation and application of cognitive modelling by designers. speculation and future
- 47. In the context of HCI that is inclusive of the particular capacities of ageing users, environments such as the Mind Cupola may provide a speculative alternative to contemporary interventions in providing a learning process that evaluates and attends to the level of cognitive immersion and stress on the user and alters levels of affection accordingly . speculation and future
- 48. T he Mind Cupola was formulated on the basis of being an artistic intervention as opposed to meeting some form of designed purpose. We wonder, however, whether it may be possible to translate Transparent Mediums and the concept of Cognitive Feedback Loop from the exceptional into the quotidian. ?
Editor's Notes
- #9: An ‘Inclusive’ philosophy to design is about making products, services and built environments accessible to as many people as possible (Coleman 2008). A key focus of Inclusivity research over the past decade has been the rapidly ageing population of many industrialised nations (Coleman 2008). In this paper, the authors deal with the specific problem of understanding how HCI designers may improve the Inclusivity of new technologies for older people. In particular, it appears that the Cognitive Modelling of older people has had a significant role upon the design and usability guidelines that surround the Inclusive HCI discourse.
- #10: So, what is cognitive modelling. Well, cognitive models in the context of this discussion, we are referring to a type of intellectual instrument used to rationalise human behaviour into various systems and sub-systems, such as on the screen here.
- #12: About 20 years ago, cognitive modelling was a popular approach within the then nascent field of HCI as it
- #15: Resonating on what has become a key area of research Zajicek explains the importance of learning methods that attempt to develop more familiar technological interactions for older people in light of the claims from the ageing Cognitive Model.
- #16: Initial HCI interventions, Sketchpad by Sutherland (1963) ( on the left ) and Dynabook by Kay (1968) ( on the right ) remediated (pen and the typewriter) the human-tool relationship in order to produce initial applications of human-computer relationship. In more recent history there have been attempts to move the dependency in HCI on graphical and remediated metaphor, towards forms of computing focused more upon how meaning is generated through physical and social context (Dourish 2001). However, it appears that the continued application Cognitive Modelling within Inclusive HCI for older people has lead to a dependency on using remediation of past technologies.
- #17: Mili Docampo Rama (2001) provides an oft-cited example of Inclusive HCI research that unpacks this issue. Docampo Rama highlighted that the technological systems people encountered between the ages of 10 and 25 years are key to the cognitive learning strategies they deploy in attempting to adapt to a novel computer-based graphic user interface later on in life. It was noted how for many current older people, the dominant ‘software’ approach to technological interfaces was incomparable to the ‘electro-mechanical’ generation of technologies they experienced at a younger age (Docampo Rama 2001).
- #19: This paper sees these approaches as problematic as they rely upon a learning process centred on a generalisation of past experience of technology in supposing that a past experience of a few may be transferable to people of the same age. Through the deployment of this approach, the designer takes a central role in the creation of meaning by the user, restricting exploration and the agency of the older person as a creator of their own meaning through their relationship with the technology.
- #21: In order to move from the limitations of the above approaches we might start thinking about developing technological systems inclusive of older users that are adaptive to their particular contingencies , but do not restrict the meaning of interaction to a remediation predetermined by the designer. It appears from the above discussion that the HCI community, particularly in the context of designing to be inclusive of older people, are continually looking to achieve interactions affording continuous and immersive states where the technological object disappears from the conscious observation of the user.
- #23: Although the mastering of the tool – making it ready-to-hand – is the optimal desire of the designer in this paper we are attempting to move from a typical sense of using a tool for the purpose of a particular task towards facilitating situations where novel forms of meaning may be established
- #28: Dynamic Seeing refers to the design of one’s experience through the oscillation between interface visibility and invisibility that occurs through the spectator’s processes of mastering the tool and uses this ability to explore the content of the medium. Holmes perspective is useful to understand what might constitute learning processes in a Transparent Medium, based upon the creation of meaning that enriches the transfer of content in the user experience.
- #32: The dynamic and instantaneous feedback-loops are fundamental in considering the Mind Cupola a Transparent Medium.
- #41: The underlying framework of the Mind Cupola is still ‘cognitive’, in that the feedback-loop is based upon knowledge relating the specific physiological feedback to certain cognitive states of awareness and immersion. However, the manner in which the system is participated with aligns the Mind Cupola as an orchestrator of an enacted perspective on cognition (Varela et al. 1991) rather than Cognitive Modelling that removes the mental apparatus from perception and action where meaning is predetermined by the designer of the interface.
- #48: AUGMENTING THE COGNITIVE MODELLING WITH OTHER WAYS OF UNDERSTANDING COGNITION AND CONSCIOUSNESS
- #49: Such environments, which slowly unravels how a technology operates through states of immersion, meditation and reflection, may present the opportunity for meaning and knowledge to be constructed incrementally through technologically-mediated activity, rather than procedural input/output success/failure routines. In monitoring the effort of the user, environments such as the Mind Cupola present an opportunity to allow the user to appropriate meaning and learn a technology through an ongoing relationship, possibly minimising the perceived limitations of cognitive aging, whilst not relying upon a metaphorical and remediated process of learning.