We consider the prospect of a trans-Atlantic alliance for a social theory of critical pragmatism, seeking the specific value that French critical pragmatism can offer American pragmatists, and vice versa. We proceed through a discussion of the ontological and metho- dological keys to French critical pragmatism: the architecture of justification, the treatment of conflict in public disputes, the dynamics of argumentation, and the play of acts defined analytically as ‘test’ and ‘compromise’. At each level, we compare this approach to Deweyan (...) pragmatism. (shrink)

In The Interface Envelope, James Ash develops a series of concepts to understand how digital interfaces work to shape the spatial and temporal perception of players. Drawing upon examples from videogame design and work from post-phenomenology, speculative realism, new materialism and media theory, Ash argues that interfaces create envelopes, or localised foldings of space time, around which bodily and perceptual capacities are organised for the explicit production of economic profit. Modifying and developing Bernard Stiegler's account of psychopower (...) and Warren Neidich's account of neuropower, Ash argues the aim of interface designers and publishers is the production of envelope power. Envelope power refers to the ways that interfaces in games are designed to increase users perceptual and habitual capacities to sense difference. Examining a range of examples from specific videogames, Ash identities a series of logics that are key to producing envelope power and shows how these logics have intensified over the last thirty years. In turn, Ash suggests that the logics of interface envelopes in videogames are spreading to other types of interface. In doing so life becomes enveloped as the environments people inhabit becoming increasingly loaded with digital interfaces. Rather than simply negative, Ash develops a series of responses to the potential problematics of interface envelopes and envelope power and emphasizes their pharmacological nature. (shrink)

Evidence suggests that speakers can take account of the addressee's needs when referring. However, what representations drive the speaker's audience design has been less clear. This study aims to go beyond previous studies by investigating the interplay between the visual and linguistic context during audience design. Speakers repeated subordinate descriptions given in the prior linguistic context less and used basic-level descriptions more when the addressee did not hear the linguistic context than when s/he did. But crucially, this effect happened only (...) when the referent lacked the visual attributes associated with the expressions, so there was no other contextual cue available for the identification of the referent. This suggests that speakers flexibly use different contextual cues to help their addressee map the referring expression onto the intended referent. In addition, speakers used fewer pronouns when the addressee did not hear the linguistic antecedent than when s/he did. This suggests that although speakers may be egocentric during anaphoric reference, they can cooperatively avoid pronouns when the linguistic antecedents were not shared with their addressee during initial reference. (shrink)

Scientists, engineers, and healthcare professionals are currently developing a variety of new devices under the category of brain-computer interfaces (BCIs). Current and future applications are both medical/assistive (e.g., for communication) and non-medical (e.g., for gaming). This array of possibilities comes with ethical challenges for all stakeholders. As a result, BCIs have been an object of both hope and concern in various media. We argue that these conflicting sentiments can be productively understood in terms of personhood, specifically the impact of (...) BCIs on what it means to be a person and to be recognized as such by others. To understand the dynamics of personhood in the context of BCI use and investigate whether ethical guidance is required, a meeting entitled "BCIs and Personhood: A Deliberative Workshop" was held in May 2018. In this article, we describe how BCIs raise important questions about personhood and propose recommendations for BCI development and governance. (shrink)

Resumen: La presente investigación tuvo por objetivo analizar los usos del discurso institucional de universidades chilenas autodefinidas como complejas en relación con la organización del conocimiento e iniciativas intertransdisciplinarias relevantes informadas a nivel de estructuras estáticas y noticias en sitios web oficiales de cada una de ellas. En este contexto y mediante un Análisis Crítico del Discurso, se indaga en el despliegue de estrategias comunicativas, la producción y difusión del discurso institucional, como asimismo, su exposición y disposición en las páginas (...) web. Desde esta base se contribuye con información cualitativa a la discusión en torno a los formatos y dispositivos de comunicación social referidos a las nociones de inter y transdisciplina en el contexto de la educación superior en el país. Los resultados dan cuenta de la emergencia, centralidad y valor comunicacional de la prospectiva inter y transdisciplinaria en el contexto universitario chileno, no obstante, también evidencian las condicionantes epistemológicas y metodológicas para su despliegue organizacional crítico y sostenible.: The following investigation had as an objective to analyse the usages of the Institutional Discourse from Chilean universities self-described as complex, in relation to the Knowledge Organization and relevant inter-disciplinaries initiatives that are informed at the level of static structures and pieces of news published on each official website. In this context, and, through a Critical Discourse Analysis, the communicative strategies deployment is explored, as well as the production and broadcasting of their institutional discourse. Likewise, their exposure and disposal on web pages. On this basis, the qualitative information is contributed to the discussion around the formats and social communication devices, referred to the concepts of inter and trans-disciplines in the context of higher education in the nation. The results, reflect the emergency, centrality and communicational value of the inter and trans-disciplinary prospective in the Chilean university context. However, the epistemological and methodological conditions are evidenced for its organizational, critical, and sustainable deployment. (shrink)

This paper reviews a series of experimental studies that address what we call ‘interface judgement’, which is the complex judgment involving integration from multiple levels of grammatical representation such as the syntax-semantics and prosody-semantics interface. We first discuss the results from the ERP literature connected to NPI licensing in different languages, paying particular attention to the N400 and the P600 as neural correlates of this specific phenomenon and focusing on the study by Xiang et al. (2016). The results of this (...) study show evidence that there are two distinct NPI licensing mechanisms, i.e., licensing and rescuing, in line with Giannakidou (1998, 2006). Then we discuss an acceptability judgement task on Greek NPIs which supports the negativity as a scale hypothesis (Zwarts 1995, 1996, Giannakidou 1998). For the semantics-prosody interface judgment, we discuss two types of findings on two different phenomena and languages: (i) the study by Giannakidou & Yoon (2016) on scalar and non-scalar NPIs in Greek and Korean, which serves as the foundation for Chatzikontantinou (2016)’s study of production data showing distinct prosodic properties in emphatic (scalar) and non-emphatic (non-scalar) Greek NPIs; (ii) a (production and perception) study by Etxeberria & Irurtzun (2015) on the prosodic disambiguation of the scalar/non-scalar readings of sentences containing the focus particle ‘ere’ in Basque. The main conclusion of the paper is that experimental methods of the kind discussed in the paper are useful in establishing physical, quantitative correlates of interface judgement. (shrink)

Brain–computer interfacing (BCI) aims at directly capturing brain activity in order to enable a user to drive an application such as a wheelchair without using peripheral neural or motor systems. Low signal to noise ratio’s, low processing speed, and huge intra- and inter-subject variability currently call for the addition of intelligence to the applications, in order to compensate for errors in the production and/or the decoding of brain signals. However, the combination of minds and machines through BCI’s and intelligent (...) devices (IDs) can affect a user’s sense of agency. Particularly confusing cases can arise when the behavioral control switches implicitly from user to ID. I will suggest that in such situations users may be insecure about the extent to which the resulting behavior, whether successful or unsuccessful, is genuinely their own. Hence, while performing an action, a user of a BCI–ID may be uncertain about being the agent of the act. Several cases will be examined and some implications for (legal) responsibility (e.g. establishing the presence of a ‘guilty mind’) are discussed. (shrink)

The objective of this article is to reflect on the application of Semiotics to Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and interface analysis. To accomplish the objective the article presents an example of semiotic analysis of a blog interface but the methodology proposed, conveniently adapted, may be applied to any kind of digital interactive environment. The analysis reconstructs the interface sense production device (including the surface of the page and the link architecture), identifies implied users and exchange scenes of the blog and (...) concludes with some reflections on interface evolution and hybridation. Finally, the article proposes future trends for a Semiotics of HCI. (shrink)

Enhancing the usability of the brain, as a more intriguing alloy for interaction design, by employing the Brain Current Interface model (BCIm). Instead of studying interaction design through the angle of cognitive semiotics, where signs and signifiers produce meaning, I propose, in this case, to approach the paradigm of interaction design from a metaphorical angle, as a product of perceptual and intentional consciousness. Through this disposition, I argue, it is possible to approach the hypothesis of bringing together the use of (...) non-invasive brain computer interfaces (BCI) and the field of contemporary neuroscience, especially the role of the chemical modulation on a cellular level of the brain while learning, in order to propose a model for interaction via deliberate attention, that influences cognitive performance and advances well-being of individuals of any age.That which was previously mentally projected, which was lived as a metaphor in the terrestrial habitat is from now on projected entirely without metaphor …. (shrink)

In this inaugural lecture I offer, against the background of a discussion of knowledge representation and its tools, an overview of my research in the philosophy of science. I defend a relational model-theoretic realism as being the appropriate meta-stance most congruent with the model-theoretic view of science as a form of human engagement with the world. Making use of logics with preferential semantics within a model-theoretic paradigm, I give an account of science as process and product. I demonstrate the power (...) of the full-blown employment of this paradigm in the philosophy of science by discussing the main applications of model-theoretic realism to traditional problems in the philosophy of science. I discuss my views of the nature of logic and of its role in the philosophy of science today. I also specifically offer a brief discussion on the future of cognitive philosophy in South Africa. My conclusion is a general look at the nature of philosophical inquiry and its significance for philosophers today. South African Journal of Philosophy Vol. 25 (4) 2006: pp. 275-289. (shrink)

Community Engagement (CE) has been presented by bio-ethicists and scientists as a straightforward and unequivocal good which can minimize the risks of exploitation and ensure a fair distribution of research benefits in developing countries. By means of ethnographic fieldwork undertaken in Kenya between 2007 and 2009 we explored how CE is understood and enacted in paediatric vaccine trials conducted by the Kenyan Medical Research Institute and the US Centers for Disease Control (KEMRI/CDC). In this paper we focus on the role (...) of paid volunteers who act as an interface between villagers KEMRI/CDC. Village Reporters’ (VRs) position of being both with the community and with KEMRI/CDC is advantageous for the conduct of trials. However it is also problematic in terms of exercising trust, balancing allegiances and representing community views. VRs role is shaped by ambiguities related to their employment status and their dual accountability to researchers and their villages. VRs are understandably careful to stress their commitment to self-less community service since it augments their respectability at community level and opens up opportunities for financial gain and self-development. Simultaneously VRs association with KEMRI/CDC and proximity to trial participants requires them to negotiate implicit and explicit expectations for material and medical assistance in a cultural setting in which much importance is placed on sharing and mutuality. To ensure continuity of productive interactions between VRs, and similar community intermediaries, and researchers, open discussion is needed about the problematic aspects of relational ethics, issues concerning undue influence, power relations and negotiating expectations. (shrink)

Can one be fooled into believing that one intended an action that one in fact did not intend? Past experimental paradigms have demonstrated that participants, when provided with false perceptual feedback about their actions, can be fooled into misperceiving the nature of their intended motor act. However, because veridical proprioceptive/perceptual feedback limits the extent to which participants can be fooled, few studies have been able to answer our question and induce the illusion to intend. In a novel paradigm addressing this (...) question, participants were instructed to move a line on the computer screen by use of a phony brain–computer interface. Line movements were actually controlled by computer program. Demonstrating the illusion to intend, participants reported more intentions to move the line when it moved frequently than when it moved infrequently. Consistent with ideomotor theory, the finding illuminates the intimate liaisons among ideomotor processing, the sense of agency, and action production. (shrink)

The paper demonstrates that social alignment is distinct from value alignment as it is currently understood in the AI safety literature, and argues that social alignment is an important research agenda. Work provides an important example for the argument, since work is a cooperative endeavor, and it is part of the larger manifold of social cooperation. These cooperative aspects of work are individually and socially valuable, and so they must be given a central place when evaluating the impact of AI (...) upon work. Workplace technologies are not simply instruments for achieving productive goals, but ways of mediating interpersonal relations. They are aspects of a cooperative interface i.e. the infrastructure by which we engage cooperative behavior with others. The concept of the cooperative interface suggests two conjectures to foreground in the social alignment agenda, motivated by the experience of algorithmic trading and social robotics: that AI impacts cooperation through its effects on social networks, and through its effects on social norms. (shrink)

This essay attempts to assess whether the perceptual issues posed by the contemporary interface culture, and the constant attitude shift demanded by the new media between the “natural” and the “as if” modes, might be considered a significant challenge for phenomenological aesthetics as understood in terms of Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of perception. To demonstrate how the use of a particular interface profoundly shapes the form and structure of an activity as well as enabling perception of a particular kind, the author does (...) not focus directly on the state-of-the-art smart interfaces, but describes the experience of cycling in a large city, with the interface in the form of the bicycle upgraded with an imagined ride simulator. While the former enables a very particular entrance into the world of perception, shaped by its moderate speed and detachment from the ground, the latter enables techno-shaped perception in the “as if” screenic mode. The experience described raises questions concerning the kinaesthetic, proprioceptive and motor features contributing to the cyclist’s mobile perception, as well as pointing to issues related to the reading of the city’s network as a particular spatial configuration generated by the cyclist’s realtime activity. This is the space-time-event-ridescape maintained and modified by the corporeal act of cycling. The spatiality of such a ride does not presume the notion of a space that contains the cyclist, but builds on notions of being-in-the-ridescape (as a kind of cityscape), in terms not only of full corporeal and mental engagement, but also of bodily literacy. The reading of the cityscape enabled by the combination of two interfaces, the bicycle and the ride simulator, is discussed in relation to de Certeau’s account of pedestrian (walking) experience in a big city, his distinction between strategies and tactics, and the notion that each cyclist contributes a novel story to ridetext, which is viewed not as an aesthetic object but as the production of puzzles for the rider to solve. The paper cocludes by questioning the capacity of phenomenology to accommodate the contemporary phenomenon of a “mixed” or “augmented reality” either in concept or in relation to the demands of the phenomenological reduction and the ends of the epoché. Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology, Volume 10, Edition 2, October 2010: 61-71. (shrink)

The food sector and health sector become more and more intertwined. This raises many possibilities, but also questions. One of them is the question of what the implication is for public trust in food and health issues. In this article, I argue that the products on the interface between food and health entails some serious questions of trust. Trust in food products and medical products is often based upon a long history of rather clear patterns of mutual expectations, yet these (...) expectations are not similar in both sectors. As long as the food sector and health sector remain distinct, these differences will not lead to problems of trust, yet when new products are introduced, like functional foods or personalized dietary advices, trust can be threatened. To prevent this, we need clarity with regard to what we can expect of these new products and of whom to expect what in this situation. This requires not␣only adequate information on operating procedures, but also a profound debate␣on responsibilities and the explication and interpretation of moral values and norms. (shrink)

This study adopted a mixed-method study design to investigate the acquisitional features of English existential constructions at the syntax-pragmatics interface by Chinese learners, and explore the factors for non-native performance from the perspective of the Interface Hypothesis. A questionnaire was administered online to 300 Chinese learners of English and 20 English natives at a university in China, which included a picture description test and a context-matching test. Follow-up interviews were conducted with 30 Chinese learners. The experimental data were conducted using (...) comparing means and generalized linear mixed model. Results showed that Chinese learners overproduced existential constructions and reached a native-like level until the advanced stage. Moreover, Chinese learners displayed different preference patterns for existential constructions from English natives, and basically reached a native-like level by the intermediate stage. The qualitative data provided possible explanations for non-native performance. The analysis revealed that non-native performance in production attributed to L1 negative transfer and input frequency, while that in comprehension resulted from underspecification of form-function mapping, input frequency and contexts. Based on the findings, some implications on syntax-pragmatics teaching and L2 interface studies are provided. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The objective behind the present article is two-fold. Firstly, departing from the assumption that distance and salience dynamics are key to both functioning and impact of the media, we aim to present a new theoretical perspective on social media discourse understood as both product and process – Media Proximization Approach – and thus shed light on the exploratory potential of Social Media Critical Discourse Studies paradigm. In J. Flowerdew, & J. E. Richardson, Handbook of Critical Discourse Analysis. Routledge) emphasizing (...) both the horizontal and vertical dimensions of digital communication. Secondly, identifying various dimensions of proximization within social media, we will discuss their role in creating a conducive environment for the spread of populist ideologies, and, more generally, changing the communication dynamics between the primary and secondary definers. Data-wise, the article focuses on current social media discursive practices concerning Enoch Powell’s ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech in the context of rising anti-immigration sentiment and Brexit campaign. Two YouTube videos recontextualizing the speech along with the accompanying comments will be discussed here to show how political discourses get remediated in social media where their ‘prosumers’ imbue them with new form, function and emotionality. (shrink)

Most metazoan organisms have evolved a mildly acidified and calcium diminished sorting hub in the early secretory pathway commonly referred to as the Endoplasmic Reticulum‐Golgi intermediate compartment (ERGIC). These membranous vesicular‐tubular clusters are found tightly juxtaposed to ER subdomains that are competent for the production of COPII‐coated transport carriers. In contrast to many unicellular systems, metazoan COPII carriers largely transit just a few hundred nanometers to the ERGIC, prior to COPI‐dependent transport on to the cis‐Golgi. The mechanisms underlying formation (...) and maintenance of ERGIC membranes are poorly defined. However, recent evidence suggests an important role for Trk‐fused gene (TFG) in regulating the integrity of the ER/ERGIC interface. Moreover, in the absence of cytoskeletal elements to scaffold tracks on which COPII carriers might move, TFG appears to promote anterograde cargo transport by locally tethering COPII carriers adjacent to ERGIC membranes. This action, regulated in part by the intrinsically disordered domain of TFG, provides sufficient time for COPII coat disassembly prior to heterotypic membrane fusion and cargo delivery to the ERGIC. -/- . (shrink)

This research paper explores the implications of emotional intelligence and the Big Five personality model on virtual team effectiveness. It illustrates how emotional intelligence and Big Five personality traits help team members better understand interpersonal relationships and develop constructive virtual teams. The widespread use of virtual team meetings for collaborative work over in-person interaction with diverse personalities creates discord and trust among team members, limiting overall productivity. A quantitative analysis approach is used, with hypotheses tested and a series of multiple (...) linear regression analyses performed on data collected from relevant industries using convenient sampling. The findings show that the Big Five personality affects the virtual team's trust and collaboration parameters. However, the relationship between personality traits and team effectiveness is mediated by emotional intelligence. Also, it is explored that having control over emotional intelligence or developing emotional intelligence would improve team performance while managing and working with a diverse group of people. (shrink)

Two proposals regarding what the primary psychological interface is are critically discussed. One proposal posits an actual overlap of consciousness and reality. The parts of the physical world that are directly perceived, or "self-given" — given themselves in person — to perceptual consciousness, are also elements of that consciousness. Each such part is supposed to have a kind of double existence, in the physical world and also in consciousness. Against this view, I argue that perceptual awareness makes portions of the (...) physical world self-given only in their being manifested or appearing in consciousness, whereas the portions themselves remain completely external to consciousness. Other authors claim that the primary psychological interface is an animal’s perceptual activity with respect to the ecological environment. But, this interface does not amount, for them, to the animal’s perceptual awareness in the familiar, ordinary sense of the experiencing of things by means of the senses, or as theoretically conceived of by the act psychologists of the nineteenth century; rather, perceptual awareness is a feature of the animal’s actions upon the ecological environment. Against this view, I argue that an occurrent perceptual awareness is a central, unperceivable product and part of a larger activity of perceiving and an element of the actual interface between reality and consciousness. (shrink)

Trying to reduce the divide between culture and science, this article follows the producer of popular records, as an interface between music and its market. Like the innovator when he does not obey scientific, technical, and commercial reasons in succession, but reshapes them all together through a double task of giving its form to the product and the interesting people within it, the producer represents the public to the artist and the music to the media. First in a local scale, (...) then in larger and larger ones, alone with the singer, in the studio, and into the media, this sociology of the intermediary shows the producer experimentally organizing, as in a laboratory, a complete production-consumption cycle. Success is then not the mysterious leap to the public, but the last extension of an equation into which the public has been incorporated in many forms from the very beginning. (shrink)

In organic farming animal welfare is one important aspect included in the internationally agreed organic principles of health, ecology, fairness and care (IFOAM 2006), reflecting expectation of consumers and farmers. The definition of organic animal welfare includes—besides traditional terms of animal welfare—‘regeneration’ and ‘naturalness’. Organic animal welfare assessment needs to reflect this and use complex parameters, include natural behaviour and a systemic view. Furthermore, various parties with seemingly conflicting interests are involved, causing ethical dilemmas, such as the use of nose (...) rings for outdoor sows (impaired animal welfare vs. destruction of humus). Solutions can only be found when foundational concepts are translated and applied to practical situations. On-farm animal welfare assessment and implementation of improvement strategies are increasingly relevant scientific areas. They combine on-farm welfare assessment, identification of key problem areas and connected risk factors. Constant communication between all parties is crucial for success. Animal health and welfare planning is one application of this approach, which was carried out on Austrian organic pig farms as well as organic dairy farms in seven European countries. The projects included welfare assessment, feedback and benchmarking as a tool for communication between farmers, advisors and scientists. Finally goals were set by the farmer and improvement strategies applicable to organic farming were implemented. This included prevention of disease by management strategies instead of routine treatment with pharmaceutical products. It appeared that next to problem structuring, multidisciplinary problem solving demands good communications skills to relate animal welfare science to value reflections. (shrink)

With the rise of research impact as a ‘third’ space (next to research and teaching) within the universities in the United Kingdom and beyond, academics are increasingly expected to not only produce research but also engage in brokering knowledge beyond academia. And yet little is known about the ways in which academics shape their practices in order to respond to these new forms of institutionalised expectations and make sense of knowledge brokering as a form of academic practice. Drawing on 51 (...) qualitative interviews with researchers and research users involved in two large knowledge brokering initiatives in the UK, this study identifies four repertoires of co-production practices: (i) _Challenge_ to the existing policy framework, (ii) _Deliberation_ between diverse stakeholders, (iii) _Evidence intervention_ producing of actionable knowledge, and (iv) _Advocacy_ for specific evidence-based options. By exploring knowledge brokering as navigation of different knowledge production regimes – traditionally academic and policy-oriented – the paper contributes to the existing debates by providing insights into the nature of navigating science-policy interactions as a process of epistemological bricolage, requiring an assemblage of different meanings, values and practices into new repertoires of practice. Importantly, the choice of a repertoire is not limited to the individual choice of a researcher but rather, it is shaped by the broader institutional context of higher education, risking _instrumental bias_ in which practices oriented towards practical solutions are incentivised over critical or participatory forms of engagement. (shrink)

Push: Software Design and the Cultural Politics of Music Production shows how changes in the design of music software in the first decades of the twenty-first century shaped the production techniques and performance practices of artists working across media, from hip-hop and electronic dance music to video games and mobile apps. Emerging alongside developments in digital music distribution such as peer-to-peer file sharing and the MP3 format, digital audio workstations like FL Studio and Ableton Live introduced design affordances (...) that encouraged rapid music creation workflows through flashy, "user-friendly" interfaces. Meanwhile, software such as Avid's Pro Tools attempted to protect its status as the "industry standard," "professional" DAW of choice by incorporating design elements from pre-digital music technologies. Other software, like Cycling 74's Max, asserted its alterity to "commercial" DAWs by presenting users with nothing but a blank screen. These are more than just aesthetic design choices. Push examines the social, cultural, and political values designed into music software, and how those values become embodied by musical communities through production and performance. It reveals ties between the maximalist design of FL Studio, skeuomorphic design in Pro Tools, and gender inequity in the music products industry. It connects the computational thinking required by Max, as well as iZotope's innovations in artificial intelligence, with the cultural politics of Silicon Valley's "design thinking." Finally, it thinks through what happens when software becomes hardware, and users externalize their screens through the use of MIDI controllers, mobile media, and video game controllers. Amidst the perpetual upgrade culture of music technology, Push provides a model for understanding software as a microcosm for the increasing convergence of globalization, neoliberal capitalism, and techno-utopianism that has come to define our digital lives. (shrink)

In 1972, in Chile, the German designer Gui Bonsiepe was in charge of the Industrial Design Department of Technological Institute of the National Corporation for the Promotion of Production INTEC Corfo, during the government of socialist President Salvador Allende in Chile. In this article from the INTEC magazine n.2, published this time for the first time in English, Bonsiepe develops a theoretical formulation, applied to the field of design, through which he proposes a concept that will be fundamental in (...) the field of interactive development, both analog and digital: the Interface. Thus, it also includes concepts of cybernetics such as variability and predictive study of behavior in the field of projecting disciplines. Bonsiepe is an exceptional representative during the formation of the iconic Hochschule für Gestaltung in Ulm. And among other elements, one very outstanding was his time as a student of Professor Max Bense and Horst Rittel, who would have introduced the concepts of first-order Cybernetics in the teaching of communication, and the design of information, in a pioneering way. The challenge posed in 1972, in Chile, focused on the possibility of calculating elements of criticism of political economy, in the field of knowledge generated by sensitive experiences, "calculating the use value" of the field of esthetics. As a renowned disciple of Max Bense and Tomas Maldonado, Bonsiepe represents the meeting of two Cybernetic traditions, collaborating with the emblematic Cybersyn Corfo project, in which the formulation of interaction mechanisms was strategic in combination with Stafford Beer's approaches to a second-order Cybernetics, according to the Viable System Model, for a project of decentralized state production, and transmission of information in real time. (shrink)

To make the interface design of computer application system better, meet the psychological and emotional needs of users, and be more humanized, the emotional factor is increasingly valued by interface designers. In the design of human-computer interaction graphical interfaces, the designer attaches great importance to the emotional design of the interface, and enhances the humanized design of the interface, which cannot only improve the comfort of the interface, but also improve the fun of the interface, to ensure the psychological (...) and emotional needs of users can be better satisfied. It may acquire information that is favorable to innovative design by utilizing cluster analysis algorithm to tackle the problem of complicated cultural information, and then utilize cellular genetic algorithm to carry out creative design of cultural items. It increases the availability of cultural and creative goods. The classic cluster analysis technique offers the maximum data clustering effect of 53.3%, according to the findings of this paper’s experiments. While the improved cluster analysis algorithm has the highest data clustering effect of 90%. It can be seen that the improved cluster analysis algorithm can effectively perform cluster analysis on a large amount of data in cultural and creative products. It thus finds out the most suitable designer’s creative information, which helps designers create better products. (shrink)

This paper explores the use of Laban’s effort actions from the field of dance and drama as a means to document user responses to physical product interaction. A range of traditional and modern product pairs were identified and reviewed in two workshops, where participants were asked to discuss and complete worksheets on their emotional response. The results provide qualitative feedback on their reactions to the different movements, and form the beginnings of an ‘emotional vocabulary’ that we plan to use in (...) the development of semantic differentials for future studies. Key factors in emotional response to gesture have been identified, including aligning movement to product function, emotional conflicts in movement, and user readiness and framing a sequence of movements. Keywords: Design research; gesture; human factors; interface design. (shrink)

This paper explores the use of Laban’s effort actions from the field of dance and drama as a means to document user responses to physical product interaction. A range of traditional and modern product pairs were identified and reviewed in two workshops, where participants were asked to discuss and complete worksheets on their emotional response. The results provide qualitative feedback on their reactions to the different movements, and form the beginnings of an ‘emotional vocabulary’ that we plan to use in (...) the development of semantic differentials for future studies. Key factors in emotional response to gesture have been identified, including aligning movement to product function, emotional conflicts in movement, and user readiness and framing a sequence of movements. Keywords: Design research; gesture; human factors; interface design. (shrink)

This paper explores the interface between users and producers of translational science through three case studies. It argues that effective TS requires a breakdown between user and producer roles: users become producers and producers become users. In making this claim, we challenge conventional understandings of TS as well as linear models of innovation. Policy-makers and funders increasingly expect TS and its associated socioeconomic benefits to occur when funding scientific research. We argue that a better understanding of the hybridity between users (...) and producers in TS is essential to encouraging effective TS activities. In arguing for broader understandings of the hybrid roles of user/producers in TS we rely on empirical observations made during our four-year study of three translational pathways here labeled clinical, commercial, and civic. These pathways were identified in a large-scale network of scientists investigating the pathogenomics of innate immunity (i.e. “the PI.2 network”.. (shrink)

A broad sketch for a model of speech production is outlined which describes developmental aspects of its cognitive-linguistic and sensorimotor components. A description of the emergence of phonological knowledge is a central point in our model sketch. It will be shown that the phonological form level emerges during speech acquisition and becomes an important representation at the interface between cognitive-linguistic and sensorimotor processes. Motor planning as well as motor programming are defined as separate processes in our model sketch and (...) it will be shown that both processes revert to the phonological information. Two computational simulation experiments based on quantitative implementations are undertaken to show proof of principle of key ideas of the model sketch: the emergence of phonological information over developmental stages, the adaptation process for generating new motor programs, and the importance of various forms of phonological representation in that process. Based on the ideas developed within our sketch of a production model and its quantitative spell-out within the simulation models, motor planning can be defined here as the process of identifying a succession of executable chunks from a currently activated phoneme sequence and of coding them as raw gesture scores. Motor programming can be defined as the process of building up the complete set of motor commands by specifying all gestures in detail. This full specification of gesture scores is achieved in our model by adapting motor information from phonologically similar syllables or by assembling motor programs from sub-syllabic units. (shrink)

The aim of this paper was to present ongoing research on the social representations relating to ritalin in Brazil between 1998 and 2008. Over this period, there was a considerable increase in ritalin usage and expansion of its use to purposes other than therapeutic use. Ritalin has been used not only for treating attention disorders, but also to enhance cognitive functions in healthy individuals. The research has developed through two fields of investigation with different methodologies. In the first field, Brazilian (...) scientific and popular publications have been investigated, with analysis on the arguments justifying ritalin usage and how scientific results are disseminated to the lay public in large-circulation newspapers. In the second field, focus groups have been used to explore the social representations that university students, students' parents and healthcare professionals have in relation to the use of ritalin for enhancing cognitive performance. -/- . (shrink)