Igor Dolgov

Embodiment, Multimodality, and Composition: Convergent Themes across HCI and Education for Mixed-Reality Learning Environments

We present concurrent theoretical work from HCI and Education that reveals a convergence of trends focused on the importance of three themes: embodiment, multimodality, and composition. We argue that there is great potential for truly transformative work that aligns HCI and Education research, and posit that there is an important opportunity to advance this effort through the full integration of the three themes into a theoretical and technological framework for learning. We present our own work in this regard, introducing the Situated Multimedia Arts Learning Lab (SMALLab). SMALLab is a mixed-reality environment where students collaborate and interact with sonic and visual media through full-body, 3D movements in an open physical space. SMALLab emphasizes human-to-human interaction within a multimodal, computational context. We present a recent case study that documents the development of a new SMALLab learning scenario, a collaborative student participation framework, a student-centered curriculum, and a three-day teaching experiment for seventy-two earth science students. Participating students demonstrated significant learning gains as a result of the treatment. We conclude that our theoretical and technological framework can be broadly applied in the realization of mixed reality, student-centered learning environments.

The dynamics of conditioning and extinction.

Pigeons responded to intermittently reinforced classical conditioning trials with erratic bouts of responding to the conditioned stimulus. Responding depended on whether the prior trial contained a peck, food, or both. A linear persistence-learning model moved pigeons into and out of a response state, and a Weibull distribution for number of within-trial responses governed in-state pecking. Variations of trial and intertrial durations caused correlated changes in rate and probability of responding and in model parameters. A novel prediction--in the protracted absence of food, response rates can plateau above zero--was validated. The model predicted smooth acquisition functions when instantiated with the probability of food but a more accurate jagged learning curve when instantiated with trial-to-trial records of reinforcement. The Skinnerian parameter was dominant only when food could be accelerated or delayed by pecking. These experiments provide a framework for trial-by-trial accounts of conditioning and extinction that increases the information available from the data, permitting such accounts to comment more definitively on complex contemporary models of momentum and conditioning.

Research Report: Effects of cooperative gaming and avatar customization on subsequent spontaneous helping behavior

Cooperative gaming is quickly becoming the preferred form of entertainment among children and teens. Although game content is typically violent, often producing negative social outcomes, cooperative game play ameliorates its anti-social impact in future formal instances of cooperation. The present study examined the influence of cooperative and competitive game play on subsequent spontaneous helping in a pair of experiments. The mitigating role of playing with a customized or generic avatar was also evaluated. In Experiment 1, participants played doubles tennis in Wii Sports either cooperatively or competitively with a confederate. Results revealed that participants who cooperated picked up significantly more pens spilled by the confederate after gameplay than those that competed, but only when they customized their avatars. In Experiment 2, cooperative game play in Wii Sports Resort canoeing engendered significantly more spontaneous helping regardless of avatar customization. These findings are generally consistent with recent gaming research and suggest that in-game cooperation and competition have more bearing on social outcomes than game content.

Prevalence-based decisions undermine visual search

In visual search, observers make decisions about the presence or absence of a target based on their perception of a target during search. The present study investigated whether decisions can be based on observers’ expectation rather than perception of a target. In Experiment 1, participants were allowed to make target-present responses by clicking on the target or, if the target was not perceived, a target-present button. Participants used the target-present button option more frequently in difficult search trials and when target prevalence was high. Experiment 2 and 3 employed a difficult search task that encouraged the use of prevalence-based decisions. Target presence was reported faster when target prevalence was high, indicating that decisions were, in part, cognitive, and not strictly perceptual. A similar pattern of responses were made even when no targets appeared in the search (Experiment 3). The implication of these prevalence-based decisions for visual search models is discussed.

A signal-detection-theory representation of normal and hallucinatory perception

Collerton et al.s Perception and Attention Deficit (PAD) model argues that all recurrent complex visual hallucinations (RCVH) result from maladaptive, deficient sensory and attentional processing. We outline a constructivist-based representation of perception using signal detection theory, in which hallucinations are modeled as false alarms when confirmational perceptual information is lacking. This representation allows for some individuals to have RCVH due to a criterion shift associated with attentional proficiency that results in an increased awareness of the environment.

Chasin’ choppers: using unpredictable trajectories to test theories of object interception

Three theories of the informational basis for object interception strategies were tested in an experiment where participants pursued toy helicopters. Helicopters were used as targets because their unpredictable trajectories have different effects on the optical variables that have been proposed as the basis of object interception, providing a basis for determining the variables that best explain this behavior. Participants pursued helicopters while the positions of both pursuer and helicopter were continuously monitored. Using models to predict the observed optical trajectories of the helicopter and ground positions of the pursuer, optical acceleration was eliminated as a basis of object interception. A model based on control of optical velocity (COV) provided the best match to pursuer ground movements, while one based on segments of linear optical trajectories (SLOT) provided the best match to the observed optical trajectories. We describe suggestions for further research to distinguish the COV and SLOT models.

Evidence for a positive relationship between working-memory capacity and detection of low-prevalence targets in visual search.

Our ability to detect a target in visual search relates to the prevalence of the target, whereby rare targets are missed more than common targets. The current study sought to identify operator characteristics that could account for the higher miss rates associated with rare targets. The results found that working-memory capacity, which is strongly related to attentional control and inhibition of irrelevant information, was significantly correlated with the ability to detect low-prevalence targets. High-capacity observers also exhibited lengthened target-absent responses with rare targets, suggesting that the high-capacity observers were more persistent in their searches than others.

The dark side of technology

We investigated whether there is a causal relationship between the presence of customizability technology (i.e., technology that allows individuals/websites to tailor the information environment according to users preferences) and political selective exposure. We found that various forms of customizability technology (especially, system-driven customizability) increase selective exposure in the context of online political news consumption. Moreover, customizability technology has a stronger effect on minimizing exposure to counter-attitudinal information than it has on increasing exposure to pro-attitudinal information. The effect of customizability on selective exposure was particularly strong for ideologically moderate individuals. This study extends the understanding of the selective exposure process in todays communication environment and clarifies the implications of the Internet for deliberative democracy theory. Various forms of customizability increase political news selective exposure.System-driven customizability produced the strongest effect.The effect was particularly strong for reducing exposure to counter-attitudinal information.The effect was particularly strong for ideologically moderate individuals.

Receivers in American Football Use a Constant Optical Projection Plane Angle to Pursue and Catch Thrown Footballs

In the present work we test how well two interceptive strategies, which have been proposed for catching balls hit high in the air in baseball and cricket, account for receivers in American football catching footballs. This is an important test of the domain generality of these strategies as this is the first study examining a situation where the pursuers locomotor axis is directed away from the origin of the ball, and because the flight characteristics of an American football are far different from targets studied in prior work. The first strategy is to elicit changes in the balls lateral optical position that match changes in the vertical optical position so that the optical projection plane angle, ψ, remains constant, thus resulting in a linear optical trajectory (LOT). The second is keeping vertical optical ball velocity decreasing while maintaining constant lateral optical velocity (generalized optical acceleration cancellation, or GOAC). We found that the optical projection plane angle was maintained as constant significantly more often than maintaining vertical and lateral optical velocities as GOAC predicted. The present experiment extends previous research by showing that the constancy of ψ resulting in an LOT is used by humans pursuing American footballs and demonstrates the domain generality of the LOT heuristic.

Gender and Personality Trait Measures Impact Degree of Affect Change in a Hedonic Computing Paradigm

To date, affective computing research has acknowledged individual differences with regard to detecting affect, yet little research has explored how these individual differences may determine the degree to which affective computing is successful in manipulating the affect of specific computer users. The current study used individual difference measures to predict how much an individual can be influenced by a hedonic computing paradigm: a simple trivia game. Female participants responded in a greater way to positive affective feedback about their performance than did men. Moreover, several personality traits, including neuroticism, narcissism, self-esteem, and extraversion, augmented the degree to which affect changed as a result of playing the game. The results are consistent with the gender differences hypothesis, and the authors conclude that individual differences, particularly gender and personality traits, play a large role in the potential impact of computing platforms and would be useful in personalizing the affective nature of the human–computer interaction.