Enactive Knowledge, Computer Technology and Multimodal Interfaces

Enaction is a recent approach in psychology and in cognitive sciences and it remains not easy to understand and to situate. Its introduction in the field of Computer Technology and Multimodal Interfaces has been initiated explicitly in the FP6 Enactive Interfaces Network of Excellence. It is nothing less than a conceptual revolution, an important paradigm shift.

This leads to necessary confrontations between several disciplines in order to bridge gaps, understand different ways of thinking, plunge within unfamiliar definitions, rub up with different schools, and work to extend each domain by new concepts, methods and results.

The Lexicon: a tool for interdisciplinarity

The Lexicon aims at overcoming the interdisciplinary gap inherent to this new paradigm. It has been designed as a tool to constitute a common vision on Enaction, Enactive Interaction, Enactive Knowledge and Enactive systems, allowing students and researchers to reach, at a glance, a sufficient interdisciplinary level, in order to tackle efficiently the new question of « Enaction and Technology ».
Through a wide panel of words, terms, expressions, presented in a synthetic form, shorter than scientific papers or disciplinary books, it aims at creating a global understanding of the Enactive paysage, and stimulating new researches at the cross-point of disciplines, and ultimately at fostering a new generation of young researchers on Enaction and Enactive Systems.

Differently from dictionaries, the Lexicon includes debates, theoretical problems, controversies, expressions of complementary irreducible approaches. Terms are related to research in progress, addressing debates or schools differentiations, addressing other unfamiliar frameworks for laypersons of other disciplines.
Differently from several on-line encyclopedias, it includes the names of the authors and contributors; the contents are certified by experts through consensus meetings, and they refer explicitly to their scientific context with a minimal set of sufficient references. And finally, relations with the field of Enaction are discussed.
In order to guaranty an optimal exploration of the Lexicon and to avoid the reader to be trapped within a sub-domain of expertise, the technique of related items has been used to stimulate interdisciplinary exploration with a sufficient internal connectivity.

The Lexicon comprises about 200 terms covering the different fields necessary to explore the landscape of enaction and technologies: sensory-motor theories of interaction, multimodal integration, haptic and multimodal interfaces, instrumental interaction, virtual reality, design, human-computer interfaces, paradigms in cognitive sciences, robotics and teleoperation. Most of them have been written in collaboration by authors from different disciplines.