Vision on Enactive Knowledge
The objective of this Integration Activity is to elaborate and to disseminate a sharable common background on Enactive Interaction, Enactive Interfaces and Enactive Knowledge. It consists of a common multidisciplinary effort to produce and disseminate a systemic approach that comprises concepts issued from the technological, biological and cognitive fields. Partners, starting from their different bases of expertise and competence, provide contributions to a common background that allows to structure and to guide future common researches.
The work is organized through debates, workshops, conferences, and comprises the elaboration of a Enactive Lexicon of the terms and concepts on the domain. It includes, in close collaboration with SEA1, the definition of a strategy and the implementation of activities for dissemination.
The main activities undertaken in 2006 were:
- The analysis of concepts and philosophical points of view in in technological categories and works.
- The implementation of the Enactive Lexicon.
- The specification of Dynamic Enactive Lexicon
Analysis of the underlying concepts and philosophical points of view embedded in technological categories and works.
The aim to sketch the main lines and the main ideas supported by major disciplines and works invoked by Enactive Interfaces and Enactive Knowledge, in order to have at our disposal the necessary and sufficient conceptual paving to pursue theoretical clarifications and enlightening (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Possible interactions between Humans and World with and without computerized objective representations (see the Deliverable D.IA2.1)
Enactive Lexicon
Enactive Lexicon instantiates the definitions of the epistemological, scientific and technological basis of Enactive Interaction, Interfaces and knowledge. Complementarily to the new task Emblematic Enactive Scenarii” (designed as “intensive” activity), the “Enactive Lexicon” is designed as an “Extensive activity” aimed to create a sort of “potential field”, by means of a collaborative extensive work, around terms and definitions, accepting divergence and discrepancies in various theoretical and technological approaches represented in the NoE EI.
The main originality and challenge of this activity is to initiate the transdisciplinary and “trans-laboratory” collaborative work in the scientific fields related to Enactive Interaction. Differently from dictionaries, Enactive Lexicon includes debates and theoretical problems, the definitions are more the mean to make explicit theoretical problems than simple definitions of terms.
Differently from several on-line encyclopaedia:
- it includes the names of the authors,
- the terms will be verified by all the experts of the network
- the procedure of “consensus meetings” will be the heart of theoretical activity and elaboration of common vision.
Figure 2. Lexicon.
The work conducted by 2006 consisted in
- Design and development of the on-line tool adapted to this specific activity.
- Elaboration on the definitions.
- A first round of verification of definitions.
- Opening of the Lexicon to the public.
The Lexicon comprises about 400 terms of which 282 filled-in in 2006.
The terms cover mainly the fields of sensory-motor theories of interaction, haptic and multimodal interfaces, instrumental interaction, design, HCI, multimodal integration, different paradigms in cognitive sciences.
Several terms are written collaboratively by different laboratories. As an example, here is a quotation from the definition of Virtual Reality by INPG and EPFL.
[…] Behind the same terms “Virtual Reality” and Artificial Reality”, there are two different orientations discriminated by the choice of the human’s position in such tools : the “vis-à-vis” position or the “immersive position”. […]
1. The Krueger and Lanier approaches are similar. They emphasise the “immersive approach”. Keeping out the understanding of VR initiated by the data glove, data suit and head-mounted display as tools to completely isolate the real human of the real world and as a completely reconstructed world to replace completely the real world […]
2. Following the Sutherland’s approach grounding the “interactive Computer Graphics”, [Sutherland 1963], J. Foley, adopted the “vis-à-vis” point of view, and introduced force feedback devices in Computer Graphics. Notice that in HCI, the daily used “display and mouse” technology implements the vis-à-vis concept). The meaning brought to AR by J. Foley refers to an Instrument-in-Hand approach, that is the use of an object in hand as an instrument to perform an external task. […]
Several “multiple” terms have been identified, instantiating debates and theoretical controversies in the field of Enactive Interaction. As an example, here is a quotation from 3 definitions of Transparency reflecting the richness of different approaches:
“[…] It is only when the sensory-motor dynamics have been assimilated and become “second nature” that the interface “drops out” of consciousness (transparency), to be replaced by a “presence” of objects, and the actions that the user is performing “in the world. […]” (J. Stewart)
“[…] transparency cannot be taken as a relevant feature in design of new instruments and of the interaction with them. […]” (A. Luciani)
“ […] In teleoperation, within the relatively narrow scope of manipulating a tool, transparency is achieved if the operator cannot distinguish between manoeuvring the master device and manoeuvring the actual tool.. […]” (M. Bergamasco)
Dynamic Enactive Lexicon
The Dynamic Enactive Lexicon consists in the identification of the “dynamic words”, exemplifying the principle of “enactive appropriation” of concepts (web-accessible interactive demos which permits a better experiencing of the underlying concept).
The work consisted in the selection of the small number (4-7) to be implemented, the study of the technical conditions for this implementation (tools, partners involved for concrete implementation). In 2006, 4 exemplary words have been chosen and are under development (Eyes in hand, Audio Stiffness, Sensory substitution, Multisensory contour).
