scispace - formally typeset
Search or ask a question

Showing papers in "International Journal of Human-computer Studies \/ International Journal of Man-machine Studies in 2009"


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article focuses on research that extracts and makes use of the concepts, relations, facts and descriptions found in Wikipedia, and organizes the work into four broad categories: applying Wikipedia to natural language processing; using it to facilitate information retrieval and information extraction; and as a resource for ontology building.
Abstract: Wikipedia is a goldmine of information; not just for its many readers, but also for the growing community of researchers who recognize it as a resource of exceptional scale and utility. It represents a vast investment of manual effort and judgment: a huge, constantly evolving tapestry of concepts and relations that is being applied to a host of tasks. This article provides a comprehensive description of this work. It focuses on research that extracts and makes use of the concepts, relations, facts and descriptions found in Wikipedia, and organizes the work into four broad categories: applying Wikipedia to natural language processing; using it to facilitate information retrieval and information extraction; and as a resource for ontology building. The article addresses how Wikipedia is being used as is, how it is being improved and adapted, and how it is being combined with other structures to create entirely new resources. We identify the research groups and individuals involved, and how their work has developed in the last few years. We provide a comprehensive list of the open-source software they have produced.

399 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Comparison of results obtained using either peripheral or EEG signals confirms the interest of using EEGs to assess valence and arousal in emotion recall conditions.
Abstract: The work presented in this paper aims at assessing human emotions using peripheral as well as electroencephalographic (EEG) physiological signals on short-time periods Three specific areas of the valence-arousal emotional space are defined, corresponding to negatively excited, positively excited, and calm-neutral states An acquisition protocol based on the recall of past emotional life episodes has been designed to acquire data from both peripheral and EEG signals Pattern classification is used to distinguish between the three areas of the valence-arousal space The performance of several classifiers has been evaluated on 10 participants and different feature sets: peripheral features, EEG time-frequency features, EEG pairwise mutual information (MI) features Comparison of results obtained using either peripheral or EEG signals confirms the interest of using EEGs to assess valence and arousal in emotion recall conditions The obtained accuracy for the three emotional classes is 63% using EEG time-frequency features, which is better than the results obtained from previous studies using EEG and similar classes Fusion of the different feature sets at the decision level using a summation rule also showed to improve accuracy to 70% Furthermore, the rejection of non-confident samples finally led to a classification accuracy of 80% for the three classes

349 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The research confirms the complexity of a model in which cognitive, cognitive-affective and affective elements are present, and advances knowledge on the consequences of perceived interactivity.
Abstract: Novel applications of website interactivity are important to attract and retain online users. In this empirical study five designs for interactivity are examined using different web-poll interfaces. The goal of the investigation is to examine perceived interactivity in a model which includes most commonly tested cognitive elements such as efficiency and effectiveness, but augments this model with the inclusion of a cognitive-affective element for trust, and an affective element of enjoyment. More specifically, a model is created to validate the relationship of perceived interactivity (comprised of user control, user connectedness, and responsiveness of the web-poll application) to efficiency, effectiveness, trust and enjoyment, of the website. In turn, efficiency, effectiveness, trust, and enjoyment are tested for their influence on user behavioral intentions for e-loyalty. All relationships in the model are supported. In addition, exploratory evaluation of qualitative comments is conducted to investigate additional insights between the five web-poll treatments in this investigation. The research confirms the complexity of a model in which cognitive, cognitive-affective and affective elements are present, and advances knowledge on the consequences of perceived interactivity. In additional to theoretical advancements, the research has merit for web designers and online marketers regarding how to enhance interactive online web applications.

289 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: It is demonstrated that visual complexity of websites has multiple effects on human cognition and emotion, including experienced pleasure and arousal, facial expression, autonomic nervous system activation, task performance, and memory, and it should thus be considered an important factor in website design.
Abstract: Visual complexity is an apparent feature in website design yet its effects on cognitive and emotional processing are not well understood. The current study examined website complexity within the framework of aesthetic theory and psychophysiological research on cognition and emotion. We hypothesized that increasing the complexity of websites would have a detrimental cognitive and emotional impact on users. In a passive viewing task (PVT) 36 website screenshots differing in their degree of complexity (operationalized by JPEG file size; correlation with complexity ratings in a preliminary study r=.80) were presented to 48 participants in randomized order. Additionally, a standardized visual search task (VST) assessing reaction times, and a one-week-delayed recognition task on these websites were conducted and participants rated all websites for arousal and valence. Psychophysiological responses were assessed during the PVT and VST. Visual complexity was related to increased experienced arousal, more negative valence appraisal, decreased heart rate, and increased facial muscle tension (musculus corrugator). Visual complexity resulted in increased reaction times in the VST and decreased recognition rates. Reaction times in the VST were related to increases in heart rate and electrodermal activity. These findings demonstrate that visual complexity of websites has multiple effects on human cognition and emotion, including experienced pleasure and arousal, facial expression, autonomic nervous system activation, task performance, and memory. It should thus be considered an important factor in website design.

248 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A structured overview of the research into emotional simulation in agents is presented, providing a summary of the main studies, re-formulating appropriate results in terms of the emotional effects demonstrated, and an in-depth analysis illustrating the similarities and inconsistencies between different experiments across a variety of different domains.
Abstract: Embodied agents have received large amounts of interest in recent years. They are often equipped with the ability to express emotion, but without understanding the impact this can have on the user. Given the amount of research studies that are utilising agent technology with affective capabilities, now is an important time to review the influence of synthetic agent emotion on user attitudes, perceptions and behaviour. We therefore present a structured overview of the research into emotional simulation in agents, providing a summary of the main studies, re-formulating appropriate results in terms of the emotional effects demonstrated, and an in-depth analysis illustrating the similarities and inconsistencies between different experiments across a variety of different domains. We highlight important lessons, future areas for research, and provide a set of guidelines for conducting further research.

236 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Results show that it is possible to classify cognitive and physical stress conditions relative to non-stress conditions based on keystroke and linguistic features with accuracy rates comparable to those currently obtained using affective computing methods.
Abstract: Monitoring of cognitive and physical function is central to the care of people with or at risk for various health conditions, but existing solutions rely on intrusive methods that are inadequate for continuous tracking. Less intrusive techniques that facilitate more accurate and frequent monitoring of the status of cognitive or physical function become increasingly desirable as the population ages and lifespan increases. Since the number of seniors using computers continues to grow dramatically, a method that exploits normal daily computer interactions is attractive. This research explores the possibility of detecting cognitive and physical stress by monitoring keyboard interactions with the eventual goal of detecting acute or gradual changes in cognitive and physical function. Researchers have already attributed a certain amount of variability and ''drift'' in an individual's typing pattern to situational factors as well as stress, but this phenomenon has not been explored adequately. In an attempt to detect changes in typing associated with stress, this research analyzes keystroke and linguistic features of spontaneously generated text. Results show that it is possible to classify cognitive and physical stress conditions relative to non-stress conditions based on keystroke and linguistic features with accuracy rates comparable to those currently obtained using affective computing methods. The proposed approach is attractive because it requires no additional hardware, is unobtrusive, is adaptable to individual users, and is of very low cost. This research demonstrates the potential of exploiting continuous monitoring of keyboard interactions to support the early detection of changes in cognitive and physical function.

206 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Supporting rich interactions between users and machine learning systems is feasible for both user and machine, and shows the potential of rich human-computer collaboration via on-the-spot interactions as a promising direction for machineLearning systems and users to collaboratively share intelligence.
Abstract: Although machine learning is becoming commonly used in today's software, there has been little research into how end users might interact with machine learning systems, beyond communicating simple ''right/wrong'' judgments. If the users themselves could work hand-in-hand with machine learning systems, the users' understanding and trust of the system could improve and the accuracy of learning systems could be improved as well. We conducted three experiments to understand the potential for rich interactions between users and machine learning systems. The first experiment was a think-aloud study that investigated users' willingness to interact with machine learning reasoning, and what kinds of feedback users might give to machine learning systems. We then investigated the viability of introducing such feedback into machine learning systems, specifically, how to incorporate some of these types of user feedback into machine learning systems, and what their impact was on the accuracy of the system. Taken together, the results of our experiments show that supporting rich interactions between users and machine learning systems is feasible for both user and machine. This shows the potential of rich human-computer collaboration via on-the-spot interactions as a promising direction for machine learning systems and users to collaboratively share intelligence.

200 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Estimating the congruence of perceptions of aesthetic value over time, including judgements after use of a web site, manipulating the aesthetic design of web pages and studying the relationship between usability and aesthetic value concludes that context is a pivotal factor influencing the stability of users' perceptions.
Abstract: An important aspect of the empirical study of user experience is the process by which users form aesthetic and other judgements of interactive products. The current study extends previous research by presenting test users with a context (mode of use) in which to make their judgements, using sets of web pages from specific domains rather than unrelated pages, studying the congruence of perceptions of aesthetic value over time, including judgements after use of a web site, manipulating the aesthetic design of web pages and studying the relationship between usability and aesthetic value. The results from two experiments demonstrate that context increases the stability of judgements from perceptions after brief exposure to those after self-paced exposure and from perceptions after self-paced exposure to those of after site use. Experiment 1 shows that relatively attractive pages are preferred over relatively unattractive pages after brief exposure, but only if no context is provided. Experiment 2 shows that after brief exposure, classically aesthetic pages that are information oriented are rated as more attractive than expressively aesthetic pages. Perceptions are not correlated with measures of task performance or mental effort. We conclude that context is a pivotal factor influencing the stability of users' perceptions, which must be explicitly addressed in the study of users' product experience. Furthermore, the type of aesthetics that is relevant to users' perceptions appears to depend on the application domain. The principle 'what is beautiful is usable' is not confirmed.

194 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Emp empirical findings from four inter-related studies are reported, with an emphasis on collocated sharing, to understand the enduring importance of co-present sharing of photos and the importance of oral narratives around images in enacting identity and relationships.
Abstract: This article reports empirical findings from four inter-related studies, with an emphasis on collocated sharing. Collocated sharing remains important, using both traditional and emerging image-related technologies. Co-present viewing is a dynamic, improvisational construction of a contingent, situated interaction between story-teller and audience. The concept of performance, as articulated differently by Erving Goffman and Judith Butler, is useful understand the enduring importance of co-present sharing of photos and the importance of oral narratives around images in enacting identity and relationships. Finally, we suggest some implications for both HCI research and the design of image-related technologies.

188 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: One of the main findings is that the mobile phone is ''a must'' for college students to keep in contact with their family.
Abstract: The current study seeks to understand if there is a pattern between college students' mobile phone usage and their family members at home, and to what degree it affects their college life. Three focus group interviews were conducted on February 1, February 2, and February 15, 2006. A total of 40 undergraduate students who were majoring in communication studies participated in the study. One of the main findings is that the mobile phone is ''a must'' for college students to keep in contact with their family. Other findings suggest that college students use mobile phones to have more frequent contact with their family and to fulfill family roles. College students also utilize mobile phones to share experiences and emotional and physical support with their parents.

186 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The results highlight the complexity of factors that researchers and designers must understand when attempting to design technology to support and enhance relationships, including trade-offs between facilitating interaction while minimizing new obligations, reducing effort without trivializing communication, and balancing awareness with privacy.
Abstract: In recent years, computer and Internet technologies have broadened the ways that people can stay in touch. Through interviews with parents and grandparents, we examined how people use existing technologies to communicate and share with their extended family. While most of our participants expressed a desire for more communication and sharing with their extended family, many felt that an increase would realistically be difficult to achieve due to challenges such as busy schedules or extended family members' lack of technology use. Our results also highlight the complexity of factors that researchers and designers must understand when attempting to design technology to support and enhance relationships, including trade-offs between facilitating interaction while minimizing new obligations, reducing effort without trivializing communication, and balancing awareness with privacy.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: It is argued that existing knowledge concerning the nature of support for the young-or-older users engaged in instrumental activities are inadequate when the authors wish to build understanding of and design for young-and-olderusers, engaged in collective playfulness.
Abstract: This paper explores playfulness between grandparents and grandchildren, especially when they are separated by distance, and investigates ideas to bridge this separation. We present the result of a three stage investigation; the first an observational study of collocated intergenerational play groups, the second a cultural probes study of distributed intergenerational playfulness, and finally a technology probe study of a system for mediating intergenerational play across distance. In each case we discuss the nature of intergenerational play, the methodological issues, and explore opportunities for technological innovation through the 'Collage'. We argue that existing knowledge concerning the nature of support for the young-or-older users engaged in instrumental activities are inadequate when we wish to build understanding of and design for young-and-older users, engaged in collective playfulness.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: An empirical study compared three theories of agent realism: Realism Maximization Theory, Uncanny Valley Theory, and Consistency Theory showed that people responded best to an embodied agent when it demonstrated moderately realistic, inconsistent behavior.
Abstract: Designers of embodied agents constantly strive to create agents that appear more human-like, with the belief that increasing the human-likeness of agents will improve users' interactions with agents. While designers have focused on visual realism, less attention has been paid to the effects of agents' behavioral realism on users' responses. This paper presents an empirical study that compared three theories of agent realism: Realism Maximization Theory, Uncanny Valley Theory, and Consistency Theory. Results of this study showed that people responded best to an embodied agent when it demonstrated moderately realistic, inconsistent behavior. These results support Uncanny Valley Theory and demonstrate the powerful influence of agent behavior on users' responses.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: It was difficult to keep a phone conversation engaging-both parents and children instead sought ways to maintain contact through shared activities and routines but found little technological support to do so while separated.
Abstract: Divorce affects a significant number of children and parents worldwide. We interviewed 10 parents and five children to get a qualitative understanding of the challenges faced by these families and the role of technology in maintaining contact. We found that both parents had a strong need to maintain autonomy in raising the child, though the residential parent had more opportunities to be instrumentally involved. Both parents and children sought to manage tensions between the two households-parents by reducing interruption of the other household, children by trying to keep contact with the other parent as private as possible. Our participants used the telephone as the primary means to stay in touch while apart but expressed dissatisfaction with the limits of audio-only communication. It was difficult to keep a phone conversation engaging-both parents and children instead sought ways to maintain contact through shared activities and routines but found little technological support to do so while separated. Situated in these results, we present implications for design that may aid in creating technologies for communication between parents and young children in divorced families.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss quantitative and qualitative approaches which provide opportunities to evaluate the music-making interaction, accounting for aspects which cannot be directly measured or expressed numerically, yet which may be important for participants.
Abstract: Live music-making using interactive systems is not completely amenable to traditional HCI evaluation metrics such as task-completion rates. In this paper we discuss quantitative and qualitative approaches which provide opportunities to evaluate the music-making interaction, accounting for aspects which cannot be directly measured or expressed numerically, yet which may be important for participants. We present case studies in the application of a qualitative method based on Discourse Analysis, and a quantitative method based on the Turing Test. We compare and contrast these methods with each other, and with other evaluation approaches used in the literature, and discuss factors affecting which evaluation methods are appropriate in a given context.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This paper examines how interactions can be designed to explicitly take into account the uncertainty and dynamics of control inputs, and highlights the asymmetry of feedback and control channels in current non-invasive brain-computer interfaces.
Abstract: Designing user interfaces which can cope with unconventional control properties is challenging, and conventional interface design techniques are of little help. This paper examines how interactions can be designed to explicitly take into account the uncertainty and dynamics of control inputs. In particular, the asymmetry of feedback and control channels is highlighted as a key design constraint, which is especially obvious in current non-invasive brain-computer interfaces (BCIs). Brain-computer interfaces are systems capable of decoding neural activity in real time, thereby allowing a computer application to be directly controlled by thought. BCIs, however, have totally different signal properties than most conventional interaction devices. Bandwidth is very limited and there are comparatively long and unpredictable delays. Such interfaces cannot simply be treated as unwieldy mice. In this respect they are an example of a growing field of sensor-based interfaces which have unorthodox control properties. As a concrete example, we present the text entry application ''Hex-O-Spell'', controlled via motor-imagery based electroencephalography (EEG). The system utilizes the high visual display bandwidth to help compensate for the limited control signals, where the timing of the state changes encodes most of the information. We present results showing the comparatively high performance of this interface, with entry rates exceeding seven characters per minute.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: It is found that all the individual differences affect continuance intention either directly or indirectly (through satisfaction).
Abstract: This study aims to investigate whether individual differences affect enterprise resource planning (ERP) users' continuance intention. In the initial stage ERP users usually lack the complete will to determine whether or not they use ERP, but their continuance intentions are not always mandatory. Thus, understanding the relationship between individual differences and continuance intention helps design an effective training program, which in turn improves the effectiveness of ERP usage. Grounded on expectation-confirmation theory (ECT), this study examined the influences of dynamic and stable individual differences on satisfaction and continuance, respectively. Dynamic individual differences include both general computer self-efficacy and computer anxiety, and personal innovativeness in information technology (IT) refers to a stable, situation-specific traits. In addition to individual differences, we also assessed the moderating effect of ERP experience. A cross-sectional survey method was used to collect data. A total of 305 useful responses were analyzed by using partial least squares (PLS). We found that all the individual differences affect continuance intention either directly or indirectly (through satisfaction). Individuals' prior experience of ERP moderates five of the relationships between individual differences and continuance intention. We also provide implications for both managers and researchers.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The data provide evidence that delays cause a significant deterioration of performance, and indicates that delays in contemporary HCI may negatively affect work productivity, work satisfaction, and health-and-safety.
Abstract: It was thought that computer-performance-related problems in human-computer interaction (HCI) would become negligible with the constant increase in computing power. However, despite major advances in computer technology, contemporary HCI is still characterized by brief delays in computer responsiveness caused, for example, by background processes or network delays. Research on long system-response times (SRTs) indicates that delays may have negative behavioral and emotional consequences. However, there are fundamental differences between previously researched long SRTs and delays as they occur in contemporary HCI, such as different timings and occurrence probabilities. Therefore the previous research is not necessarily applicable to modern HCIs. We developed a paradigm aimed at mimicking important aspects of contemporary HCI to empirically test the effects of sporadic brief delays with an average duration of 1.6s. Results showed performance decrements in the response directly following a delay in terms of increased reaction times and error rates. Furthermore, blocks in which delays occurred were less liked than blocks without delays, suggesting that delays may affect the emotional state. The data provide evidence that delays cause a significant deterioration of performance, and indicates that delays in contemporary HCI may negatively affect work productivity, work satisfaction, and health-and-safety. Suggestions for HCI design and the relationship to user interruption are discussed.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The results show that the surveyed physicians tended to report a more negative view of the speech-recognition system after having used it for some months than before, and physicians' affinity with the system seems to be quite dependent on their perception of the associated new work procedures.
Abstract: The present study has surveyed physician views and attitudes before and after the introduction of speech technology as a front end to an electronic medical record. At the hospital where the survey was made, speech technology recently (2006-2007) replaced traditional dictation and subsequent secretarial transcription for all physicians in clinical departments. The aim of the survey was (i) to identify how attitudes and perceptions among physicians affected the acceptance and success of the speech-recognition system and the new work procedures associated with it; and (ii) to assess the degree to which physicians' attitudes and expectations to the use of speech technology changed after actually using it. The survey was based on two questionnaires-one administered when the physicians were about to begin training with the speech-recognition system and another, asking similar questions, when they had had some experience with the system. The survey data were supplemented with performance data from the speech-recognition system. The results show that the surveyed physicians tended to report a more negative view of the system after having used it for some months than before. When judging the system retrospectively, physicians are approximately evenly divided between those who think it was a good idea to introduce speech recognition (33%), those who think it was not (31%) and those who are neutral (36%). In particular, the physicians felt that they spent much more time producing medical records than before, including time correcting the speech recognition, and that the overall quality of records had declined. Nevertheless, workflow improvements and the possibility to access the records immediately after dictation were almost unanimously appreciated. Physicians' affinity with the system seems to be quite dependent on their perception of the associated new work procedures.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This work introduces a tool feature, usability problem instance records, to better support novice usability practitioners and describes the results of a study of this feature, which suggest that the feature helps to improve two aspects of the effectiveness of novice usability practitioner: reliability and quality.
Abstract: Although usability practitioners have successfully applied usability engineering processes to increase the usability of interaction designs, the literature suggests that usability practitioners experience a number of difficulties that negatively impact the effectiveness of their work, which in turn affects the effectiveness of the usability engineering processes within which they work. These difficulties include identifying and recording critical usability data and understanding and establishing relationships among usability data. These difficulties are particularly pronounced for novice usability practitioners. One approach to addressing these difficulties is through appropriate usability engineering tool support. We argue that existing usability engineering tools offer excellent support for helping experienced usability practitioners more efficiently do their jobs, but they provide little support for helping novice usability practitioners more effectively do their jobs. We introduce a tool feature, usability problem instance records, to better support novice usability practitioners. We describe the results of a study of this feature, which suggest that the feature helps to improve two aspects of the effectiveness of novice usability practitioners: reliability and quality.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Two studies using the portable Audience Response Facility demonstrate respondent agreement of perceived emotion during particular sections of two dance works, and arousal appears to be related to surface features of the dance work.
Abstract: If artists and art explore organization of the brain [Zeki, S., Lamb, M., 1994. The neurology of kinetic art. Brain 117, 607-636], then investigation of response to artistic performance holds promise as a window to perceptual and cognitive processes. A new instrument for recording real-time audience response - the portable Audience Response Facility (pARF) - is described. Twenty, hand-held, Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) collect responses on customizable skin interfaces. The pARF server transmits the customizable options, synchronizes devices and collects data for export. We report two studies using the pARF that demonstrate respondent agreement of perceived emotion during particular sections of two dance works. Greater agreement was evident in continuous ratings of arousal than valence; arousal appears to be related to surface features of the dance work. Future applications of the pARF to studies of multi-modal perception and cognition are discussed.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: It was concluded that using concept maps is effective for identifying trends within documents and document collections, for performing differential analysis on documents, and as an aid for rapidly gaining an understanding in a new domain by exploring the local detail within the global scope of the textual corpus.
Abstract: This paper examines what can be learned about bodies of literature using a concept mapping tool, Leximancer. Statistical content analysis and concept mapping were used to analyse bodies of literature from different domains in three case studies. In the first case study, concept maps were generated and analysed for two closely related document sets-a thesis on language games and the background literature for the thesis. The aim for the case study was to show how concept maps might be used to analyse related document collections for coverage. The two maps overlapped on the concept of ''language''; however, there was a stronger focus in the thesis on ''simulations'' and ''agents.'' Other concepts were not as strong in the thesis map as expected. The study showed how concept maps can help to establish the coverage of the background literature in a thesis. In the second case study, three sets of documents from the domain of conceptual and spatial navigation were collected, each discussing a separate topic: navigational strategies, the brain's role in navigation, and concept mapping. The aim was to explore emergent patterns in a set of related concept maps that may not be apparent from reading the literature alone. Separate concept maps were generated for each topic and also for the combined set of literature. It was expected that each of the topics would be situated in different parts of the combined map, with the concept of ''navigation'' central to the map. Instead, the concept of ''spatial'' was centrally situated and the areas of the map for the brain and for navigational strategies overlaid the same region. The unexpected structure provided a new perspective on the coverage of the documents. In the third and final case study, a set of documents on sponges-a domain unfamiliar to the reader-was collected from the Internet and then analysed with a concept map. The aim of this case study was to present how a concept map could aid in quickly understanding a new, technically intensive domain. Using the concept map to identify significant concepts and the Internet to look for their definitions, a basic understanding of key terms in the domain was obtained relatively quickly. It was concluded that using concept maps is effective for identifying trends within documents and document collections, for performing differential analysis on documents, and as an aid for rapidly gaining an understanding in a new domain by exploring the local detail within the global scope of the textual corpus.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Designs that can be reused to create intelligent agents capable of explaining themselves are described and inscribe lessons learned from prior research and provide guidance for incorporating explanation facilities into intelligent systems.
Abstract: Explanation is an important capability for usable intelligent systems, including intelligent agents and cognitive models embedded within simulations and other decision support systems. Explanation facilities help users understand how and why an intelligent system possesses a given structure and set of behaviors. Prior research has resulted in a number of approaches to provide explanation capabilities and identified some significant challenges. We describe designs that can be reused to create intelligent agents capable of explaining themselves. The designs include ways to provide ontological, mechanistic, and operational explanations. These designs inscribe lessons learned from prior research and provide guidance for incorporating explanation facilities into intelligent systems. The designs are derived from both prior research on explanation tool design and from the empirical study reported here on the questions users ask when working with an intelligent system. We demonstrate the use of these designs through examples implemented using the Herbal high-level cognitive modeling language. These designs can help build better agents-they support creating more usable and more affordable intelligent agents by encapsulating prior knowledge about how to generate explanations in concise representations that can be instantiated or adapted by agent developers.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The phototalk around SenseCam images was found to benefit reflection in these social situations through promotion of a rich shared understanding of the lesson context: supporting return to the experience, sharing of background context, grounding conversations, illustrating and providing evidence, and allowing people to see more.
Abstract: As photographic technologies continue to develop, so too do the social practices surrounding their use. The focus of this paper is on the social practices surrounding images captured from a new photographic device-SenseCam-which, rather than capturing individual images when triggered by the user, automatically captures a series of images. This paper is concerned with the use of SenseCam digital images in social contexts where there is a professional purpose-supporting the collaborative reflective practices of school teachers and university tutors as part of their professional development. Analysis of video data collected from 16 in-situ case studies of reflective discussions shows evidence that reflection took place as defined in the literature. Further the phototalk around SenseCam images was found to benefit reflection in these social situations through promotion of a rich shared understanding of the lesson context: supporting return to the experience, sharing of background context, grounding conversations, illustrating and providing evidence, and allowing people to see more. The paper concludes with a discussion on how different features of SenseCam images, such as variable quality, lack of audio and incompleteness, helped in this reflection or not. Finally implications from this work and participant's comments are used to suggest ways in which SenseCam may be used in the future in teachers' and tutors' social reflection.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The state of the art in the display and perception of walking generated sounds and tactile vibrations, and their current and potential future uses in interactive systems are reviewed.
Abstract: This paper reviews the state of the art in the display and perception of walking generated sounds and tactile vibrations, and their current and potential future uses in interactive systems. As non-visual information sources that are closely linked to human activities in diverse environments, such signals are capable of communicating about the spaces we traverse and activities we encounter in familiar and intuitive ways. However, in order for them to be effectively employed in human-computer interfaces, significant knowledge is required in areas including the perception of acoustic signatures of walking, and the design, engineering, and evaluation of interfaces that utilize them. Much of this expertise has accumulated in recent years, although many questions remain to be explored. We highlight past work and current research directions in this multidisciplinary area of investigation, and point to potential future trends.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A model of the factors contributing to the complexity of interactions between security practitioners and other stakeholders is proposed, and how this complexity is a potential source of security issues that increase the risk level within organizations is discussed.
Abstract: This study investigates the context of interactions of information technology (IT) security practitioners, based on a qualitative analysis of 30 interviews and participatory observation. We identify nine different activities that require interactions between security practitioners and other stakeholders, and describe in detail two of these activities that may serve as useful references for security-tool usability scenarios. We propose a model of the factors contributing to the complexity of interactions between security practitioners and other stakeholders, and discuss how this complexity is a potential source of security issues that increase the risk level within organizations. Our analysis also reveals that the tools used by our participants to perform their security tasks provide insufficient support for the complex, collaborative interactions that their duties involve. We offer several recommendations for addressing this complexity and improving IT security tools.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The digitisation of cultural heritage and linguistics texts has long been troubled by the problem of how to represent overlapping structures arising from different markup perspectives or from different versions of the same work, which can be reduced to one by observing that every case of overlapping hierarchies is also a case of textual variation.
Abstract: The digitisation of cultural heritage and linguistics texts has long been troubled by the problem of how to represent overlapping structures arising from different markup perspectives ('overlapping hierarchies') or from different versions of the same work ('textual variation'). These two problems can be reduced to one by observing that every case of overlapping hierarchies is also a case of textual variation. Overlapping textual structures can be accurately modelled either as a minimally redundant directed graph, or, more practically, as an ordered list of pairs, each containing a set of versions and a fragment of text or data. This 'pairs-list' representation is provably equivalent to the graph representation. It can record texts consisting of thousands of versions or perspectives without becoming overloaded with data, and the most common operations on variant text, e.g. comparison between two versions, can be performed in linear time. This representation also separates variation or other overlapping structures from the document content, leading to a simplification of markup suitable for wiki-like web applications.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Design strategies are suggested that might compensate for gender-linked estimation biases linked to gender in a way that explains some gender differences in discretionary appliance use and therefore make programmable features of future homes more accessible to a wider range of users.
Abstract: We report a series of studies investigating the choices that users make between direct manipulation and abstract programming strategies when operating domestic appliances. We characterise these strategic choices in terms of the Attention Investment model of abstraction use. We then describe an experiment that investigates the estimation biases influencing the individual parameters of that model. These biases are linked to gender in a way that explains some gender differences in discretionary appliance use. Finally, we suggest design strategies that might compensate for those gender-linked estimation biases, and therefore make programmable features of future homes more accessible to a wider range of users.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The Wray Photo Display is described, a public situated display for community-generated photography in an English rural village, which aims to understand the community's use of photos for social purposes and the ways in which public display technology may support these social interactions.
Abstract: Public displays of photographs are a common sight in community spaces, yet while much attention has been given recently to the use of digital photography in the home, the community domain remains underexplored. We describe the Wray Photo Display, a public situated display for community-generated photography in an English rural village, which aims to understand the community's use of photos for social purposes and the ways in which public display technology may support these social interactions. This article presents the techniques used in designing and evaluating the display as well as understanding the community and its use of photos, and our discussion of the issues and challenges presented by this study.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This paper presents new forms of the ray casting and bubble cursor selection techniques, which are augmented with visual, audio, and haptic feedback, to support selection within dense and occluded 3D target environments.
Abstract: Object selection is a primary interaction technique which must be supported by any interactive three-dimensional virtual reality application. Although numerous techniques exist, few have been designed to support the selection of objects in dense target environments, or the selection of objects which are occluded from the user's viewpoint. There is, thus, a limited understanding on how these important factors will affect selection performance. In this paper, we present a set of design guidelines and strategies to aid the development of selection techniques which can compensate for environment density and target visibility. Based on these guidelines, we present new forms of the ray casting and bubble cursor selection techniques, which are augmented with visual, audio, and haptic feedback, to support selection within dense and occluded 3D target environments. We perform a series of experiments to evaluate these new techniques, varying both the environment density and target visibility. The results provide an initial understanding of how these factors affect selection performance. Furthermore, the results showed that our new techniques adequately allowed users to select targets which were not visible from their initial viewpoint. The audio and haptic feedback did not provide significant improvements, and our analysis indicated that our introduced visual feedback played the most critical role in aiding the selection task.