1,720,997 research outputs found
Teaching Constraints, Learning Creativity
No full textDifferent disciplines require different approaches to education. The teaching of formalized sciences (such are physics, chemistry, etc.) requires the study of consolidated and already verified results and is conveniently carried out through lecturing (e.g. lectures or books) while formalisms and techniques are learned together with disciplinary contents. Soft disciplines (such are fine arts, interior design, media production, journalism, etc.) require “learning by doing”: the study of facts and techniques that is weakly related to the ability to produce masterpieces or new ideas. Design is in an intermediate position: techniques can be learned (e.g. modelling, representation, materials, colours, etc.), but the ability to design “new meanings”, i.e. creativity, is left to personal sensitivity and to teaching by examples. Creativity can be stimulated, and methods can be provided: constraints. In our experience in teaching design (in particular communication and service design) at our university, we combine theoretical lessons with many design activities, together with constraint driven activities. Constraints stimulate the lateral thinking and make students aware of their mental frames that oppose limits to their creative capacities; constraint driven assignments force the students to focus on the technical aspects, distracting their attention from the creative content so reducing “conceptual censorship”. This paper presents the methodology we use and some of the experiences we carried out with respect to different design fields (products, communication artifacts and services), both in academic as well as in professional environments
Teaching Creativity: Some Experiences in Teaching Emotional Design
No full textThere are disciplines stable and well formalised (e.g. Mathematics or Physics) and disciplines more soft and less formalise (e.g. Design or Literary Critics). While it is quite clear what to teach and how to measure the teaching results in the former, it is not so easy for the latter.
Teaching Design means provide the students with a set of knowledge easily definable (e.g. representations, material properties, use of tools, history, etc.) and with a set of capabilities and sensitivities usually transferred from a master to a pupil through behaviours examples (e.g. how to invent new solutions, how to provide aesthetically valuable artefacts, how to convey emotions through artefacts, and so on).
The paper will present a set of experiences carried on in teaching Emotional Design, in such a way that the students are simultaneously involved in learning / applying theoretical aspects and in defining / evaluating procedural methods for stimulating creativity and new solutions.
The approach involves two parallel lines: the former consists of a set of design steps carried on individually, being each of them a re-design of the previous one , according to new theoretical knowledge acquires; the latter consists in a collective evaluation of the results, both as check of the validity of the theoretical indications and as set up of common practices, considered as fruitful by the en-tire group.
So, a course can be organised according the following lines:
1. The disciplinary content is subdivided into well defined parts, each of them self-consistent and applicable without the others;
2. a specific design theme is chosen;
3. an analysis of the existing solutions on the theme are examined;
4. each student is required to provide the sketch/concept of a new artefact related to the theme;
5. for each of the disciplinary parts in which the content has been subdivided:
a. a frontal lesson is held to the class;
b. each student is required to modify/re-design his/her previous sketch as a consequence of the new knowledge;
c. the individual contributions are collected, organised and collectively discussed, evaluating which actions provided the best results;
d. the selected practices are properly described;
6. the previous point is repeated for all the parts in which the content has been subdivided, as in point 1;
7. Finally, a “research paper” is written, as collective contribution to a methodological approach in applying the disciplines.
The paper will describe the disciplinary content of Emotional Design, will illustrate the various parts for the subdivision of the content, and will show the results, both from the point of view of the design results and of the selected good practices according to the discussions.
The experiences have been carried on in different courses for graduation in Design, and for post-graduated students, as well as for PhD students.
The experience of the postgraduated students will ne described in detail, while only some references will be given for the others.
Critical remarks will complete the paper.
Towards Automatic and Unobtrusive Recognition of Primary-Process Emotions in Body Postures
No full textRecent years demonstrate an increased research in automatic recognition of emotions in whole-body gestures.
However, most of them rely on emotional models that are still being contested or require an obtrusive way of collecting the data. We study primitive postures based on 7 primary-process and clinically measured emotions. We portray postures from theatre in front of the motion capture sensor and we conduct online surveys to discriminate primary-process emotions. We analyze low-level features from postural joints data and reveal
RAGE patterns which we will use in future real-time affective interactions
CROSS-CULTURAL AND MULTIDISCIPLINARY-BASED PROCESSES IN EMOTIONAL DESIGN. A DESIGN RESEARCH LEARNING EXPERIENCE
No full textThis essay presents the research results in the field of Emotional Design, carried on during the educational experience provided by a first level postgraduate Master and students coming from 10 different nationalities. The experience proposes an original model of the capability of communicating meanings through the design of perceptual elements.
We started from the design process model (Maiocchi and Pillan, 2009) which besides obvious technical (including economic) constraints includes:
• Signals: any kind of information, by any kind of channel (shapes, colours, sounds, etc.);
• Meanings / emotions: the results of the processing of the gathered information (e.g. suggestions of maternal feelings, exotic environments, etc.);
• Simple perception: processes activating the more ancient parts of our brain, where primary emotions arise (seeking, sex, fear, social interaction, etc.);
• Complex perception: processes activating the neo-cortex (logical and cognitive functions), interacting with the lower levels, then providing emotions;
• Cultural constraints: inherited cultural aspects that allow or prevent the acceptability of some values.
In next step, a simple action field is chosen: the design of a common door handle. We performed next 7 steps with participants:
• Step 1. A sample of 10 existing door handles is examined from the point of view of an intuitive interpretation. We used door handles from famous Italian producers: Sottsass. Fuksass, Aulenti, Cini Boeri, Gregotti, Rossi, Mongiardino, Arad, Krier and Kono, and structure them by asigning them age, profession, gender, etc.
• Step 2. 10 Participants provided sketches of new door handles which will be in detail presented in paper.
• Step 3. A scientific definition of the concept of “emotion” is provided based on Affective Neuroscience and 7 Primary-Process Emotions (Panksepp, 2012). We used this model as it is able to depict specific physiological mechanisms (seen in neurotransmitters and key areas of the brain). These sub-cortical Triune brain areas are: SEEKING, PLAY, CARE, FEAR, GRIEF, RAGE and LUST. These mechanisms are invented by evolution to increase the survival probability of the species; according to it, animals feel emotions as we humans do; Panksepp considers an emotion as the activation of a specific part of the brain through a specific neurotransmitter class, and thus there are only seven emotions. The various parts of the brain are interconnected and are able to influence each other.
• Step 4. Kansei Engineering analysis by collecting/grouping adjectives per each door handle with the aim to connect door handles and previous 7 emotional systems. We reveal which emotion has which shape.
• Step 5. 9 perceptual structures based on Neuroscience (Ramachandran, Hirstein 1999) have been proposed, as responsible of emotion arousal, with a further improvement of the sketches provided by the participants. We used them as they are verified through the fMRI, able to increase the production of some neurotransmitter (mainly dopamine) and to rise the corresponding emotions.
• Step 6. The concept of metaphor has been explored, together with some formal representation tool;
• Step 7. Two different metaphorical contexts have been examined, and used for further improvements of the sketches.
This essay presents in details the various steps carried on, with iterative results, described in terms of the rationales of the design choices. Critical comments complete the essay
The Effect of the Environment on Emotions in Waiting Areas based on Kansei Engineering and Affective Neuroscience
No full textThe economic success of a movie depends on audience satisfaction and on how much they are emotionally engaged while watching it. Our research is related to the identification of such kinds of emotions felt by movie watchers during screening movie screening. We endorse the model of 7 Primary-process emotions from Affective Neuroscience (SEEKING, PLAY, CARE, FEAR, GRIEF, RAGE and LUST) and ask subjects to watch 14 movies and match them with these 7 emotions. We provide a self-annotating application and reveal “Affective Timelines” of clicks with arousal scenes. We verify that it is possible to discriminate movie watchers’ emo- tions according to their self-annotation by obtaining 0.51 - 0.81 range of accordance in an- notating 14 movies and comparing them with the authors of this study. These timelines will be matched with physiological sensors in future research
Usage of convolutional neural networks for identifying marine mammal individuals
Get PDFIdentifying marine mammals is a common practice performed by whale-watching crew members.
Typically, an experienced marine ecologist is the one who can identify not just the taxa, but also
the individual. This process is however always done in the aftermath of data sampling, where
the goal is to use photo identification and match the dorsal fins of individuals spotted at the
different spatio-temporal scales. This dissertation provides the pipeline and addresses the chal lenges in the usage of Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) to discriminate marine mammal
individuals, in this case (pilot whales) based on the dorsal fins. The dissertation uses as input the
1138 images dataset containing over 856 individuals, and through three experiments addresses the
issues when discriminating such a high number of classes. In the first experiment, the dissertation
studies the role of synthetic data augmentation in boosting model performance. In second, the
dissertation benchmarks the existing state-of-the-art convolutional neural network architectures.
In third, the dissertation focuses on discriminating other features from dorsal fins to identify indi viduals (scratches, nicks, roundness, wideness). The dissertation outlines the issues and proposes
the guidelines for the next effort in discriminating marine mammal individuals.A identificação de mamíferos marinhos é uma prática comum realizada pelos tripulantes de ob servação de baleias. Normalmente, o ecologista marinho experiente é aquele que pode identificar
não apenas os táxons, mas também o indivíduo. Este processo, é no entanto feito sempre após a
amostragem de dados, onde o objetivo é usar a identificação por foto e combinar as barbatanas
dorsais dos indivíduos localizados nas diferentes escalas espaço-temporais. Esta dissertação fornece
o pipeline e aborda os desafios do uso de Redes Neurais Convolucionais (CNNs) para discriminar
indivíduos de mamíferos marinhos, neste caso (baleias-piloto) com base nas barbatanas dorsais.
A dissertação usa como input um dataset de 1138 imagens que contêm 856 indivíduos, e através
de três experiências aborda os problemas de discriminar um número tão elevado de classes. Na
primeira experiência, a dissertação estuda o papel do aumento de dados sintéticos no melhora mento do desempenho do modelo. Na segunda experiência, a dissertação avalia arquiteturas de
redes neurais convolucionais de última geração existentes. Na terceira experiência, a dissertação
foca-se em discrimar outras caraterísticas das barbatanas dorsais para identificar indivíduos (ar ranhões, cortes, redondeza, amplitude). A dissertação descreve os problemas e propõe as diretrizes
para o próximo esforço em discriminar indivíduos de mamíferos marinhos
MAR Gate: augmented reality for attracting wider audience to marine concerns
Get PDFAs condições nos ambientes marinhos permanecem angustiantes, pois as atividades humanas afetam
a qualidade de vida das espécies marinhas. Uma das espécies que sente tais consequências é a Baleia
Franca do Atlântico Norte, cuja saúde está em declíneo devido a ameaças passadas e presentes.
Uma forma de chamar a atenção para os problemas ambientais marinhos é educando as pessoas,
conectando-as a tais espécies, conscientizando-as e fazendo-as refletir sobre ações futuras. Esta
dissertação apresenta a aplicação móvel de realidade aumentada, alavancando a interação sobre
as Baleias Francas do Atlântico Norte (BFAN), educando os utilizadores sobre a sua contribução
para ambientes marinhos, ameaças e curiosidades com essa interação. A dissertação relata o uso de
tecnologias imersivas e aprendizagem móvel, fornecendo informações sobre as BFANs. Três estudos
foram conduzidos em diferentes etapas do desenvolvimento da aplicação, em ambientes internos,
externos e em praças públicas, estudando: (i) como a Realidade Aumentada pode influenciar os
utilizadores, (ii) como o público entende as interações e (iii) quão eficaz é a AR para aprender
em espaços públicos. Os estudos revelaram as seguintes respostas: (i) a Realidade Aumentada
tem um impacto emocional nos utilizadores que pode ser positivo dependendo do tema abordado.
A imersão e a absorção são elementos cruciais, e o ambiente externo, seja com sombra ou não,
pode não influenciar significativamente na experiência. (ii) Os infográficos sem textos podem ser
entendidos pelo público considerando dois factores: a clareza dos desenhos que representam os
dados e o conjunto de conhecimentos da população-alvo. (iii) AR demonstra resultados positivos
na educação dos utilizadores sobre as Baleias Francas do Atlântico Norte em espaços públicos.Conditions in marine environments remain dire as human activities affect marine species’ quality
of life. Specific species that feel such consequences is the North Atlantic Right Whale, which health
is declining due to past and present threats. One way to draw attention to marine environmental
problems is by educating people, connecting them to such species, raising awareness, and making
them reflect on future actions. This dissertation presents the augmented reality mobile application,
leveraging the interaction about the North Atlantic Right Whales (NARWs), educating users about
their contribution to marine environments, threats, and curiosities with this interaction. The dis sertation reports on the use of immersive technologies, and mobile learning, providing background
on NARWs. Three studies were conducted during different stages of the application development,
indoors, outdoors and on public squares, studying: (i) how Augmented Reality may influence users,
(ii) how the public understands the interactions, and (iii) how effective is the AR for learning in
public spaces. Studies revealed the following findings: (i) Augmented Reality has an emotional
impact on the users that may be positive depending on the approached theme. Immersion and
absorption are crucial elements, and the external environment, whether with shade or not, may
not influence the experience significantly. (ii) Public understood infographics without texts if con sidering two factors: the clarity of designs representing data and the knowledge set of the target
population. (iii) AR demonstrates positive outcomes in educating users about North Atlantic Right
Whales in public spaces
Interactive geodesic structures for attracting wider audience to marine concerns
Get PDFRecent surveys indicate that there is a greater emotional disconnect between the
European population and Europe’s aquatic environments [1]. Although a wider
audience recognizes anthropogenic issues (i.e. litter pollution, overfishing, noise
pollution, etc) where most people can feel connected to nature, however, they
do not exhibit pro-environmental behaviors towards them. Interactive environ ments, which depict marine concerns, remain passive and informative, i.e. not
being able to engage with the audience, failing to provide a long-term positive
effect. This thesis explores the usage of geodesic structures in depicting marine
concerns, exploring possible interactive environments among them in effort to
increase the awareness of marine concerns. Dissertation performs five geodesic
dome iterations and validations. In first, it studies the role of the open and
porous geodesic structure, resembled as four marine species (seabird, sea turtle,
dolphin and whale). In second, it enhances the first with the covers, studying
more immersive experiences. Third setup contributed to the scaling-down of the
geodesic dome marine species. Fourth setup showcased its deployment in wider
public spaces. Fifth setup streamlined further the structures, so they can be used
at diverse public spots. Two additional Augmented Reality modalites were used,
with the former with interaction with the sea turtle and the latter, interacting
with the whale.Pesquisas recentes indicam que há uma maior desconexão emocional entre a pop ulação europeia e os ambientes aquáticos da Europa. Embora um público mais
amplo reconheça questões antropogênicas (ou seja, poluição maritima, pesca pre datória, poluição sonora, etc.), onde a maioria das pessoas pode se sentir conec tada à natureza, no entanto, eles não exibem comportamentos pró-ambientais
em relação a eles. Os ambientes interativos, que retratam preocupações mar inhas, permanecem passivos e informativos, ou seja, não conseguem envolver o
público, deixando de proporcionar um efeito positivo a longo prazo. Esta tese
explora o uso de estruturas geodésicas na representação de preocupações mar inhas, explorando possíveis ambientes interativos entre elas em um esforço para
aumentar a conscientização sobre preocupações marinhas. A dissertação real iza cinco iterações e validações de Domes geodésicas. Na primeira, é estudado
o papel da estrutura geodésica aberta e porosa, semelhante às quatro espécies
marinhas (ave marinha, tartaruga marinha, golfinho e baleia). Na segunda, po tencializa a primeira com as coberturas, estudando experiências mais imersivas.
A terceira configuração contribuiu para a redução de espécies marinhas na cúpula
geodésica. Na quarta configuração foi implantada em espaços públicos mais amp los. A quinta configuração simplificou ainda mais as estruturas para que possam
ser usadas em vários locais públicos. Foram utilizadas duas modalidades adi cionais de Realidade Aumentada, a primeira com interação com a tartaruga
marinha e a segunda com interação com a baleia
Web-based interface for environmental niche modelling
Get PDFMarine species are subject to anthropogenic impacts, such as noise pollution,
marine litter, and direct impact collisions. While there are efforts in the marine
community and crowd-sourcing to report the occurrence of marine species, not
enough projects explore the prediction of where such animals may be.
This dissertation analyzes the state of the art in species distribution model ing (SDM) systems, capable of reporting and predicting marine biodiversity. The
proposal implements the algorithms for predicting species through publicly avail able repositories of data, provides means to ease the upload and management of
occurrence points as well as methods for prediction analysis. A web-based user
interface is proposed using Ecological Niche Modelling (ENM) as an automated
alerting mechanism towards ecological awareness.
Performed user studies evaluate marine biodiversity concerns from fisherman
and whale-watching sea-vessels, assessing attitudes, threats, values, and motiva tion of both samples. Further, biologists and experts on ENMs will evaluate the
workflow and interface, reviewing the proposal’s potential to enable ecologists
to create solutions for their custom problems using simple protocols without the
need for any third-party entities and extensive knowledge in programming.Espécies marinhas estão sujeitas a impactos antropogênicos, tais como poluição
sonora, lixo marinho, e colisões com tráfego marinho. Apesar de existirem al guns esforços da comunidade marinha e crowdsourcing relativamente ao registo
de ocorrências de biodiversidade marinha, não existem projeto suficientes que
exploram as previsões de onde estas espécies poderão estar.
Esta dissertação analisa o estado da arte em sistemas de modelação de dis tribuição de espécies, capazes de relatar e prever biodiversidade marinha. A pro posta implementa os algoritmos para prever espécies por meio de repositórios
consolidados de dados disponíveis online, fornece meios para facilitar o carrega mento e gestão de pontos de ocorrência, bem como métodos para análise das
previsões. Uma interface web de utilizador é proposta utilizando Ecological Niche
Modeling como um mecanismo de alerta automatizado para incrementar a con sciência ecológica.
Os estudos do sistema irão avaliar as preocupações relativas a biodiversi dade marinha de embarcações de pesca e navios de observação de baleias. Desta
forma é possível determinar atitudes, ameaças, valores e motivação de ambas
as amostras para com a biodiversidade marinha. Além disso, biólogos e espe cialistas nesta tipologia de sistemas, avaliarão o fluxo de trabalho e a inter face desenvolvida, avaliando o potencial do sistema, permitindo aos ecologistas
criar soluções personalizados através de protocolos simples, sem a necessidade
de quaisquer entidades terceirizadas e conhecimento em programação
- …
