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Who are you in the digital public sphere? Are you »a woman«, »a man« or a robot? Are you classified as »right-wing« or »left-wing«? Dutch researcher Miriam Rasch writes about how twisted alternatives for bodies and identities are created online. A translation of the essay was originally published in 10TAL #32.
Deictic gestures are gestures we make during communication to point at objects or persons. Indicative acts of directing-to guide the addressee to an object, while placing-for acts place an object for the addressee’s attention. Commonly used presentation software tools, such as PowerPoint and Keynote, offer ample support for placing-for gestures, e.g. slide transitions, progressive disclosure of list items and animations. Such presentation tools, however, do not generally offer adequate support for the directing-to indicative act (i.e. pointing gestures). In this paper we argue the value of presenting deictic gestures to a remote audience. Our research approach is threefold: identify indicative acts that are naturally produced by presenters; design tangible gestures for multi-touch surfaces that replicate the intent of those indicative acts; and design a set of graphical effects for remote viewing that best represent these indicative acts for the audience. Clinton Jorge1, Jos P. van Leeuwen2, Dennis Dams3, Jan Bouwen4 1 University of Madeira, Madeira-ITI, Funchal, Portugal; 2 The Hague University of Applied Sciences, The Hague, Netherlands; 3,4 Bell Labs, Alcatel-Lucent, Antwerp, Belgium Copyright shared between: University of Madeira, Madeira-ITI, Funchal, Portugal; The Hague University of Applied Sciences, The Hague, Netherlands; Bell Labs, Alcatel-Lucent, Antwerp, Belgium
De incidentie van niet aangeboren hersenletsel (NAH) bij personen in de leeftijd tot 25 jaar in Nederland is aanzienlijk, met ca. 18.000 nieuwe gevallen per jaar. Kinderen en jongeren met NAH hebben naast fysieke, cognitieve en emotionele beperkingen, een significant lager niveau van sociale participatie dan hun gezonde leeftijdgenoten. Het gebruik van de Nintendo Wii, een spelcomputer die bewegingen op natuurlijke en intuïtieve wijze uitlokt, lijkt mogelijkheden te bieden om contacten met anderen en actieve vrijetijdsbesteding bij jongeren met NAH te stimuleren. In deze studie wordt onderzocht wat het effect is van het gebruik van de Nintendo Wii bij kinderen en jongeren met NAH op fysiek, cognitief en sociaal functioneren. Om dit te onderzoeken is een multicenter, observationele pilotstudie verricht, bij 50 kinderen en jongeren met NAH in de leeftijd van 6-29 jaar die onder controle of behandeling zijn van een revalidatiearts. De interventie, van in totaal 12 weken, startte met 2 trainingssessies van 60 minuten, waarbij de toe te passen games werden gekozen passend bij zelf gekozen behandeldoelen (te verbeteren functies of activiteiten) en uitvoerbaar gezien de individuele beperkingen van de deelnemer. Vervolgens werd er minimaal 2 keer in de week gegamed. Er was wekelijks contact met een therapeut per telefoon of e-mail. De effectmetingen (vragenlijsten en een neuropsychologische test) werden verricht aan het begin en einde van de interventie en betroffen het fysiek, cognitief en sociaal functioneren. De statistische analyse bestond uit vergelijkingen van de uitkomstmaten tussen 0 en 12 weken met behulp van gepaarde t-toetsen, Wilcoxon-Signed-Rank tests en chi-kwadraat toetsen. Deze eerste pilotstudie naar de effecten van het gamen met de Nintendo Wii bij jongeren met NAH laat significante verbetering zien op het fysiek en cognitief functioneren, en niet op het sociaal functioneren. Deze resultaten zijn aanleiding om de effectiviteit van de Nintendo Wii in deze patiëntengroep in een grotere, gecontroleerde studie verder te onder ABSTRACT Aim: To explore the effects of usage of the Nintendo Wii on physical, cognitive and social functioning in patients with acquired brain injury (ABI). Methods: This multicenter, observational proof-of-concept study included children, adolescents and young adults with ABI aged 6-29 years. A standardized, yet individually tailored 12-week intervention with the Nintendo Wii was delivered by trained instructors. The treatment goals were set on an individual basis and included targets regarding physical, mental and/or social functioning. Outcome assessments were done at baseline and after 12 weeks, and included: the average number of minutes per week of recreational physical activity; the CAPE (Children's Assessment of Participation and Enjoyment); the ANT (Amsterdam Neuropsychological Tasks); the achievement of individual treatment goals (Goal Attainment Scaling); and quality of life (PedsQL; Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory). Statistical analyses included paired t-tests or Wilcoxon-Signed-Rank tests. Results: 50 patients were included, (31 boys and 19 girls; mean age 17.1 years (SD 4.4)), of whom 45 (90%) completed the study. Significant changes of the amount of physical activity, speed of information processing, attention, response inhibition and visual-motor coordination (p<0.05) were seen after 12 weeks, whereas there were no differences in CAPE or PedsQL scores. Two-thirds of the patients reported an improvement of the main treatment goal. Conclusion: This study supports the potential benefits of gaming in children and youth with ABI.
Many citizens experience ambivalence – having simultaneously positive and negative evaluations – about changing their behaviour towards a more environmentally friendly lifestyle. Based on 36 studies, this study identifies and synthesises the current evidence on how ambivalence impacts environmental behaviours. In most studies, ambivalence is shown to be directly and negatively associated with environmental behaviours, i.e., higher levels of ambivalence are linked to lower levels of environmentally friendly and unfriendly behaviours. This applies to both types of ambivalence: objective (OA) and subjective (SA). Mediator analyses show, in line with the theory, that SA, not OA, drives behavioural change. In addition, results indicate that ambivalence moderates the relationship between independent–dependent variables mainly negatively, for example, by weakening attitude–behaviour relationships. This review shows the potential of ambivalence to facilitate behaviour change: SA about environmentally friendly behaviour can hinder, whereas SA about environmentally unfriendly behaviour can motivate, behaviour change. In addition, this review highlights some significant knowledge gaps in this body of research. A lack of validated standardised measurements of ambivalence makes it challenging to compare studies and reach conclusions about underlying theoretical constructs. Methods, research designs, and theoretical underpinnings need improvement to fully understand ambivalence and progress towards the transition of environmentally friendly behaviours.
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The coronavirus pandemic highlighted the vital role urban areas play in supporting citizens’ health and well-being (Ribeiro et al., 2021). In times of (personal) vulnerability, citizens depend on their neighbourhood for performing daily physical activities to restore their mental state, but public spaces currently fall short in fulfilling the appropriate requirements to achieve this. The situation is exacerbated by Western ambitions to densify through high-rise developments to meet the housing demand. In this process of urban densification, public spaces are the carriers where global trends, local ambitions and the conditions for the social fabric materialise (Battisto & Wilhelm, 2020). High-rise developments in particular will determine users’ experiences at street-level. Consequently, they have an enduring influence on the liveability of neighbourhoods for the coming decades but, regarding the application of urban design principles, their impact is hard to dissect (Gifford, 2007).Promising emerging technologies and methods from the new transdisciplinary field of neuroarchitecture may help identify and monitor the impact of certain physical characteristics on human well-being in an evidence-based way. In the two-year Sensing Streetscapes research study, biometric tools were tested in triangulation with traditional methods of surveys and expert panels. The study unearthed situational evidence of the relationship between designed and perceived spaces by investigating the visual properties and experience of high-density environments in six major Western cities. Biometric technologies—Eye-Tracking, Galvanic Skin Response, mouse movement software and sound recording—were applied in a series of four laboratory tests (see Spanjar & Suurenbroek, 2020) and one outdoor test (see Hollander et al., 2021). The main aim was to measure the effects of applied design principles on users’ experiences, arousal levels and appreciation.Unintentionally, the research study implied the creation of a 360° built-environment assessment tool. The assessment tool enables researchers and planners to analyse (high-density) urban developments and, in particular, the architectural attributes that (subliminally) affect users’ experience, influencing their behaviour and perception of place. The tool opens new opportunities for research and planning practice to deconstruct the successes of existing high-density developments and apply the lessons learned for a more advanced, evidence-based promotion of human health and well-being.ReferencesBattisto, D., & Wilhelm, J. J. (Eds.). (2020). Architecture and Health Guiding Principles for Practice. Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group. Gifford, R. (2007). The Consequences of Living in High-Rise Buildings. Architectural Science Review, 50(1), 2–17. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.3763/asre.2007.5002 Hollander, J. B., Spanjar, G., Sussman, A., Suurenbroek, F., & Wang, M. (2021). Programming for the subliminal brain: biometric tools reveal architecture’s biological impact. In K. Menezes, P. de Oliveira-Smith, & A. V. Woodworth (Eds.), Programming for Health and Wellbeing in Architecture (pp. 136–149). Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003164418 Ribeiro, A. I., Triguero-Mas, M., Jardim Santos, C., Gómez-Nieto, A., Cole, H., Anguelovski, I., Silva, F. M., & Baró, F. (2021). Exposure to nature and mental health outcomes during COVID-19 lockdown. A comparison between Portugal and Spain. Environment International, 154, 106664. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envint.2021.106664 Spanjar, G., & Suurenbroek, F. (2020). Eye-Tracking the City: Matching the Design of Streetscapes in High-Rise Environments with Users’ Visual Experiences. Journal of Digital Landscape Architecture (JoDLA), 5(2020), 374–385. https://gispoint.de/gisopen-paper/6344-eye-tracking-the-city-matching-the-design-of-streetscapes-in-high-rise-environments-with-users-visual-experiences.html?IDjournalTitle=6
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Background and objectivesBefore the Covid-19 pandemic, important social studies already indicated the severe negative feedback associated with high-rise developments. During the Covid-19 pandemic, citizens were confronted with their neighbourhoods’ insufficient restorative capacity to maintain their health and well-being. New methods are urgently required to analyse and learn from existing high-density developments to prevent a repetition of past mistakes and to catalyse the salutary effects of architecture in new developments.Process and methods (for empirical research)The Sensing Streetscapes research investigated the potential of emerging biometric technologies to examine the effects of commonly applied urban design principles in six western cities. In one outdoor and four laboratory tests, eye-tracking technology with sound-recording and Galvanic Skin Response captured subjects’ (un)conscious attention patterns and arousal levels when viewing streets on eye level. Triangulation with other techniques, such as mouse tracking to record participants’ appreciation value and expert panels from spatial design practice, showed the positive and negative impact of stimuli.Main results (or main arguments in the case of critical reviews)The preliminary results provide a dynamic understanding of urban experience and how it is affected by the presence or absence of design principles. The results suggest that streets with high levels of detail and variety may contribute to a high level of engagement with the built environment. It also shows that traffic is likely an important factor in causing stress and diminishing the restorative capacity society seeks.Implications for research and practice/policy | Importance and originality of the contributionThe research study led to the development of a Dynamic User Experience Assessment (D-UXA) tool that supports researchers and designers in understanding the impact of design decisions on users’ experience, spatial perception and (walking) behaviour. D-UXA enables a human-centred analysis and is designed to fill the gap between traditional empirical methods and aspirations for an evidence-based promotion of human health and wellbeing in (high-density) urban developments.
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People in western countries spend approximately 90% of their time indoors. This severely affects their health (WHO 2013; Klepeis et al. 2001). The health risks are exacerbated if people travel between indoor spaces by car or public transport. Buildings on streets specifically designed to create a human scale and connected with the street-space can potentially invite people to walk and enhance their engagement with their surroundings (O’Mara 2019; Ewing et al. 2013). Since the 1960s, influential empirical studies have raised awareness of the walkability of streets (e.g. Jacobs 2008) but reliable evidence on the effectiveness of applied design solutions remains scarce (Spanjar & Suurenbroek 2020). This eye-tracking study focused on the visual ‘scanning’ of streetscapes and people’s appreciation of applied design principles. The aim was to gather together lessons learned from a variety of streetscapes in cities around the world and use them to inform the design of new developments in the Netherlands. Google Street View was used to select 19 images of streets in high-density environments with human-scale attributes in their façades and street-spaces. They were presented in a randomized order in a laboratory setting to 40 participants, who viewed them for 5 seconds. The participants’ visual explorative behaviour was recorded with advanced eye-tracking technology. A survey recorded their overall appreciation of the scenes and mouse-tracking collated their specific areas of interest (see fig. 1). The comparative analysis of the participants’ aggregated eye-fixation images together with the supplementary methods suggests that certain attributes for creating a human scale catch the eye in the first few seconds and are highly appreciated. These include the variety of a street’s façades, a street’s enclosedness, and the level of detail in the transition zone between the private ground floor and the public street (see fig. 2). Green features are particularly valued and might have important restorative qualities for people who spend most of their time indoors (Kaplan 1995; Ulrich 1984). Future research should focus on the design of façades and the street-space itself, taking people’s indoor lives and related stress levels as a starting point.
People in western countries spend approximately 90% of their time indoors. This severely affects their health (WHO 2013; Klepeis et al. 2001). The health risks are exacerbated if people travel between indoor spaces by car or public transport. Buildings on streets specifically designed to create a human scale and connected with the street-space can potentially invite people to walk and enhance their engagement with their surroundings (O’Mara 2019; Ewing et al. 2013). Since the 1960s, influential empirical studies have raised awareness of the walkability of streets (e.g. Jacobs 2008) but reliable evidence on the effectiveness of applied design solutions remains scarce (Spanjar & Suurenbroek 2020). This eye-tracking study focused on the visual ‘scanning’ of streetscapes and people’s appreciation of applied design principles. The aim was to gather together lessons learned from a variety of streetscapes in cities around the world and use them to inform the design of new developments in the Netherlands. Google Street View was used to select 19 images of streets in high-density environments with human-scale attributes in their façades and street-spaces. They were presented in a randomized order in a laboratory setting to 40 participants, who viewed them for 5 seconds. The participants’ visual explorative behaviour was recorded with advanced eye-tracking technology. A survey recorded their overall appreciation of the scenes and mouse-tracking collated their specific areas of interest (see fig. 1). The comparative analysis of the participants’ aggregated eye-fixation images together with the supplementary methods suggests that certain attributes for creating a human scale catch the eye in the first few seconds and are highly appreciated. These include the variety of a street’s façades, a street’s enclosedness, and the level of detail in the transition zone between the private ground floor and the public street (see fig. 2). Green features are particularly valued and might have important restorative qualities for people who spend most of their time indoors (Kaplan 1995; Ulrich 1984). Future research should focus on the design of façades and the street-space itself, taking people’s indoor lives and related stress levels as a starting point.
