Spring 2025- Syllabus

Psych. 425, Human Computer Interaction

Professor - Erik Nilsen (nilsen@lclark.edu )

BioPsy 121 Human Computer Interaction lab  -  Wednesday 6 - 9 p.m.

coursepack of selected readings in electronic form.

Class Moodle Page | Online Repository of Class Resources | Link to ACM Digital Library (Through Watzek Library Subscription)

Computing technology is radically changing the manner in which we work, play, shop, and communicate. The field of human-computer interaction (HCI) is highly interdisciplinary, bringing together researchers and practitioners from fields such as Psychology, Computer Science & Engineering, Business, Sociology, Linguistics etc. HCI researchers and developers have a common focus of creating and/or evaluating technologies which can expand the frontiers of human capabilities (functionality) while at the same time trying to match these technologies to the abilities of the people who will use them (usability).

This course will include a broad survey of many HCI topics, each studied from a psychological perspective (including cognitive, social, developmental, clinical and health psychology). We will not be using a textbook. The readings will be primarily journal articles from the fields of psychology and computer science. Reading the articles before class and being ready to discuss them and/or apply the knowledge to class projects is very important. Individual writing assignments serve as one way to evaluate your active engagement with the readings. (see below).

Reaction Papers -Before specified class sessions in which we discuss an article, you are to read it and write some comments on the article. This can include a brief summary of the stated purpose of the article, how well the authors fulfilled that purpose, and what methods they used. You can also write any questions about concepts that were either unclear in the article or which need further elaboration. If you find any connection with other articles we have discussed in class or from your own experience, include these insights as well. Each paper should be less than 3 pages and take no more than one hour to write (above and beyond the reading time).  The papers will be used to inform class discussions, and undergo peer and instructor review.

Another component of the course will be learning to author web pages following appropriate HCI design guidelines.

Use of computers, speaking and writing will be integral to this course. Projects will include:

1) In-class group activities. Students will serve as participants, observers, and researchers in evaluating the impact of technology on psychology and vice versa.

2) For a final website project, each student will conduct an individual exploration of computer resources on the internet for a specific topic, create a web site, and evaluate several class members web sites. For example, you could study the American with Disabilities Act and design a computer system for a user with a specific type of disability. Virtual reality systems for treating phobias, wearable computers, intelligent agents, and a host of other topics are possible. Along with the web site development, you will utilize it to lead a class exploration of your topic and revise the website afterwards based on the peer and instructor feedback you receive. Beginning on April 1st we will have 3 or 4 final project presentations each class period.

Course Schedule - The class web page is the definitive location for upcoming class topics and assignments. The class topics will evolve and change depending on new developments in the field and student and faculty interest. I will promise to give you at least one weeks advance notice on readings and assignments.
Consistent attendance and active participation in class discussion and activities is vital to the success of the class. Missing more than one class sessions will result in a significant reduction in your course grade (5% for each additional day).

We will only be meeting 15 times during the semester. My expectation is that on average you will spend 2 hours outside of class for every 1 hour in class. At times during the semester a significant amount of out of class time will be needed to work on projects. Plan accordingly!

Spring 2025 Office Hours - 1:30 - 2:30 M, W. BioPsy 236.

Zoom consultation by 24 hour advance appointment Th Noon - 1:00 p.m. email nilsen@lclark.edu. Cell Phone (503) 734-5614.

I try to respond to e-mails promptly, by noon the following day if sent after 5 p.m.

Course Learning Objectives

My overarching goals for 425 are for you to acquire an understanding of the various connections between the study of psychology and the development of computing technology. The learning objectives for this class include:

1.  Explaining the value of psychological perspectives to developing and understanding the impact of computing technology by

    • Summarizing key theories, concepts and research methodologies that inform the use of technology
    • Critically analyzing the methodology and conclusions of research articles
    • Developing and piloting studies of technology from a psychological perspective
    • Contrasting differing approaches to the development and use of technology

2. Engaging in high-level discussion in response to scholarly readings by:

    • Completing readings for each class day
    • Organizing one’s thoughts in advance of speaking
    • Presenting ideas with clarity and precision in written and oral modalities
    • Engaging the views of one’s peers and the professor
    • Developing an attentive and thoughtful conversational style
    • Leading a productive classroom discussion

For the web site development project specific goals include:

3. Demonstrate independence and intellectual maturity in the production of knowledge for an academic audience by:

    • Using online databases and search engines to conduct a comprehensive search of the research literature and on a topic of interest within human computer interaction.
    • Creating a well-organized and coherent web site following the guidelines provided in the class
    • Developing a 60 minute class presentation with readings, discussion questions and activities that introduces their classmates to the topic they have chosen.
    • Providing constructive feedback to their peers concerning their web sites and class presentation
    • Incorporating peer and instructor feedback to revise and improve the web site.
    • In both the web site and oral presentation, articulating theoretical and applied significance of their chosen topic

 

Course Schedule and Assignments


 

 

Day & Date

Topic 

W Jan. 22

Introductions, Acronym Game and Overview of Final Website Project. Examples from past classes.

Transhumanism: hacking the human condition

Gamification: Productivity, Self-Improvement, and Pro-sociality through Crowdsourcing

Un-polarized: increasing political cooperation in the digital age

Mental Health in the Modern Age the connection between mental health and phone apps

Reducing Biases and Stigma Through Technology Novel approach using Canva

Introduction to HCI

Articles to Read BEFORE class time!

As We May Think, Vannevar Bush (1996). Interactions, March, 1996, 35 - 46.

This is a classic paper written by a visionary thinker whose ideas have inspired many of the people who have shaped the development of computing. Read it and be ready to begin a discussion in class.

REACTION PAPER.  After reading the article, (and before our first class) send Erik an  e-mail (nilsen@lclark.edu) addressing these questions.  Then be ready to discuss these questions in class.

  1. Throughout the essay, Bush writes of future technical possibilities. Which of these have come to pass? What do they look like now?
  2. In sections 4 and 5, Bush talks about turning over certain functions to machines, reserving other functions for human beings. Do you agree with his division of labor? If not, how would you reallocate functions between humans and machines? 
  3. In sections 6 through 8 Bush talks about the Memex. What do we have that is somewhat like this today? How does it compare to the Memex?

For an interesting example that embodies some of "the associative trails of the Memex" take a look at the WikiPedia project.

Redefining "Computers" shown in Hidden Figures movie. Here is an impressive display of computing power!

 

 

The whiteboard: the joy of sex psychology, Daryle Gardner-Bonneau, 19 - 22, Interactions, Vol. 8, No. 1 (2001)

For Class Discussion - Can you think of any habitual or "superstitious" behavior that you (or people you know ;^) engage in when using a computer? Reflect on your own experience and ask some friends! Try to come up with several poorly designed, difficult to use computer tools that could benefit from a little psychological analysis!

Understanding the Human Machine. Deborah Lupton, 25 - 30, IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE | winter 2013

For Class Discussion - This Introduction to the Quantified Self movement is thought (and hopefully discussion!) provoking. What do you think about the author's position concerning the foundational concepts of Neoliberalism, the Body-Machine Metaphor and "Prosumption" as they relate to how people track their health and behavioral data with this new generation of technology? Along with looking at the technological viewpoint, be ready to discuss the political and ethical aspects of how personal data are generated, stored, and interpreted.

W Jan. 29

History of Computing and Human Computer Interaction

User Technology: From Pointing to Pondering, Stuart Card and Thomas Moran (1986), Proc. ACM conference on history of personal workstations, Palo Alto, ACM 183-198.

Reaction Paper (due by class time, posted up on the moodle) This paper, written by two of the researchers who helped create the field of HCI gives an early view of the positive role that scientific psychology can play in the development of usable computers. Summarize their arguments in several paragraphs. Do you find their arguments to be persuasive? What areas of psychology are the authors focusing on? Finally, take your best shot at describing what is going on in the Model Human Processor (Mr. BubbleHead) shown on page 186! All together this should be a 1000 - 1500 word reaction paper.

Psychology as a Mother of Invention. Thomas K. Landauer. CHI '87 Conference Proceedings Paper, 333-335. 

For class discussion and small group work- Consider the list of "intellectual tasks" that Landauer presents in the last page of this article as being ripe for development in 1987. Which of these are now in existence in 2025? What other "cognitive computer tools" have emerged in the ensuing 28 years? Come up with at least 3 new items you would add to the list for developments in the future? 

 

Just how smart are these smartphones really?

The most ubiquitious use of technology for most of us is a small rectangular device that we carry with us all the time. There is a burgeoning literature on the impact that smartphones have on us in many dimensions. Here is just sampling of the research to wade into and discuss. Be sure to bring your phones to class tonight! No reaction paper needed, but we will go hammer and tongs in debating the pro's and con's of smartphone use.

 

The Smartphone as a Pacifier and its Consequences: Young adults’ smartphone usage in moments of solitude and correlations to self-reflection. Sarah Diefenbach and Kim Borrmann. 2019. In Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’19). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Paper 306, 1–14.

Typical phone use habits: intense use does not predict negative well-being. Kleomenis Katevas, Ioannis Arapakis, and Martin Pielot. 2018. In Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI ’18). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 11, 1–13.

The Race Towards Digital Wellbeing: Issues and Opportunities. Alberto Monge Roffarello and Luigi De Russis. 2019. In Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’19). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Paper 386, 1–14.

Brain drain: The mere presence of one’s own smartphone reduces available cognitive capacity. Ward, A. F., Duke, K., Gneezy, A., & Bos, M. W. (2017). . Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, 2(2), 140-154.

The Extended iSelf: The Impact of iPhone Separation on Cognition, Emotion, and Physiology. Russell Clayton et. al. (2015) Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication.

 

Interesting Wiki Page on Perceptual Affordances and HCI

And a humorous video of affordances gone very very wrong!

The Norwegian Book Interface Video!

1981 Personal Computers let you read Newspapers online!!!

An honest to goodness "modern" book interface project in 2007!

 

 

 

 

W Feb. 5

Cognition and HCI: Cognitive Modeling to Improve Software Interaction and

Brain Training Software to Improve Cognitive Processes

Cognitive Modeling (GOMS, KLM and Kin!)

As we discussed last week, One thread of research in HCI is to apply principles and findings from Cognitive Psychology to help design software that matches our cognitive abilities and maximizes efficiency. I have 2 papers for you to read that span a 20ish year period of progress in this Cognitive Modeling Approach.

This first one features LC students in the first ever HCI class that I taught at LC using their new knowledge of the KLM model to compete with experienced Human Factors Professionals to see who can come up with the best predictions! Would I assign it if we didn't come out alright!

Jakob Nielsen and Victoria L. Phillips. 1993. Estimating the relative usability of two interfaces: heuristic, formal, and empirical methods compared. In Proceedings of the INTERACT '93 and CHI '93 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '93). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 214-221. DOI=http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/169059.169173

This second article is a very recent study that uses a more sophisticated Cognitive Model called EPIC and explores ways to improve the model to deal with visual search in modern interfaces.

David E. Kieras and Anthony J. Hornof. 2014. Towards accurate and practical predictive models of active-vision-based visual search. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '14). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 3875-3884. DOI=http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2556288.2557324

Reaction Paper (due by class time, posted up on the moodle)Briefly (300 - 500 wordish each) summarize the goals, methods, and findings of each paper.  Then contrast the approaches of these articles and what changes and developments do you see in these papers compared to the original Card and Moran paper that your read earlier that introduced you to this type of modeling from 1986?

 

 

Artificial Intelligence : Oxymoron/Overlord/Opportunity!?

Tonight we will begin our exploration into new developments in AI that will definitely impact HCI now and for the foreseeable future!

Read one of the classic papers in cognitive science by written by Alan Turing in 1950 entitled "Computing Machinery and Intelligence". Turing poses the question "Can machines think?" <Turing(1950).html > on the class google drive.

Here is what one reviewer had to say about the paper when nominating it for the 3rd most influential paper in cognitive science for the 20th century.

This paper is often said to mark the beginning of the cognitivist revolution in psychology by arguing that computing machines that think are possible, thus defending the appropriateness of computational models of intelligence and, by extension, other cognitive processes. The paper also recommends the controversial Turing test, according to which a computing machine that can simulate a thinking, speaking human so well that a human judge cannot detect the simulation should be deemed to possess genuine intelligence.

Read the paper and write a response paper commenting on the adequacy of the Turing Test "Imitation Game" for determining machine intelligence. Which of the objections that Turing presents do you find the most compelling and why? Come up with an objection of your own to the Turing Test. What would it take to convince you that a Machine was truly intelligent? Be ready to discuss and defend your position! Submit this one on the Moodle assignment entitled Turing Thoughts

 

A much more recent paper that tackles the question of Artificial Intelligence in LLM AI agents. They claim they are using the Turring tests, but are they really? Be ready to discuss.

Mei, Q., Xie, Y., Yuan, W., & Jackson, M. O. (2024). A Turing test of whether AI chatbots are behaviorally similar to humans. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 121(9), e2313925121.

Here is a more accessible article that discusses the research with the bold title of "Study finds ChatGPT’s latest bot behaves like humans, only better". The author claims that "The most recent version of ChatGPT passes a rigorous Turing test, diverging from average human behavior chiefly to be more cooperative."

 

Here are some Generative AI tools curated by Watzek Library to check out.

If you want to dip your toe into a wild chaotic array of new and developing tools check out these websites.  S*R's GenAI Product Tracker. and there's an ai for that. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

W Feb. 12

 

The Social Psychology of Computer Use - 

Are Computers People too!?!

Clifford Nass has a radical idea that he has been studying for over a decade, people respond to computers as if they were people too! These 5 articles follow the development of his research program over a 13 year period. Read them and be amazed (and maybe a bit incredulous 8^).

Computers are social actors. Clifford Nass, Jonathan Steuer and Ellen R. Tauber, Pages 72 - 78, CHI 94 

Can Computer Personalities Be Human Personalities?Clifford Nass, Youngme Moon, BJ Fogg, Byron Reeves, & Chris Dryer. Pages 228-229, CHI 95 short papers.

Does computer-generated speech manifest personality? an experimental test of similarity-attraction. Clifford Nass and Kwan Min Lee, Pages 329 - 336, CHI 00 

Thank You, I did not see that: In-car Speech Based Information Systems for Older Adults by Ing-Marie Jonsson, Mary Zajicek, Helen Harris, Clifford Nass. 1953 - 1956. CHI 2005, Late Breaking Results.

Similarity is More Important than Expertise: Accent Effects in Speech Interfaces. Nils Dahlback, QianYing Wang, Clifford Nass and Jenny Alwin, Pages 1553 - 1556, CHI 07 

 

Reaction Paper - List the social rules that these papers claim to find evidence for in how people interact with computers? For each one, do you find the results and the authors interpretation compelling? Why or why not? Consider some social psychological finding,theory or social rule other than the ones discussed in the readings, (here is a list and some ideas generated by the AI agent claude.ai) that could be studied using Clifford Nass's Computers are social actors (CASA) research approach to human computer interaction. We will design a study or two in class tonight inspired by the readings.

 

The Computers Are Social Actors (CASA) paradigm, established by Clifford Nass and colleagues in the 1990s, demonstrated that humans tend to apply social rules and expectations to computers despite knowing they are machines. Recent research has expanded this work in several directions. Read these 2 recent articles and be ready to discuss.


Gambino et al. (2020) published "Revisiting CASA: A Meta-Analysis of the Computers Are Social Actors Framework" in Human-Machine Communication Journal, analyzing decades of CASA studies. They found consistent support for the core premise while identifying important moderating factors like individual differences and technological sophistication.

 

Huang, G., & Wang, S. (2023). Is artificial intelligence more persuasive than humans? A meta-analysis. Journal of Communication, 73(6), 552-562.


 

Inspiring Ted Talk by Rupal Patel on personalizing computer voices to empower the voiceless.

 

 
W Feb. 19

Developmental Psychology Perspective in HCI

 

User Interfaces for Young and Old. Maddy D. Brouwer-Janse, Jane Fulton Suri, Mitchell Yawitz, Govert de Vries, James L. Fozard, Roger Coleman. interactions magazine, march/april 1997, 34 - 46.

Dev Psych "Interwebs" Assignment. Due by Feb 19th at high noon!

Search the internet for information regarding computing and the following groups: 1) Senior Citizens (55+), (2) Children (16 and under).

Choose a website builder platform and create a simple page that has a table with the information requested below. Post your website address to the moodle forum as soon as it is up. In the past couple years, the platform that a majority of people have chosen is weebly.com. If you want ot make a bit more of a time investment in the most popular website builder that comes in 2 flavors (.org and .com), check out this introductory guide to Wordpress.

- Create a Web page on your Web Site that contains at least 6 annotated sources (link with a sentence or two describing the contents of the linked pages) for each age group (a total of 12 links minimum). Among your links, try to include at least one from each of the following categories;

  • Organization focusing on computing issues related to the age group,
  • Software designed and targetted for the age group,
  • A research paper related to computing and the age group.
  • a mobile or tablet-based app targetting the age group
  • chat rooms, blogs, SNS or discussion forums designed specifically for the age group. 

A Tasty Selection of Age-Targeted Studies For Your Mental Palate

Guernsey, L. (n.d.). Can Your Preschooler Learn Anything From an iPad App? Retrieved February 1, 2015, from http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2012/05/interactive_screen_time_for_kids_do_educational_ipad_apps_teach_toddlers_anything_.html

Why yes they can! Tangible Technology Improves Creativity and Shape Recognition in Preschoolers. Erik Nilsen, Joel Schooler, Karma Rose Zavita, Raiven Greenberg, Noah Callaghan, Susan Camp.

Designing for Digital Playing Out. Gavin Wood, Thomas Dylan, Abigail Durrant, Pablo E. Torres, Philip Ulrich, Amanda Carr, Mutlu Cukurova, Denise Downey, Phil McGrath, Madeline Balaam, Alice Ferguson, John Vines, and Shaun Lawson. 2019. In Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’19). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Paper 679, 1–15. DOI:https://doi-org.library.lcproxy.org/10.1145/3290605.3300909

Nostalgia: an evocative tangible interface for elderly users. Nilsson(2003)

Making Well-being: Exploring the Role of Makerspaces in Long Term Care Facilities. Kayla Carucci and Kentaro Toyama. 2019. In Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’19). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Paper 469, 1–12. DOI:https://doi-org.library.lcproxy.org/10.1145/3290605.3300699

Ticket to Talk: Supporting Conversation between Young People and People with Dementia through Digital Media. Daniel Welsh, Kellie Morrissey, Sarah Foley, Roisin McNaney, Christos Salis, John McCarthy, and John Vines. 2018. In Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’18). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Paper 375, 1–14. DOI:https://doi-org.library.lcproxy.org/10.1145/3173574.3173949

 
W Feb. 26

Clinical and Abnormal Psychology

An eclectic collection of articles on the diagnosis, treatment, and impact of technology on mental health.

HCI and Affective Health: Taking stock of a decade of studies and charting future research directions. Pedro Sanches, Axel Janson, Pavel Karpashevich, Camille Nadal, Chengcheng Qu, Claudia Daudén Roquet, Muhammad Umair, Charles Windlin, Gavin Doherty, Kristina Höök, and Corina Sas. 2019. . In Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’19). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Paper 245, 1–17. DOI:https://doi-org.library.lcproxy.org/10.1145/3290605.3300475

Student Perspectives on Digital Phenotyping: The Acceptability of Using Smartphone Data to Assess Mental Health. John Rooksby, Alistair Morrison, and Dave Murray-Rust. 2019. . In Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’19). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Paper 425, 1–14. DOI:https://doi-org.library.lcproxy.org/10.1145/3290605.3300655

Empath: A Continuous Remote Emotional Health Monitoring System for Depressive Illness. Robert F. Dickerson, Eugenia I. Gorlin, and John A. Stankovic. 2011. In Proceedings of the 2nd Conference on Wireless Health (WH ’11). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 5, 1–10. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1145/2077546.2077552

Evaluating the Impact of a Mobile Neurofeedback App for Young Children at School and Home. Alissa N. Antle, Elgin-Skye McLaren, Holly Fiedler, and Naomi Johnson. 2019. In Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’19). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Paper 36, 1–13. DOI:https://doi-org.library.lcproxy.org/10.1145/3290605.3300266

Virtual reality in the assessment, understanding, and treatment of mental health disorders. Freeman, D., Reeve, S., Robinson, A., Ehlers, A., Clark, D., Spanlang, B., & Slater, M. (2017).  Psychological Medicine, 47(14), 2393-2400. doi:10.1017/S003329171700040X

Virtual reality in the treatment of persecutory delusions: randomised controlled experimental study testing how to reduce delusional conviction. Freeman, D., Bradley, J., Antley, A., Bourke, E., DeWeever, N., Evans, N., ... & Slater, M. (2016).  The British Journal of Psychiatry, 209(1), 62-67.

We will also have a round robin show and tell session of Apps that you have found and tried out for some aspect of mental health monitoring, education or treatment. Each of you find one an post it and a brief description on the class Moodle Page Forum called "There is an App for That DSM Diagnosis". Look to see that no one else has posted the App the you found. Each person needs to find a unique one. (First Find and Post claims ownership!).

 

 
W March 5

Technological Tools for Promoting Peace

 

Tonight we will be looking at research on technology for promoting peace in various ways.

First off, we will look at two serious games designed to raise awareness and change atttitudes about the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. 2 LC research projects explore one successful and one less than successful endeavor to reduce negative stereotyping.

Nilsen, E., LeDonne, R., Klemperer, E. & Olund, S. (2011) Conflict Resolution With a Serious Game for Peace.

Proceedings of Games + Learning + Society Conference, June 2011, 175 - 184.

Klemperer, E., LeDonne, R.,  & Nilsen, E. (2011) Promoting Human Rights While Polarizing Political Perceptions With a Serious Game.

Proceedings of Games + Learning + Society Conference, June 2011, 161 - 168.

Be ready to discuss why you think that these 2 games produce opposite results!

 

Here is a very recent paper that shows that PeaceMaker has potential to aid in understanding the "other" in conflict, especially if they are directly involved!

Nicolaidou, I., & Kampf, R. (2025). Serious Games, Knowledge Acquisition, and Conflict Resolution: The Case of PeaceMaker as a Peace Education Tool. 

Social Science Computer Review, 43(1), 214-231.

 

Organizations devoted to developing games for peace.

https://www.gamesforpeace.org/

https://www.usip.org/serious-games-and-simulations-peacebuilding

https://mgiep.unesco.org/gamesforpve

I am also asking you to come up with a draft of your Final Website Project. I have created a Final Project Idea Forum on moodle, and I kindly request that you post your ideas by noon on Tuesday, March 4th, the day BEFORE we meet! Between that time and class, look over the ideas posted and reply with comments, ideas and questions to at least 2 of your peers proposals! Below are the full instructions and link to the moodle forum.

 

Final Project Idea Forum (Post initial idea by Tuesday March 4th) *note* day BEFORE class meeting!

Here is where you will post your topic for your final project.  For this initial posting, provide a title for your potential topic, several paragraphs where you talk about your initial ideas for what you plan to explore and some initial online resources that you have identified that are relevant to your topic.  A good topic will have connections to psychology and user interface design, have at least some empirical research and available information about the theory and development that relates to it.

I also want you to include links, citation information and an abstract for at least 2 journal or conference paper articles that relate to your topic.

Look at the links for example final project pages from previous classes on the first class day on the syllabus.

 

 

 

 

 
W March 12

Topic 1: Human- Infant Robot Interaction

Breazeal(2000).pdf Infant-like Social Interactions between a Robot and a Human Caregiver.

Enjoy this reading about the cute Kismet robot for today's class. Class discussion will revolve around how Kismet embodies theories of emotion and expressive states. Pay particular attention to the experiments described (and graphed) of Kismet interacting with faces and stuffed animals!

Kismet is a sociable robot being developed at MIT which uses facial expressiveness as a central feature. Browse around the Kismet web site to get a feel for the goals of the project and what they have accomplished to date! Be sure to check out Kismet's "space of emotive facial expressions" and look at the pages concerning social interaction and how Kismet "learns".

Leonardo is Kismet's kin that has taken some major steps forward in abilities, most notably, it has arms, understands some language and has a fairly sophisticated representation about the beliefs of others in reference to it's world of faces and objects. check out the Leonardo project web site and this video of Leo learning a new concept from a human!

Meet Leonardo, Kismet's Kousin at the MIT Personal Robot Lab.

Breazeal(2009). An Embodied Cognition Approach to Mindreading Skills for Socially Intelligent Robots.


Please read the articles and be ready to discuss the following questions about the Breazeal (200, 2009) papers on Kismet and Leonardo respectively.
1. What commonalities does Leonardo have with Kismet?
2. What can Leonardo do that Kismet would never dream of!?
3. What is Theory of Mind and how does Leonardo exhibit this in it's behavior?
Starting at section 6 on pg. 669, the authors describe 2 human and 2 robot experiments. What are the purposes of these studies,
What conclusions can be drawn from them, and how do the robot and human results compare?

 

What have Cynthia and her MIT Personal Robotics Group been up to lately!

Kids learning to tell stories with social robot named TEGA!

A spectacular failure when trying to take a social robot named JIBO to the marketplace. But Maybe JIBO isn't dead yet?!?!

Topic 2: Cyborgs and Brain Machine Interface - Where Software and Hardware meet "Wetware"

Here is a former HCI student's web site project on Transhumanism that I recommend to you for a good overview of the topic and model for what your website can become!

 

A scientifically sound and accessible overview of the approaches to BMI (Brain Machine Interfaces). Lebedev, M. (2014). Brain-machine interfaces: an overview. Translational Neuroscience, 5(1), 99-110.

For a more "out there" approach to Technologically Driven Logical Positivism I give you Cyborgs: Elon Musk and the new era of neuroscience.

W March 19

 

Tonight's Topic - Website Usability Guidelines and Best Practices.

Aliaksei Miniukovich, Michele Scaltritti, Simone Sulpizio, and Antonella De Angeli. 2019. Guideline-Based Evaluation of Web Readability. In Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’19). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Paper 508, 1–12. DOI:https://doi-org.library.lcproxy.org/10.1145/3290605.3300738

 

Also we WILL discuss the topics from last weeks cancelled class!

 

W March 26

 
Spring Break

 
W April 2

Student Led Final Website Presentations (3 tonight for the kickoff)

W April 9

Student Led Final Website Presentations (3-4 per night)
W April 16

Student Led Final Website Presentations (3-4 per night)
W April 23

Student Led Final Website Presentations (3-4 per night)
W April 30

Student Led Final Website Presentations (3-4 per night)

W May 7

FINAL Exam Period 6 - 9 p.m.

 TBD, but some type of techie blowout!

Nilsen's Search Engines and Document Repositories of Choice

ACM Digital Library

The source for most of our class readings, free downloads of full text files from on campus

Tech Encyclopedia

A place to search for the meaning of those Computer Acronyms and "Geek Speak" terminology
Acronym Finder

A 2nd site for elucidating High Tech obfuscation 

 

ACM TechNews

News article summaries and links that can serve as stimulus ideas for your Web Site Project

ACM SIGCHI

Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction

HCI Index

HCI Specific

Erik's 15 minutes of Fame in Cyberspace. My research is reported in Wired News online edition.