Chapter+Seven

Chapter 7
__Embodied interaction 1: Ergonomics:__ > Recognizes, for example, that we have bodies which both facilitate and restrict the range and types of movements we can make. __Embodied interaction 2: Avatars in CVEs__ __Embodied interaction 3: Affordance__ __Theoretical perspective 1: Situated action:__ __Theoretical perspective 2: Distributed cognition__ __Theoretical perspective 3: Activity Theory__
 * Ergonomics: scientific study of the relationship between man and his environment. Environment including ambient (temperature, humidity, etc) and working (design of machines, health and safety issues).
 * Interested in: reaction times (how quickly we can respond), visual acuity (visual detail we can resolve), and reach (positioning of controls so we can reach them).
 * Seen by manufacturers as a major selling point and is important to ‘inclusive design’
 * Including older people in the design process.
 * Anthropometrics: measurement of man
 * Tell us the limits of a human so ergonomics can determine what constitutes as too small and compact in the designing process.
 * Fitts’ Law
 * Describes motor control. The smaller the target and the greater the distance, the longer it will take to hit the target.
 * Ex: the distance between  and  or worse  and 
 * CVE: Collaborative virtual environments
 * People are avatars
 * The surrounding area is data
 * Affordance: resource or support that the environment offers.
 * Formulation and execution of plans.
 * Plans are formulated through a set of procedures beginning with a goal, successive decomposition into sub-goals and into primitive actions. The plan is then executed.
 * BUT: the world is not stable, it is dynamic.
 * Thus plans are not executed but are just one resource which can shape an individuals behaviour
 * Distributed cognition: both cognitive process and knowledge used and generated are often distributed across multiple people, tools and representations.
 * Internal representation: knowledge (human memory
 * External representation: anything which supports the cognitive activity
 * Core features comprise recognition of the role and importance of culture, history and activity in understanding human behaviour.
 * CHAT: Cultural Historical Activity Theory
 * 3 basic principles:
 * Activities as the smallest meaningful unit of analysis
 * The principle of self-organizing activity systems driven by contradictions
 * Changes in activities as instantiations of cycles of expansive learning.
 * Structure:
 * Subjects: one or more people
 * Object: purpose/product or output
 * Artefact: tools used
 * Community: All other groups that take stake in activity
 * Division of labour: horizontal and vertical divisions of responsibilities and power within activity
 * Praxis: formal and informal rules and norms governing the relations between the subjects and the wider community of the activity.
 * Contradictions:
 * Primary: conflict at node
 * Secondary: conflict between two nodes
 * Tertiary: occurs when activity is remodeled to take account of new motives or new ways of working
 * Quaternary: occurring between different co-existing activities