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Enactive InterfacesRadka Yanakieva (Medialogy profile)

[email protected]

Abstract This paper introduces the concept of Enactive

Interfaces and their application. Embodied knowledge as the

basis for the design of such interfaces is described. Examples

of different implementations are reviewed and discussion on

the possible future perspective of Enactive Interfaces is

explained.

Keywords Embodied Cognition, Enactive Interfaces,

Perception-action loop, HCI

I. INTRODUCTION AND MOTIVATIONTo introduce the concept of Enactive Interfaces, first we

need to understand what enaction is. Enaction is the process

between a living organism and its environment or the

interaction between those. One of the first scholars which

introduced the theory of enaction is F.Varela et.al. In his

book The Embodied Mind he explains how an organism

develops his cognition based on embodied action. By that

he claims that the term embodied represents two things.

First that cognition depends on the experience which the

body has acquired via different sensorimotor capacities and

second that those capacities are embodied in a more

encompassing psychological, biological and cultural

context. [1]. This theory of enaction was an inspiration for

the researchers who saw a way of applying it to create a

new generation of interfaces in which design could change

the human-computer and human-to human interaction in a

more robust and less intrusive way.

The sensory-motor coupling between an organism and its

environment forms a knowledge which is more simple and

generic than a symbolic knowledge [2]. In other words

sensory inputs guide the actions and those actions modify

the environment. Also the relation of the living organism

modifies its environment which in return adapts to thesensory input. That is the so-called perception-action loop

with the environment, which is the foundation of the

concept of enactive interfaces. This closed loop is between

the gestures made by the human, also called efferent

component of the system and the sensory modalities beingactivated perceptually, called afferent component of the

system. An intelligent (reactive) interface should be able to

recognize certain gestural input in the beginning of the

action and interpret it in terms of skills, intentions and

competence. By being so advanced in its implementation

the interface should be able to adapt to the users actions

and help him improve his performance. [3].

Enactive interfaces have been a subject of interest in thelast six years. Their development and application has not

been fully exploited yet, but it is considered as the future

generation of the human-computer interaction [3]. The

reason is that enactive interfaces are a representation of the

enactive knowledge, which every human being acquires

based on his cognitive processes through his livedexperience with the environment. That is a knowledge

based on active use of the hand to apprehend tasks [3]. How

is this better than iconic or symbolic based interface? (here

I should clarify that by symbolic and iconic I mean user

interface based on metaphors). First, because it is based on

multisensory interaction with the environment and second,

it is considered as the most natural and intuitive interfaces -

it is more direct, based on the experience with what

surround us and the perceptual responses to motor acts [3].

However the implementation of such interfaces will require

faster computers, new kinds of computing architecture andalgorithms, as they need to be able to work on a higher and

more complex level of information representation.

The idea of the enactive interfaces is their design should

be as intuitive and natural to the user as possible. One may

ask Why this so important?. The reason is that

researchers and theorists within the domain of Human-computer Interaction try to explore the possibilities of such

interfaces and how those could be the next step of improved

HCI. What benefits could the enactive interfaces bring to

the users in comparison to the existing interfaces and how

can they even replace those? In the future may mouse andkeyboard be replaced by other controls more direct in terms

of medium between human and machine, less visible and

more natural to the user?

II. RELATED WORKA European community of scholars working within

different fields such as Virtual Environments, Robotics,

Neuroscience, Psychology, Computer Science, Philosophy

and Psychics have established a network called

ENACTIVE Network. Created in 2004 the Network had

started a project which had three sets of objectives:

Research, Integration and Dissemination. [3] [4]. The

objective of the research [5] was on the following topics:


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Implementing existing technologies and futuretechnological development: Designingmultisensory, action-driven interfaces

Users modelling-That includes understanding ofthe humans behaviour and capabilities

regarding perception, action and cognition in

order to create more flexible (suitable fordifferent daily tasks) and effectively co-

operating with the user (intuitive and natural,

responsive to his actions). In order to be done

that the enactive interface has to rely on

domains such as : haptic, visual, multisensory

integration and perception, motor control, actionand cognition

Content (information, representations)modelling and accessing in the motor-

perceptual form-this is related to generating

tools for multimodal representation and

transmission of information. Contents such asconceptual and formal (abstract or concrete

objects) as well as non-deliberative (motor,

habits and skills, perceptual and emotional

contents) are considered and mediated.

New applications for Enactive Interfaces- non-symbolic, non-iconic forms of interfaces. Those

are aimed at new users as well as to those

unable to access the traditional interfaces or

unable to fully exploit them.

Prospecting the major changes in computers andcommunication processes-an objective which

The ENACTIVE Network has about being an

observer of the mutations and changes in

human-computer interaction, particularly in

hardware and software architectures and beingable to introduce them through their research

activities.

The Integration objectives of the project of The

ENACTIVE Network are related to combining knowledge

from different disciplines with the same oriented research

field- developing Enactive Interfaces. Differentcompetencies such as human studies, cognition,

technological expertise and human interaction are required

for the creation of a common vision of Enactive

Interfaces [6]. That is the reason The Network share the

objective of creating a multidisciplinary laboratory that

could work at a European as well as worldwide level.The last objective is Spreading of Excellence. The focus

is to create a Network infrastructure which will promote

and disseminate the results of this research. Additionally, to

disseminate and educate about the concepts, knowledge and

technology developed during the activities of the Network.

Another objective is to promote the commercial and socialaspect of Enactive Interfaces. The aim here is to clarify and

create a strong cross-dependency between different

disciplines (e.g. technology and humanities), to structure

those independencies, to work for an adjustment of

knowledge and to inspire and motivate for creative and

intellectual work towards the development of EnactiveInterfaces.Promoting the enactive interaction paradigm in

the philosophical, scientific and technological communities

and creating a social comprehension of this novel type of

systems to accelerate its acceptance and diffusion among

others [7]. This shift of paradigm is what the main

purpose of Enactive Interfaces is. The belief that the

traditional interfaces are outdated and they belong to anolder generation of human-computer interaction. A new era

within the field is arising and that is the prediction of the

enactive research community. A new phenomenon occurs

and it enters our everyday life.

III.CURRENT TRENDSSince the establishment of the Network many have

worked on developing enactive interface. The different

research directions where such interfaces have been

developed are Virtual Reality, Haptics, Robotics, Computer

Image and Sound synthesis. Some of them will be

introduced here.

A study done by Morganti et.al [8]about patients who

suffered a stroke, introduces the use of an enactive interface

as a solution to the patients rehabilitation. What the

authors claim is that such interfaces are appropriate notonly for a single motor task but as well as global actions [8].

Introducing a Virtual Environment system may not be an

approachable and cheap solution, however in their paper

they refer to another study where healthy subjects and

motor impaired ones were tested in a real and simulated

environment, where the results showed that such anenactive technology has an important and valuable

significance within the research of rehabilitation and

retraining of movements such as grasping, placing and

reaching. However the movements in the physical world

with objects should be kinematically similar to the ones inthe virtual which could be achieved by using haptic devices.

In the case study done by Morganti et.al. a virtual glove

was used to grasp objects in a dynamic 3D virtual

environment. Shapes and sizes of the objects were different

and patients were asked to throw the objects(in this case

balls) and were provided with visual and auditory feedback.

Evaluation on their performance after different time periods

(at the beginning of the test, at the end of the treatment, 3

months and 6 months later) was scheduled to be done

where the goal was to compare their results to a controlgroup of patients who undergo a traditional treatment. The

study is still in progress which did not allow access to their

final findings. However, their beliefs are that enactive

interfaces may emphasize new perspectives and ways of

treatment of brain-injured patients.

Another example of enactive interfaces are the projects

put on public spaces where people could naturally interactwith, by walking around and getting simultaneously haptic,

visual and auditory feedback . The purpose of such an

installation is to create a new experience to the user related


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to his perception of the environment. An example is a

project done at the Fort de la Bastille, where a group of

researchers created an art installation in which the goal was

to enhance the awareness of the environment surrounding

the user and his actions [9].

A similar project is one called The Enactive Walkway.

The developers wanted to get participants engaged with

their senses and to explore the tension between the real and

the virtual. Surface on the floor provided visual, haptic andauditory feedback, while on the ceiling a screen was

implemented which interacted with the visitors movements.

Additionally a real-time sound was projected. The

development of this installation aimed at presenting thenew paradigm of interaction and to highlight how important

embodied knowledge is in interface design. [10].

Last example on enactive interface is by a group of

Italian students from the University of Padova, called The

Voice Painter [11]. The idea of their project is to map vocal

expressions into graphical representation on a screen. Thesystem was designed in a way that the user could

manipulate the color, size, movement and form (solid or

particles-like) via different features of his voice.(pitch,

intensity, spectral centroid, voiced/unvoiced flag ).

Preliminary informal tests performed at the 2007

Conference of Enactive Interfaces aimed at showing theway the users interact with the system, how many vocal

features are able to identify and if they (the users) are able

to control them. The results showed that most of the

mappings (intensitysize, mouth position paintbrush

position, voicing type paintbrush type) felt natural and

were clearly recognized. However testing the user

experience and performance was not the only objective of

the development of such a system. The application

relevance was seen as a possible solution in speech therapy

and treatment of physically impaired or those with motor

coordination disabilities.

IV.DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONSThe notion of Enactive Interfaces was presented. A new

paradigm of interaction between human and machine based

on embodied knowledge. How is this going to influence our

understanding of the future generation of HCI? Is this theonly way to go and abandon the current graphical interface?

Looking at the projects developed in the last few years

related to Enaction it seems the focus is in the development

of more intuitive and natural interaction between man and

machine as it does not rely on symbols and icons or

metaphors, but rather on the lived experience and learningby doing. However are those the substitutes to the

traditional interfaces and are they more robust and less

intrusive? Considering the fast growth of technologies, that

seems to be the way to go. Even if they are computationally

expensive, not always user friendly( e.g. data gloves, VR

goggles, wires, wearable equipment ) is this going to be a

problem in the next couple of years when some scholars

predict computers to become part of us, implemented in our

houses, work even within ourselves? What it looked a

science fiction a couple of decades ago, now is availableand accessible.

As F.Varela et.al have explained through the notion of

enaction and embodied knowledge it is evident that no

matter what technology is used, as far as applies this theory

we may call the interface enactive. Whether it is a virtual

reality, augmented reality or computing embedded in

everyday objects that surround us such aspervasive/ubiquitous computing, the underlying concept

should be based on the perception-action loop, which is no

different than being an enactive interface.

After reviewing relevant literature on enactive interfaces

and the proceedings of the conferences, there is still no

literature on established guidelines or methodologies for the

development of such interfaces. However, as enactive

interfaces seem to be a wide and broad area and it is

possible an implementation within different fields such as

the mentioned above, common strategy might be not

possible to apply. That is why more specific requirements

or principles should be formed in order to ensure

effectiveness in each particular case. (e.g. Enactive AI

design principles, by T.Froeze and T.Ziemke [12]).

A promising future of the Enactive Interfaces can be

seen if when designing such interfaces, not only the latestcutting edge technologies are used, but if the cognitive,

social, cultural and psychological aspects of such

implementation are also taken into consideration. However,

the changes that occur within the human-computer

interaction require exploring new ways of understating the

users, exploring new ways of designing, making andrevising the evaluation of the digital technologies [13] .

Consequently, this requires the use of new types of

interfaces and enactive interfaces seem to be the ultimate

candidate.

REFERENCES

[1] F. Varela, ,E. T.Thompson, and E . Rosch,

The Embodied Mind, Cognitive Science and Human Experience. s.l. : MITPress, 1991. 0-262-22042-3.

[2] (2003-2007). Enactive Network, [Online]

http://www.enactivenetwork.org/index.php?lexpId=lexiconDefinition&ent

ryId=317&definitionId=0.

[3] (2003-2007). Enactive Network,. [Online]

http://www.enactivenetwork.org/index.php?9/enactive-interfaces.[4] (1998). Virtual Reality Lab. [Online]

http://vrlab.epfl.ch/Projects/enactive.html.

[5] (2003-2007) Enactive Network,. [Online]http://www.enactivenetwork.org/index.php?11/research-objectives.

[6] (2003-2007) Enactive Network,. [Online]

http://www.enactivenetwork.org/index.php?10/integration-objectives.[7] (2003-2007) Enactive Network,. [Online]

http://www.enactivenetwork.org/index.php?12/spreading-of-excellence.

[8] F. Morganti, et al "Grasping Virtual Objects: a Feasibility Study foran Enactive Interface Application in Stroke", PsychNology Journal, vol.

4, 2006

[9] . R Atienza, et al. "RefleCT/Xion from enaction to daily enaction",2007, Proceedings of ENACTIVE/07


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[10] (2009) Enactive Walkway, [Online],http://navidnavab.net/projects.html#enactiveWalkway.

[11] A.Gtzen, R.Marogna and F.Avanzini,"The Voice Painter", 2008,

Edizioni Ets,. 978-884672252-2.[12].T. Froese and T. Ziemke, "Enactive ArtificialIntelligence:Investigating the systemic organization of life and mind",

Artificial Intelligence, 2009, vol. 173.

[13]. R.Harper, et al. "Being Human:Human-Computer Interaction in the

Year 2020." Microsoft Research Ltd, 2008. 978-0-9554761-1-2.

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