Extra Paper #10

Reference:
Visible and controllable RFID tags
Nicolai Marquardt
Alex Taylor
Nicolas Villar
Saul Greenberg
Proceeding CHI EA '10 Proceedings of the 28th of the international conference extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems 

Summary:
Radio frequency identification (RFID) tags containing privacy-sensitive information are increasingly embedded into personal documents (e.g., passports and driver's licenses). The problem is that people are often unaware of the security and privacy risks associated with RFID, likely because the technology remains largely invisible and uncontrollable for the individual. To mitigate this problem, the authors developed a collection of novel yet simple and inexpensive alternative tag designs to make RFID visible and controllable. For awareness, our tags provide visual, audible, or tactile feedback when in the range of an RFID reader. For control, people can allow or disallow access to the information on the tag by how they touch, orient, move, press, or illuminate the tag. 

Discussion:
I think that this is an interesting paper.  Today, where people can scan RFIDs from a credit card in a wallet or purse just by walking by with a scanner, something needs to be done.  This would help reduce the risk of having an RFID.  Whether it provides feedback when scanned, or only allowing certain information on the RFID, this could help reduce identity theft.

 

Extra Paper #9

Reference:
Ohan Oda
Steven Feiner
Proceeding CHI EA '10 Proceedings of the 28th of the international conference extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems

Discussion:
This paper is about two fast-paced augmented reality games. One is a single-player game experienced through a head-worn display. The player manipulates a tracked board to guide a virtual ball through a dynamic maze of obstacles. Combining the 3DOF absolute orientation tracker on the head-worn display with 6DOF optical marker tracking allows the system to always account for the correct direction of gravity. The second game is a networked, two-player, first-person-shooter, in which tracked hand-held UMPCs are used to blast virtual dominoes off a table. Players' virtual locations are warped to keep them from physically interfering with each other.

Discussion:
Ok, I think that this is definitely one of the more interesting papers.  For years, I have thought about virtual/augmented reality games.  I think that this is one of every gamers dream.  This could be adapted to make today's games more interactive.  I would definitely like to try out this system.

Extra Paper #8

Reference:
Critical gameplay: software studies in computer gameplay
Lindsay Grace
Proceeding CHI EA '10 Proceedings of the 28th of the international conference extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems

Summary:
The computer game software with which we interact on a daily basis not only entertains us, it trains us into specific patterns. This paper is about Critical Gameplay.  Critical Gameplay is a design practice which endeavors to expose and redesign the patterns to which standard gameplay subscribes. The ongoing project seeks to identify the dominant values, philosophies and problem solving models reinforced by computer games and provides prototypical alternates to those standards. 

Discussion:

I play video games.  Granted I mostly play console rather than PC.  I have seen how games instill pattern on gamers though.  I think that this is intersting to see someone try to change gaming patterns.  

Extra Paper #7

Reference:
Robotany: Breeze
Jill Coffin
Proceeding CHI EA '10 Proceedings of the 28th of the international conference extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems

Summary:

This paper describes Breeze, a live roboticized tree.  Breeze is part of a research program called Robotany, which uses techno-organic artifacts to study technology-human interaction.  Breeze was exhibited in Switzerland and in San Jose in 2006 as two different types of trees.  Visitor interaction with Breeze is interpreted through a series of narratives. These narratives yield results with implications for human-computer interaction research.

Discussion:
I thought that this was interesting.  I thought that t was odd that there was a different reaction to the different types of trees.  However, I am curious as to if it was the different type of tree, or the differences in culture between Switzerland and San Jose.

 

Extra Paper #6

Reference:
Critical Point, a composition for cello and computer
Roger Dannenberg
Tomas Laurenzo
Proceeding CHI EA '10 Proceedings of the 28th of the international conference extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems

Summary:

This paper is about an application called Critical Point.  Critical Point is written for solo cello and interactive computer music system with two to four channel sound system and computer animation. The cellist plays from a score, and the computer records and transforms the cello sounds in various ways. Graphics and video are also projected. The computer-generated graphics are affected by audio from the live cellist. Critical Point is written in memory of the artist Rob Fisher.

Discussion:
I thought that this paper was interesting.  I played music before college, and I thought that this was a cool idea.  While I believe that cello players are not very common, i was interested that they made this because of a former musician. I think that this would be an interesting program to use.

Extra Paper #5

Rerference:
LiquidText: active reading through multitouch document manipulation
Craig Tashman
Proceeding CHI EA '10 Proceedings of the 28th of the international conference extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems

 

Summary:
Active reading, involving acts such as highlighting, writing notes, etc., is an important part of knowledge workers' activities. Most computer based active reading support has sought to better replicate the affordances of paper. Instead, this paper seeks to go past paper by proposing a more flexible, fluid document representation, controlled through gesture and multitouch input. Formative evaluations revealed details about modern active reading behavior and early reactions to the prototype system.

Discussion:
I thought that this design was really interesting.  A lot of people like to highlight or mark in books or on paper while reading.  I think that the design of LiquidText will help users for taking notes without using paper, and make it easier to pull out passages that they find important.

 

Extra Paper #4

References:
Improved window switching interfaces
Susanne Tak and Andy Cockburn
Proceeding CHI EA '10 Proceedings of the 28th of the international conference extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems

Summary:
Switching between windows on a computer is a frequent activity, but current switching mechanisms make it difficult to find items.This paper is about ways to improve window switching interfaces. Studies reveal how people currently organise and switch between windows. These characteristics inform the authors' design new design: Spatially Consistent Thumbnails Zones (SCOTZ).



Discussion:

I thought that the interface described in this paper could be useful.  It is often that I am switching between different windows.  It is also often that I switch to one that I didn't intend to go to.  The interfaces today are not great.  I think that this would help a lot of people while using a computer. 

Extra Paper #3

Reference:
The role of tangible technologies for special education
Taciana Pontual Falcão
CHI EA '10 Proceedings of the 28th of the international conference extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems

Summary:
The physicality and multisensory aspect of tangibles make them particularly suitable for children with special needs. However, there is little empirical research on tangibles for supporting cognition and learning difficulties. This paper is about research that investigates the role of tangibles in supporting attention, verbal memory and abstract thinking of children with learning needs, particularly when collaborating with peers.

Discussion:
I thought that this paper has good goals.  It is good to try to help those with special needs.  With the advancements in technology, there should be many ways to help them.  I think that this will help. 

Extra Paper #2

Reference:
Supporting medical communication with a multimodal surface computer
Anne Marie Piper
CHI EA '10 Proceedings of the 28th of the international conference extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems

Summary:
This paper is about the utility of a multimodal surface computer for supporting medical communication between older adults and health care providers. Research involves a field study of health care communication practices, the design of a multimodal surface computer application, and an in-context evaluation of the technology at a local retirement community.  The multimodal surface computers will allow older adult patients to use the computers who would normally be intimidated by a mouse and keyboard set-up.


Discussion:
I was slightly interested in this paper.  I think that the design is good, and that the idea is good.  However, how important is it that older adult patients be able to interact with the computers?  I think that there could be a simpler way instead of using a large touch screen surface computer. 

Extra Paper #1

Title:
Heads-up engagement with the real world: multimodal techniques for bridging the physical-digital divide


Reference:
Simon Robinson
CHI EA '10 Proceedings of the 28th of the international conference extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems

Summary:
 The vast and ever-increasing collection of geo-tagged digital content about the physical world around us has prompted the development of interaction methods for various different scenarios. However, the map-based views common on desktop computers are not always appropriate when considering mobile usage. This paper is about research to provide suitable methods that can encourage user interaction with geo-located digital content, avoiding unnecessary interference with the user's immersion in the physical world around them. The author wants to increase interaction with the world around the user rather than with an interaction device.

Discussion:
I thought that this was an interesting paper.  Most papers are about developing a new device to interact with.  It was nice to see a change toward making the interaction more focused on the environment.  I would consider using something like this in the future.  It would also be interesting if the interactions were more visual.

Paper Reading #25 - Using language complexity to measure cognitive load for adaptive interaction design

Reference:

M. Asif Khawaja, Fang Chen, and Nadine Marcus.

IUI '10 Proceedings of the 15th international conference on Intelligent user interfaces

Summary:

This paper is about an adaptive interaction system.  Te system keeps track of the users' current cognitive load, and can change its response, presentation and interaction flow to improve the users' experience and performance.  The authors propose a speech content analysis approach for measuring the users cognitive load.  The system will analyze the users language and dialogue complexity.

Discussion:
I think that this system could be useful.  Unfortunately, this paper focuses on the analysis of the users load rather than what the system would do the help the users performance.  I think that that would be more interesting than this.

 

Paper Reading #24 - Mobia Modeler: easing the creation process of mobile applications for non-technical users

Reference:

Florence Balagtas-Fernandez, Max Tafelmayer, and Heinrich Hussmann.

IUI '10 Proceedings of the 15th international conference on Intelligent user interfaces

Summary:

This paper is about a tool that would make it easy for people without programming skills to build mobile applications.  While there are mobile companies that are opening their APIs and tools, those without programming skills are unable to create something.  The authors present a tool to help this. They use the creating of an application in the area of mobile health monitoring as a proof of concept.

Discussion:

I think two things about this paper.  First, as a programmer, I think that it is horrible.  being able to program is an acquired skill, and why should people be allowed to take short cuts.  It is like developing something that could play the piano just by telling it what to do.  It takes the technical ability away from doing something.  Secondly however, I think that it could be interesting to see what people with no programming skills can do with a tool like this.

 

Paper Reading #23 - Evaluating the design of inclusive interfaces by simulation

Reference:

Pradipta Biswas, and Peter Robinson.

Venue: IUI '10 Proceedings of the 15th international conference on Intelligent user interfaces

Summary:

This paper is about a simulator that will help in the design and testing of assistive interfaces.  The system can predict interaction patterns from a variety of input devices.  They present a study done to evaluate the simulator.  They considered a representative application being used by able-bodied, visually impaired and mobility impaired people.  The simulator predicted task completion times with high accuracy.

Discussion:

I think that this is an interesting system.  I have already read about a paper on a system to help with assistive interfaces, but I was intrigued that this was focused on the interfaces rather than actually providing assistance.  This system would be helpful when evaluating systems.

Paper Reading #22 - From documents to tasks: deriving user tasks from document usage patterns

Reference:
Oliver Brdiczka

IUI '10 Proceedings of the 15th international conference on Intelligent user interfaces

Summary:
This paper is about a new system to assist users in task switching.  Most workers switch between multiple tasks in a day.  The switches require recovery time in between to get reacquainted with the new task.  Since these switches happen frequently in a typical work day, task management systems were developed to aid workers.  Typical systems, unfortunately, require a lot of investment on the user side, from either learning the system or training the system.  The new system proposed in the paper automates the estimations of users tasks from document interaction.  Instead of looking at the content of the documents, which can violate the users privacy, this system monitors the desktop activities and stores an identifier for each document on the users desktop. 


Discussion:
I think that this system could be useful.  I did like the fact that the system focuses on document switches rather than the information.  This means workers with classified information would still be able to use this system.  I am interested to see how this system gets developed further.

Paper Reading #21 - iSlideShow: a content-aware slideshow system

Reference:

Jiajian Chen, Jun Xiao and Yuli Gao.

IUI '10 Proceedings of the 15th international conference on Intelligent user interfaces

 

 

Summary:

This paper is about a photo slideshow system.  The system can automatically analyze thematic information about the collection of photos.  The system can then generate slides for two modes: story-telling, and person-highlighting.  In the story-telling mode, the system clusters photos by a theme-based clustering algorithm, and tiles multiple photos on a slide.  There are many tiling layouts, and the slideshow is animated by transitions.  In the person-highlighting mode, the system begins by recognizing faces from photos.  Then it creates photo clusters for each individual. 

 

Discussion:

I think that this system is pretty cool.  I like that it can sort by theme or by person.  This seems similar in concept to another paper I read about, the touch interface scrapbook.  They both take something that is usually done by hand, and automate it.  I think that this one rather than the other would be more popular though.

 

Paper Reading #20 - Raconteur: from intent to stories

Reference:
Chi, Pei-Yu and Lieberman, Henry
IUI '10 Proceedings of the 15th international conference on Intelligent user interfaces



Summary:
This paper is about Raconteur.  Raconteur is a system that is designed to help users create stories from annotated media elements.  The system uses the AnalogySpace Commonsense reasoning technique.  The system is designed to help users understand how a story fits together.  The focus is on pictures and videos to help novice editors.   

Discussion:
I'm not sure what to think about this system.  On one hand, it will help users understand a story and how each piece fits together.  However, on the other hand, it is intended to be used by novice editors.  I don't know if this is good or not.  This new system may take jobs away from good editors because any novice can use this software.

Paper Reading #19 - Social signal processing: detecting small group interaction in leisure activity

Reference:
Eyal Dim, Tsvi Kuflik
IUI '10 Proceedings of the 15th international conference on Intelligent user interfaces

Summary:

This paper is about social signal processing of small groups.  The social interactions are monitored for things like how close someone is for starting a conversation and voice communication.  If a system can understand the social interactions of a group, it can intervene and suggest relevant information at the right time.  The authors conducted a study to determine the possibility of automated detection of group interaction in a museum.  The study was done in the Tel-Aviv Museum of Arts and was conducted on 58 small groups.

Discussion:

I think that this was interesting.  The research could have an impact on future products.  At first I thought that the interactions would be difficult to map because everyone acts differently with different people, but I realized that there are still similarities in how people act.  I think that the research should be expanded to somewhere other than a museum to get more information though.

Paper Reading #18 - Personalized user interfaces for product configuration

Reference:
Felfernig Alexander, Mandl Monika, Tiihonen Juha, Schubert Monika, Leitner Gerhard
IUI '10 Proceedings of the 15th international conference on Intelligent user interfaces


Summary:
This paper is about configuration techniques of personalized default values for users.  Since many products today are widely distributed, the default settings are set to be general rather than personalized.  Often, the default settings can be difficult for the user to understand, and get accustomed to.  The authors conducted a empirical study, and found an improvement in user satisfaction and the quality of the configuration process.


Discussion:
While the paper was interesting, it was difficult to understand at times.  There were many mathematical formulas and technical terms.  Also, there were no images to help understand the ideas.  The paper definitely needs to be changed for average readers to understand.

Paper Reading #17 - A natural language interface of thorough coverage by concordance with knowledge bases

Reference:
Yong-Jin Han, Tae-Gil Noh, Seong-Bae Park, Se Young Park, Sang-Jo Lee
IUI '10 Proceedings of the 15th international conference on Intelligent user interfaces


Summary:

One of the critical problems in natural language interfaces is the discordance between the expressions covered by the interface and those by the knowledge base. In the graph- based knowledge base such as an ontology, all possible queries can be prepared in advance. As a solution of the discordance problem in natural language interfaces, this paper proposes a method that translates a natural language query into a formal language query such as SPARQL. In this paper, a user query is translated into a formal language by choosing the most appropriate query from the prepared queries. The experimental results show a high accuracy and coverage for the given knowledge base.

 

Discussion:

There has always been a difficulty in translating from a natural language into a formal language.  There are often too many subtle nuances that get overlooked.  However, this system seems like it could be useful, and I thought that that it sounded interesting.

 

 

Paper Reading #16 - Mixture model based label association techniques for web accessibility

Reference:
Muhammad Asiful Islam, Yevgen Borodin, I. V. Ramakrishnan

UIST '10 Proceedings of the 23nd annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology

Summary:
For most people, reading a web page is not a problem.  However, what they don't realize is that they intuit information from the whole page to understand it.  Unfortunately, blind users are forced to use a screen reader to aid them.  The screen readers are limited in what they can do though.  If there is an error, like a typo, the reader will not realize it.  This may seem trivial, but when filling out a form for online shopping or bill paying, this can cause problems.  This paper is about a Finite Mixture Model (FMM). This is a system that will take a form element and calculate the most likely label.  In addition, a user study with two blind people is included in the paper.


Discussion:
I think that this is a good way of how technology can be used to aid people.  This would be very helpful to blind people.  Unfortunately, the paper got technical, and was difficult to understand at times.

Paper Reading #15 - TurKit: human computation algorithms on mechanical turk

References:
Greg Little, Lydia B. Chilton, Max Goldman, Robert C, Miller
UIST '10 Proceedings of the 23nd annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology


Summary:
This paper is about software called TurKit. Mechanical Turk provides an on-demand source of human computation. This provides a tremendous opportunity to explore algorithms which incorporate human computation as a function call.  TurKit is a toolkit that provides a way of exploring human computation, while maintaining an imperative programming style.  The authors provide applications for human computation algorithms, and case studies where TurKit is used in real experiments.

Discussion:
Many companies use Mechanical Turk in their customer reviews today.  This relies on human computation rather than computer algorithms.  With this new system however, there may be a way to change the current systems to utilize TurKit.

Paper Reading # 14 - A framework for robust and flexible handling of inputs with uncertainty

References:

Julia Schwarz, Scott E. Hudson, Jennifer Mankoff, Andrew D. Wilson

UIST '10 Proceedings of the 23nd annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology

 

Summary:

New input technologies like touch, recognition based input such as pen gestures and next generation interactions all provide for more natural user interfaces. However, these techniques all create inputs with some uncertainty. Conventional infrastructure lacks a method for easily handling uncertainty, and as a result input produced by these technologies is often converted to conventional events as quickly as possible, leading to a stunted interactive experience. The authors present a framework for handling input with uncertainty in a systematic, extensible, and easy to manipulate fashion. A probabilistic finite state machine can be developed to handle the uncertanty principle, like touching in between two buttons. 

 

 

Discussion:

I think that this would be very useful.  When using touch based input, I have found that often the device misreads where I pressed.  This gets annoying very fast.  Something like this would help reduce the errors that are prone to happen with different inputs.  

 

 

Paper Reading # 13 - Gestalt: integrated support for implementation and analysis in machine learning

References:
Kayur Patel, Naomi Bancroft, Steven M. Drucker, James Fogarty, Andrew J. Ko, James A. Landay
UIST '10 Proceedings of the 23nd annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology


Summary:
This paper is about a new development envirnonment for machine learning called Gestalt.  Where most programming environments focus on source code, Gestalt works with both source and data.  Gestalt allows developers to create a classification pipeline, follow data through that pipeline, and offers easy transition between implementation and analysis.  An experiment was conducted with this new environment, and a significant increase of bug detection and fixes was shown. 

Discussion:
I think that this could be a very useful tool.  When developing code, one of the hardest things is to find bugs, and if Gestalt makes it easier, I would like to give it a try.  Also, when just looking at the code, it can be difficult to visualize what is going on, so it is important that the environment can transition easily.

Paper Reading # 12 - Pen + touch = new tools

References:

Ken Hinckley, Koji Yatani, Michel Pahud, Nicole Coddington, Jenny Rodenhouse, Andy Wilson, Hrvoje Benko, and Bill Buxton

Conference: UIST '10 Proceedings of the 23nd annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology

 

Summary:

This paper is about a new interface that relies on a pen for input as well as touch.  They began by observing how people use a pen with a notebook, and went from there.  They decided to split up the labor.  In general, the pen writes, touch manipulates, and a combination of the two produces other tools.  They used a Microsoft Surface and an LED pen for testing.  The prototype was developed for mainly note taking, and scrap booking.  The paper describes some of the different tools that can be used, like holding a picture and dragging with the pen to create a copy and holding photos and tapping one with the pen to staple them together.

Discussion:

I think that this is a design with a limited distribution base.  As there are two sides of the system, it will draw two separate crowds.  For people looking to take notes, this system will have to be well made to compete with the systems that have been out for a while, like tablet PCs.  For scrap-booking,  my guess is that most people who already scrapbook enjoy what they are doing without using a computer.  I think that more will buy this product that have not scrap-booked before, because those who have will feel that this takes away from the personalization of what they do.  However, that is just my opinion, I could be completely wrong.  I do think that some of these techniques could be incorporated into existing systems though.

Paper Reading #7 - There's a monster in my kitchen: using aversive feedback to motivate behaviour change

References:
Karam, M. (2010). The coffee lab: developing a public usability space. Proceeding of the Acm conference on human factors in computing systems (pp. 2671-2680). Atlanta: http://www.sigchi.org/chi2010/. 


Summary:
This paper is about a new idea for conducting usability studies in a public space.  The lab is set up in a coffee shop in Toronto.  The lab consists of several interactive systems.  The fact that the public usability tests are conducted outside of a lab is new.  This allows the study to get a better variety of candidates to participate in the testing.  Which allows for a more accurate view of the public's reactions.

Discussion:
I think that this is a great concept.  Studies are always trying to test the participants natural reactions, but this cannot be done when they are outside of their natural environment.  This study allows the participants to act naturally while still testing the system, which allows for a more genuine reaction.  This in turn gives Karam better information about the systems.

Paper Reading #6 - There's a monster in my kitchen: using aversive feedback to motivate behaviour change

References:
Kirman, B., et al. (2010). There's a monster in my kitchen: using aversive feedback to motivate behaviour change. Proceeding of the Acm conference on human factors in computing systems (pp. 2685-2694). Atlanta: http://www.sigchi.org/chi2010/.

Summary:
This paper is about system and power usage.  The system design is based on negative feedback.  They use a kitchen as an example.  When an appliance is used with poor power management, the user will get a verbal rebuke, or even a text message.  Also, the system will be given enough control to reduce power drain of certain appliances that have been misused in the past.

Discussion:
I think that this system could be useful.  Most people probably don't even realize  when they are using appliances poorly.  This would give them a chance to fix that, and save some money on electricity bills.  That being said, I am not sure that only negative reinforcement is the best option.  There are people that don't react well to negative reinforcement.  I would think that a mix between positive and negative reinforcement would be better. 

Paper Reading #5 - A multi-touch enabled steering wheel: exploring the design space

References:
Pfeiffer, M., et al. (2010). A multi-touch enable steering wheel - exploring the design space. Proceeding of the Acm conference on human factors in computing systems (pp. 3355-3360). Atlanta: http://www.sigchi.org/chi2010/. 

Summary:
This paper is about a new way to control functions in a car.  The purpose is to keep the drivers hands on the steering wheel while still allowing them to control things like the radio and GPS. In addition, the driver is able to create different gestures for each function to enable them to customize for what each person feels is natural.  They tested this with a driver in a simulation with a prototype of the steering wheel.  What they found was that many gestures were already in place, like pinching in for zooming out on a map.  

Discussion:
This could be a good idea, but it also could be a bad idea.  It is cool that you can create personalized gestures for different functions.  Also, it will allow the driver to keep their hands on the wheel.  However, there is a risk of the driver accidentally making a gesture which causes something to happen that the driver wasn't expecting.  Another thing is that this may take too much attention for the driver to use which may lead to accidents.  All in all, I think that this has promise, but I would definitely want safety tests first.  

Paper Reading #2 - Communicating software agreement content using narrative pictograms

Title:

Communicating software agreement content using narrative pictograms 

References:

Communicating software agreement content using narrative pictograms

Matthew Kay and Michael Terry

CHI EA '10 Proceedings of the 28th of the international conference extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems

Summary:

This paper is about using pictures to convey the terms if a licensing agreement.  Software agreements are currently text only.  They are usually many pages long, and use language that is difficult for average users to understand.  This paper discusses rules for incorporating images into the agreements to help users understand what they are agreeing to, or potentially give an agreement that is only based on pictures.  The authors believe that developing this method will help users understand the terms of the licensing agreements while not forcing them to learn technical jargon. 

Discussion:

I think that this is a great idea.  Whenever I download new software, whether it is the new version of Itunes or a web-browser to replace IE, the licensing agreements are annoying.  I doubt that I'm the only one that has clicked "I Agree" without reading the terms completely, or even at all.  The average user doesn't want to spend half an hour trying to read the agreement and looking up something for every other sentence.  I think that if images would be incorporated, this would keep the users informed without wasting their time.  

 

Opening Skinner's Box

Title:
Opening Skinner's Box


Reference:
Slater, Lauren. Opening Skinner's Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century. W.W. Norton & Company: 2008.


Summary:
Opening Skinner's Box is about 10 different psychologists, their experiments, and how their work affected psychology and other fields.  Each chapter is dedicated to a different psychologist and experiment, which she concludes with her own personal experiments or experiences on the subject.  Here is a brief summary of each chapter:


Chapter 1:
This chapter is about B. F. Skinner, and his experiments.  Skinners first experiment included rats in a box with levers.  He studied their behavior, and how it changed by when they pushed a lever, they got food.  He also tried altering the schedule of food reward, and discovered that when using a fixed-ratio schedule, the rat quickly learned how many times to press the lever before getting food.


Chapter 2:
This chapter is about Stanley Milgram and his shock experiment.  In the experiment, there is a teacher and a learner.  The teacher reads a set of words, and the learner must repeat them, otherwise they receive a shock from the teacher.  The experiment was actually about obedience and how people follow what they are told. 




Chapter 3:
This chapter discussed an experiment conducted by David Rosenhan.  The experiment was to test the ability of psychiatrists to determine if a person is "sane" or "insane".  Rosenhan and 8 other people went to separate mental institutions and complained that they had a voice in their head, and it said "thud".  All 9 were admitted.  Then as the next step in the experiment, all acted normally, and if asked, said that their symptom was gone.  The time spent in the institutions ranged from 7 days to 52 days.




Chapter 4:

This chapter is about an experiment done by 2 psychologists, John Darley, and Bibb Latane.  They got their idea for the experiment from a murder in NY.  It was not the murder that actually caught their attention though, it was the fact that there were 38 witnesses, the murder happened over a 35 minute period, and none of the witnesses called the police or even went outside their apartment to help.  Darley and Latane's experiment used a faked seizure to test the subjects reactions.  The subject was placed in a room with a microphone, and told they would talk for 2 minutes about life in college, then the next person in a different room would talk, and they would listen, with a group of talkers taking turns.  Actually, all of the voices were prerecorded.  One of the recordings had the voice act like it was having a seizure, and Darley and Latane recorded the results.

Chapter 5:
In this chapter, Slater discusses Leon Festiger's theory of cognitive dissonance.  This is the thought that people will change their beliefs to match certain circumstances.  Slater found a woman whose child almost drowned at the age of 3.  The mother surrounded her child with religious relics, and after a while, the relics began move of their own accord.  Also, the relics would ooze blood, or strange oils. People began to come to the child and take some of the oils for cures for many different ailments.  The mother then believed that her child was a saint, to take the pains of others to heal them.  Slater says that this is classic dissonance, by the way the mother rationalized what had happened.




Chapter 6:
This chapter was about Harry Haslow's experiments with love.  For the experiments, he used baby rhesus monkeys.  In his first experiment, he placed some monkeys in an area with 2 surrogate mothers.  One was made of cardboard, and covered in cloth, but had no milk to drink.  The other was made out of wire, and had milk for the monkeys.  What he observed was that the baby monkeys would cling to the cloth mother, when they got hungary, go to the wire mother until they were full, then return.  Haslow discusses how this relates that touch is more important than just getting food to love.




Chapter 7:
This chapter is about Bruce Alexander and Robert Coambs' investigation into drug addiction using rats.  They created a rat park with open areas, nice wood chips, and separate areas.  Then they placed a sixteen rats into the park, and another sixteen in standard laboratory cages.  They placed two water bottles in each, one containing pure water, and the other water laced with morphine and some sucrose, to hide the bitterness of the morphine.  The rats in the cages, drank mostly the morphine water, but the rats in the rat park drank mostly the plain water. 




Chapter 8:
This chapter discusses Elizabeth Loftus and her experiments with memory.  Her experiments are about how easy it is to plant a suggested memory into someones head, and have that form into a believed memory for that person.  Her one of her initial experiments consisted of 24 students who went home and implanted false memories in their sibling that they had been lost in a mall when they were younger.  When the siblings came into the lab later, 25 percent of them elaborated in detail of the time that they got lost in the mall, but never actually happened. 




Chapter 9:
This chapter is about Kandel's experiments with sea slugs.  He probed the slugs with electric probes, and was observing how they remembered a new task.  He trained them to withdraw their gills whenever they were touched, and he was able to observe with a microscope how the neurons changed.  The more the relationship was enforced, the links between the neurons grew stronger.




Chapter 10:
This chapter is about Antonio Moniz, and his work with lobotomy.  The chapter starts out by describing how he created a dye that would be injected into the neck which would allow the vessels and lobes in the brain to be seen on x-ray.  This dye made it possible to locate tumors and fault lines that were previously invisible on x-rays.  Then the chapter goes on to discuss his work on lobotomies, starting with a patient called Mrs. M.




Discussion:
I was never really that interested in psychology, but some of these chapters really caught my attention.  Sometimes her experiments or side notes were a little annoying, but all in all, it was well written.  I found it more interesting that most books, because each chapter looked at something different so there was no redundancy.  This book showed me some interesting thoughts on human behavior that intrigued me.

Book Reading #34: Opening Skinner's Box

Title:
Chapter 10: Chipped

Summary:
This chapter is about Antonio Moniz, and his work with lobotomy.  The chapter starts out by describing how he created a dye that would be injected into the neck which would allow the vessels and lobes in the brain to be seen on x-ray.  This dye made it possible to locate tumors and fault lines that were previously invisible on x-rays.  Then the chapter goes on to discuss his work on lobotomies, starting with a patient called Mrs. M.

Discussion:
This chapter was disturbing at times.  To think of cutting into someones brain and removing a piece of it.  Also, the correlations between certain pills and a lobotomy were scary.  Today, we don't really think about taking a pill, but what if it had the same effect as a lobotomy, that would be a disturbing thought.

Book Reading #32: Opening Skinner's Box

Title:
Chapter 9: Memory Inc.

Summary:
This chapter is about Kandel's experiments with sea slugs.  He probed the slugs with electric probes, and was observing how they remembered a new task.  He trained them to withdraw their gills whenever they were touched, and he was able to observe with a microscope how the neurons changed.  The more the relationship was enforced, the links between the neurons grew stronger.

Discussion:
I thought that this was an interesting chapter.  I didn't know that the synapses grew stronger the more they are used, but it makes sense.  Also, I didn't know that there are specific areas in the brain that are used for memory.

Book Reading #16: Opening Skinner's Box

Title:
Chapter 4: In the Unlikely Event of a Water Landing

Summary:
This chapter is about an experiment done by 2 psychologists, John Darley, and Bibb Latane.  They got their idea for the experiment from a murder in NY.  It was not the murder that actually caught their attention though, it was the fact that there were 38 witnesses, the murder happened over a 35 minute period, and none of the witnesses called the police or even went outside their apartment to help.  Darley and Latane's experiment used a faked seizure to test the subjects reactions.  The subject was placed in a room with a microphone, and told they would talk for 2 minutes about life in college, then the next person in a different room would talk, and they would listen, with a group of talkers taking turns.  Actually, all of the voices were prerecorded.  One of the recordings had the voice act like it was having a seizure, and Darley and Latane recorded the results.

Discussion:
I thought that this was a very sad story about the murder in NY.  However, I have seen their conclusions often.  It reminds me of a TV show, Doctor Who.  He travels around in a blue police box, and when asked why no one notices it, he said that if you put something that is odd in plain view, people don't want to be a part of it.  I think that this relates to the diffusion of responsibility because they think that if it was bad, someone else will deal with it.

Book Reading #10: Opening Skinner's Box

Title:
Chapter 2: Obscura

Summary:
This chapter is about Stanley Milgram and his shock experiment.  In the experiment, there is a teacher and a learner.  The teacher reads a set of words, and the learner must repeat them, otherwise they receive a shock from the teacher.  The experiment was actually about obedience and how people follow what they are told.

Discussion:
I think that this experiment could be seen as horrible.  It was interesting, and scary that 65% of the teachers did not stop the shocks.  I don't know how I would react in a similar situation, but now that I have read about this experiment, I think that I would stop sooner.

Book Reading #7: Opening Skinner's Box

Title:
Chapter 1: Opening Skinner's Box

Summary:
This chapter is about B. F. Skinner, and his experiments.  Skinners first experiment included rats in a box with levers.  He studied their behavior, and how it changed by when they pushed a lever, they got food.  He also tried altering the schedule of food reward, and discovered that when using a fixed-ratio schedule, the rat quickly learned how many times to press the lever before getting food.

Discussion:
I thought that this was interesting.  I was in a management class, and we discussed different schedules for training individuals.  I noticed that all of the ones we covered in that class were ones that Skinner tested on his rats.

Full Blog: The Design of Everyday Things

Title:
The Design of Everyday Things

Reference Information

Title: Design of Everyday Things

Author: Donald Norman

Summary:

This book is about how devices are designed, and how they should be designed.  Norman discusses how poorly designed things are today, and some key points to incorporate when creating a well designed product.  One of them is to keep things simple.  The more complex something is, the harder it is to learn it, and the less universal it is.  What may be obvious to some users, is not even though of by other users.  Another key idea is to provide feedback to the users.  If there is no feedback, then the user doesn't know if what they are doing is correct or not.  These ideas are included with others like keeping controls visible to produce the concept of a well designed product.  The designer needs to keep in mind that all users are different when designing a product as well.

Discussion:

Towards the beginning of the book, I was interested, but I soon felt like i was reading the same thing over and over.  I usually don't worry about the end design when I am creating new software, but I think that this book has shown me some new ideas.  Most importantly that I need to think more about the end user rather than just developing code.

Book Reading #21: The Design of Everyday Things

Title:
User-Centered Design

Summary:
This chapter is about how to design a product for the user.  One of the key principles is to keep the design simple so the user can understand.  Also, let them keep some control, don't automate everything.  Finally, design for errors.  One way to do this is to standardize things.

Discussion:
Well, this can be one of the hardest things to do.  Especially making everything simple, and designing for errors.  I read a quote online stating that a Computer Programmer is someone who looks both ways before crossing a one-way street.  I think that this quote applies to the design problems of errors.  Interestingly enough, I actually saw someone go the wrong way down a one-way street, which made me realize that if there is an error that can be made, there is a user who will make it.

Book Reading #18: The Design of Everyday Things

Title: The Design Challenge

Summary:
This chapter is about the design of products, and how the designs evolve.  This happens between the old model and the next model.  One of the challenges is that the next model is already in the design process before the prior model is even released.  The chapter discusses the evolution of design of the typewriter and keyboard.  Also the chapter discusses how designers think of themselves as typical users even though they are not.

Discussion:
The design process and evolution is a very important one.  A product may be amazing, but if it is not designed in a way that average people can use it, then it will not be successful.  The different keyboard layouts were interesting.  I thought typing was difficult on a qwerty keyboard, but when I saw the Dvorak keyboard, I was astonished.

Book Reading #14: The Design of Everyday Things

Title:
Chapter 5: To Err is Human

Summary:
This chapter is about the different types of errors that a user can make when using a device.  There are 2 categories: a slip and a mistake.  Slips are errors that are caused from automatic behavior, and are often attributed to a lack of attention.  Mistakes are caused by cautious deliberation.  We don't know what to do exactly, so we jump to conclusions that can be incorrect.  The rest of the chapter discusses the different types of slips and mistakes, how they can be detected, and avoided.

Discussion:
Errors are everywhere.  I think that the most common are slips, because I feel that I have made more of them than mistakes, but I may be wrong.  I could just be noticing slips because when I make mistakes, I attribute them to just learning something.

Book Reading #8: The Design of Everyday Things

Title:
Chapter 3: Knowledge in the Head and in the World

Summary:
This chapter is about the difference of knowing something and having your brain fill in the blanks.  For example, there was a study done on professional typists. They were given capital letters and asked to place them in the appropriate positions on a keyboard.  interestingly, many of them could not place them in the proper positions.  This shows how that a lot of knowledge is not completely known, people use their surroundings to fill in the gaps.

Discussion:
I liked this chapter.  I thought that the fact the typists were not able to place the characters in the right positions was funny. I also thought the different pennies was interesting.  When I looked at them, I was unable to tell which one was the real one.  I wonder how many Americans would be able to identify the correct penny.

Book Reading #5: The Design of Everyday Things

Title:
Chapter 2: The Psychology of Everyday Actions

Summary:
This chapter is about how users perceive the causes of certain actions and where the blame for problems is.  Many users think that if something goes wrong with a device, then they messed something up, and the blame is only theirs.  However, this is not true.  Often the design of the device does not match up to the mental model of most users, which makes certain actions confusing for them.

Discussion:
This chapter reminds me of when people don't know how to use programs on their computer.  Often it is something that is obvious when known how to do it, but people blame themselves for not knowing how to do it. I also thought it was interesting the differences of naive versus real physics that he mentioned.

Book Reading #29: Opening Skinner's Box

Title:
Chapter 8: Lost in the Mall

Summary:
This chapter discusses Elizabeth Loftus and her experiments with memory.  Her experiments are about how easy it is to plant a suggested memory into someones head, and have that form into a believed memory for that person.  Her one of her initial experiments consisted of 24 students who went home and implanted false memories in their sibling that they had been lost in a mall when they were younger.  When the siblings came into the lab later, 25 percent of them elaborated in detail of the time that they got lost in the mall, but never actually happened.

Discussion:
I thought that this was an interesting chapter.  As I read it, I thought about some of my memories, and realized that I had memories of things only after I heard the story fomr my family.  I feel bad for Loftus for all of the anger that was focused on her.  Unfortunately, it seems that often the important research and ideas get the most ridicule.

Book Reading #26: Opening Skinner's Box

Title:
Opening Skinner's Box Chapter 7 Rat Park


Summary:
This chapter is about Bruce Alexander and Robert Coambs' investigation into drug addiction using rats.  They created a rat park with open areas, nice wood chips, and separate areas.  Then they placed a sixteen rats into the park, and another sixteen in standard laboratory cages.  They placed two water bottles in each, one containing pure water, and the other water laced with morphine and some sucrose, to hide the bitterness of the morphine.  The rats in the cages, drank mostly the morphine water, but the rats in the rat park drank mostly the plain water.

Discussion:
This experiment was interesting.  While reading the experiment, I thought that the rat park rats would drink more water, but not to the extent of the results.  The caged rats drank the morphine water sixteen times more than the rat park rats.  That number was surprising to me.  These results have some interesting implications to peoples drug addictions, and if they are even addictions, or just an outlet for their connections with society.

Paper Reading #11: Hands-on math: a page-based multi-touch and pen desktop for technical work and problem solving

Title:

Hands-on math: a page-based multi-touch and pen desktop for technical work and problem solving

 

Reference:

Hands-on math: a page-based multi-touch and pen desktop for technical work and problem solving 

Robert Zeleznik, Andrew Bragdon, Ferdi Adeputra, Hsu-Sheng Ko

UIST '10 Proceedings of the 23nd annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology

Comments

Comment1-

Comment2-

 

Summary:

This paper is about a new multi-touch, and pen desktop.  The goal of this desktop is to integrate a pencil and paper type of input with a Computer Algebra System.  Paper offers a fluid method of solving problems, and it encourages step-by-step computations.  The Computer Algebra System allows for fast problem solving, at the cost of abstraction.  They both have their strengths and weaknesses, and the goal of the Hands-on math system is to get the strengths of both, while losing many weaknesses.  The paper goes on to describe the different ways the user can interact with the system.  This ranges from just writing, to opening up new pages, to manipulating equations, to different touch gestures. 

 

Discussion:

I thought that this was an interesting paper.  There are times when I am trying to solve something on the computer, but the fact that I have to type everything in slows me down.  I think that this will be a great tool for those who need to solve mathematical problems, and  would be interested in trying out this new desktop.