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We discuss the design of an e-textile shirt with an interactive Lumalive display featuring a touch-controlled image browser. To determine where to place touch sensors, we investigated which areas of the Lumalive shirt users would be comfortable touching or being touched. We did so by measuring how often participants would opt out of touches. Results show significant differences in opt-outs between touch zones on the front of the shirt. For both touchers and touchees, opt-outs occurred mostly in the upper chest touch zone. We also found significant differences in comfort ratings between touch zones on the front as well as on the back of the shirt. On the front, the upper chest and lower abdominal zones were the least comfortable touch zones. We found no gender effects on overall comfort ratings, suggesting the upper chest area was equally uncomfortable to males as it was to females. Interestingly, touching some areas rated as most uncomfortable produced a significantly greater calming effect on heart rate. Findings suggest participants were less comfortable with touches on the upper chest, the lower abdomen, and the lower back. We conclude that the most appropriate areas for touch sensors on a shirt are on the arms and shoulders, as well as on the upper back. Based on these findings, we created an interactive shirt for a proximity-based game of tag using Lumalive e-textile displays. This custom shirt features touch sensors located on the shoulder and lower arm regions of the shirt. / Thesis (Master, Computing) -- Queen's University, 2011-08-29 16:27:36.37

The purpose of this mixed methods study was to document and examine the beliefs held by preservice elementary teachers prior to entering a teacher education program concerning the nature of mathematics and their perceptions about the effective use of information and communication technology (ICT) for mathematics instruction. Through an online questionnaire (N=132) followed by interviews of purposefully selected respondents (n=8), the following questions were addressed: (1) What beliefs do preservice elementary mathematics teachers hold upon entering teacher education programs regarding the nature of mathematics? (2) What beliefs do preservice elementary mathematics teachers hold upon entering teacher education programs about how ICT should be used in the classroom? and (3) How do preservice elementary mathematics teachers’ beliefs about the nature of mathematics relate to their views about the use of ICT in teaching mathematics? Video-elicitation was used in the interviews to determine how respondents perceived various uses of interactive whiteboards. Respondents were grouped based on their beliefs about the nature of mathematics and their reactions to the videos that they were shown. It was discovered that interview respondents who held contrasting views about the nature of mathematics also held differing beliefs about teaching and learning as well as the benefits of ICT. Respondents who saw mathematics as a set of fixed naturally occurring rules, an Absolutist view, favoured teacher directed use of ICT to support the transmission of knowledge. On the other hand, those who viewed mathematics as a human construct, a Fallibilist image, were more in favour of ICT use to support student mathematics investigation and talk. The existence of a potential hidden curriculum was also discovered. Although all interview participants were shown the same videos, respondents in the two groups perceived roles of the teacher and students in the videos that were aligned with their beliefs about the nature of mathematics and teaching and learning. / Thesis (Master, Education) -- Queen's University, 2012-06-29 13:00:17.205

The most common and natural human behaviours are often the most computationally difficult to understand. This is especially true of spoken language comprehension considering the acoustic ambiguities inherent in a speech stream, and that these ambiguities are exacerbated by the noisy and distracting listening conditions of everyday life. Nonetheless, the human brain is capable of rapidly and reliably processing speech in these situations with deceptive ease – a feat that remains unrivaled by state-of-the-art speech recognition technologies. It has long been known that supportive context facilitates robust speech perception, but it remains unclear how the brain integrates contextual information with an acoustically degraded speech signal. The four studies in this dissertation utilize behavioural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) methods to examine how the normally functioning human brain uses context to support the perception of degraded speech. First, I have observed that text presented simultaneously with distorted sentences results in an illusory experience of perceptually clearer speech, and that this illusion depends on the amount of distortion in the bottom-up signal, and on the relative timing between the visual and auditory stimuli. Second, fMRI data indicate that activity in the earliest region of primary auditory cortex is sensitive to the perceived clarity of speech, and that this modulation of activity likely comes from left frontal cortical regions that probably support higher-order linguistic processes. Third, conscious awareness of the visual stimulus appears to be necessary to increase the intelligibility of degraded speech, and thus attention might also be required for multisensory integration. Finally, I have demonstrated that attention greatly enhances the processing of degraded speech, and this enhancement is (again) supported by the recruitment of higher-order cortical areas. The results of these studies provide converging evidence that brain uses prior knowledge to actively predict the form of a degraded auditory signal, and that these predictions are projected through feedback connections from higher- to lower-order order areas. These findings are consistent with a predictive coding model of perception, which provides an elegant mechanism in which accurate interpretations of the environment are constructed from ambiguous inputs in way that is flexible and task dependent. / Thesis (Ph.D, Neuroscience Studies) -- Queen's University, 2012-09-25 10:48:50.73

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This thesis attempts to gauge the strengths and limitations of the Java programming language in terms of its use in the production of multimedia compositions: in particular, the ways in which Java supports the creation of interactive, non-deterministic musical works. An original solution to the problem of multimedia design is presented: a hierarchically defined, basic, yet flexible scripting language that is interpreted using Java. This scripting language allows the user to incorporate his/her own media into a coherent and interactive form using a small set of simple keywords and basic operators. It also allows new functionality to be added by advanced users with a basic knowledge of Java. By investigating how such a scripting language may be implemented, the extent to which Java may be applied towards multimedia applications in general is revealed.

This thesis examines seven of Devora Neumark's artistic interventions that activate an embodied transfer or continuity of knowledge. I am inspired by phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty's notion of "the flesh of the world," that is the element enabling a reversibility between subject and object, specifically with regard to the body. Neumark draws from a repertoire of her everyday activities like crocheting or peeling beets to make a stew. She resituates the activity from one which is traditionally practiced in the private sphere of the home, often undervalued, to one which critically engages passersby in various urban settings. I study the repetitive capacities of these everyday activities, how they are negotiated in the public sphere, and how they remain (re)productively in the flesh through body-to-body transmission. Flesh becomes the operative concept in this thesis and activates a phenomenology in Neumark's interventions that goes beyond Merleau-Ponty's and which engages with both aesthetic and socio-political questions.

The increasing installation of the SMART Boards (electronic interactive whiteboards - IWBs) in education is an issue that cannot be ignored. South Africa is not an exception in this issue. The IWBs are gaining popularity amongst schools and educators in South Africa. With the growing number of users of IWBs in South Africa, this modern technology might have brought challenges and new opportunities to education and instructional methods at all educational levels. The purpose of the study was to investigate the use of the IWBs in the teaching and learning science in high schools. The selected schools use modern technologies that enhance teaching and learning such as the IWBs. This study aimed at developing an understanding of educators’ experiences on the benefits and challenges posed by utilizing the IWBs in their current practice with a view to drawing implications for possible recommendations for this type of technology. The study adopted a qualitative research design and followed case study methodology. It employed qualitative data collection techniques such as semi-structured individual and focus group interviews and classroom observations with purposively selected science educators in two public high schools in the Durban metropolis. The participants were six educators and eight learners from the two schools. It also followed a guided analysis based on the principles of both Connectivism and Engagement theories that informed the study. The findings revealed both benefits and challenges on educators. The most prominent benefits which educators recognized included multimedia features of the IWBs; their capabilities in learning; and their support for different learning styles. Alongside these benefits, educators also perceived challenges which involved low level of educators’ ICT skills related to insufficient professional development and training, and lack of planning. Generally; the study revealed that the IWBs can be generically beneficial tools provided some major problems are rectified. Recommendations relating to these findings are also provided, with an emphasis on technology planning and professional development as prerequisites to proper implementation of the IWBs in schools. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2009.

The concept of tinkering is a central practice within research in the field of Human Computer Interaction, dealing with new interactive forms and technologies. In this thesis, tinkering is discussed not only as a practice for interaction design in general, but as an attitude that calls for a deeper reflection over research practices, knowledge generation and the recent movements in the direction of materials and materiality within the field. The presented research exemplifies practices and studies in relation to interactive technology through a number of projects, all revolving around the design and interaction with physical interactive artifacts. In particular, nearly all projects are focused around robotic artifacts for consumer settings. Three main contributions are presented in terms of studies, prototypes and concepts, together with a conceptual discussion around tinkering framed as an attitude within interaction design. The results from this research revolve around how grounding is achieved, partly through studies of existing interaction and partly through how tinkering-oriented activities generates knowledge in relation to design concepts, built prototypes and real world interaction. / <p>QC 20131203</p>

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