3D is a popular topic as an increasing amount of media and technology begin to support 3D interaction.  With the rise of interest in 3D interaction, the question of why there is a demand and desire for 3D over 2D interaction becomes relevant. This thesis compares the differences between a 3D heads up display and a 2D heads up display for a touch free gesture based virtual keyboard.  The gesture interface used in the tests is a way of communicating with a system using gestures of the hands tracked by a motion sensor.  This thesis tested 16 users where half of the users used a 2D version of a heads up display and the other half used a 3D version of a heads up display.  Both user groups were tested with identical conditions and in an identical environment.  Raw statistical data was gathered from a logging mechanism in the interface and qualitative data was gathered from questionnaires and observation notes.  The results from the experiment showed that the 2D and 3D heads up display gave very similar results. However, results also showed slightly better qualitative results from the 3D heads up display observation and questionnaire data.  The conclusion indicated no clear advantage for the 2D version or the 3D version.  The discussion shows that many other factors in the design process and selection of users, play a large role in the comparison of 2D vs 3D visualizations.  Factors such as age and familiarity with different levels of technology are indicated to be contributing factors when comparing 2D vs 3D.  The results and discussion hope to provide a starting point for future comparison research in the field of 2D compared to 3D visualization.

Above-surface interaction is a new and exciting topic in the field of human-computer interaction (HCI). It focuses on the design and evaluation of systems that humans can operate by moving their hands in the space above or in front of interactive displays. While many technologies emerge that make such systems possible, much research is still needed to make this interaction as natural and effortless as possible. First this thesis presents a set of guidelines for designing above-surface interactions, a collection of widgets that were designed based on these guidelines, and a system that can approximate the height of hands above a diffused surface illumination (DSI) device without any additional sensors. Then the thesis focuses on interaction techniques for activating graphical widgets located in this above-surface space. Finally, it presents a pair of studies that were conducted to investigate item selection in the space above a multitouch surface. The first study was conducted to elicit a set of gestures for above-table widget activation from a group of users. Several gestures were proposed by the designers to be compared with the user-generated gestures. The follow-up study was conducted to evaluate and compare these gestures based on their performance. The findings of these studies showed that there was no clear agreement on what gestures should be used to select objects in mid-air, and that performance was better when using gestures that were chosen less frequently, but predicted to be better by the designers, as opposed to those most frequently suggested by participants.

Οι χειρονομίες και οι κινήσεις, εκτός από εξωτερικά, εκφραστικά μέσα αποτελούν φορείς νοημάτων και μηνυμάτων. Στο αρχαίο ελληνικό θέατρο δεν υπάρχει μια ξεκάθαρη προσέγγιση για την ερμηνεία των χειρονομιών και η δυσκολία έγκειται στο γεγονός, ότι προσπαθούμε μέσω των συμβολισμών που χρησιμοποιούμε στην σύγχρονη καθημερινότητα, να προσεγγίσουμε την υποκριτική των τραγικών και κωμικών ηθοποιών, γεγονός στο οποίο ελλοχεύει ο κίνδυνος να παραπλανηθούμε ως αναγνώστες των δραματικών κειμένων. / The gestures and movements, except of external, ways of expression they are considered to be carriers of signs and messages. In the ancient greek theatre there isn’t a clear approach for the explanation of the gestures and the difficulty is in the fact that we try by the symbols we use in the contemporary everyday life, to approach the drama of the tragical and comical actors, fact to which there is the danger for us to be decepted as readers of the dramatic passages.

Over the course of a day we meet countless materials and objects but rarely consider these surfaces of negotiation within the everyday environment. If we consider gestures as a language, then the actions we perform and the surfaces we encounter result in conversations with our surroundings. Where body meets details inside architecture, the commonplace ritual occurs. I will discuss the importance of touch in response to my finished work in Can you Handle this? but also during the making process.

Cette étude renouvelle en profondeur notre perception des pratiques funéraires des premiers agro-pasteurs vivant en Italie et en France méridionale au début du Néolithique. L’hypothèse de leur uniformité, qui n’avait jusqu’ici jamais été véritablement questionnée, est désormais invalidée.Au contraire, l’essence même de l’idéologie funéraire portée et pérennisée durant plus d’un millénaire par ces groupes est la diversité des pratiques mortuaires. La variabilité des pratiques qui incluent différentes formes de dépôts du cadavre (primaire, secondaire, individuel, pluriel) a livré néanmoins des codes qui varient d’une culture à une autre, d’un groupe à un autre, d’un site à un autre et d’un individu à un autre, formant un système diversifié, mais cohérent. Cette étude a aussi dévoilé des pratiques symboliques exploitant des restes humains et en a révélé les modalités.En s’appuyant sur une vision raisonnée des processus de néolithisation et de la nature du complexe Impresso-cardial, ma réflexion aborde également le rôle de la sphère funéraire du début du Néolithique dans la complémentarité polymorphe existant entre les sites et le caractère innovant des gestes funéraires, dont l’ascendance mésolithique apparaît limitée. Adopter une approche archéothanotologique et mobiliser un large panel de témoins archéologiques de l’après morts ur un corpus étendu (45 sites, 87 unités funéraires, 128 individus) a donc permis non seulement, de cerner le système funéraire des groupes étudiés, mais plus largement d’étudier et de décrire le(s) comportement(s) qu’ils ont adopté(s) face à un cadavre et face à la Mort. / This study deeply renews our understanding of the funerary practices of the first farmers living in Italy and in southern France at the dawn of Neolithic. The hypothesis of their uniformity, which has been not truly questioned so far, is now invalidated. On the contrary, the very essence of the funerary ideology, that was spread and perpetuated by these societies during more than one millennium, is the diversity of the funerary practices. Indeed, this variability including variousforms of corpse deposits (primary, secondary, individual, plural) nevertheless displays codesvarying from a culture to another, a group to another, a site to another and from an individual toanother, creating a diverse but coherent system. This study has also highlighted symbolic practices exploiting human remains, and revealed their procedures. Relying on a reasoned visionof the neolithisation process and on the nature of the Impresso-cardial complex, this approach also reaches the role occupied by the funerary system within the multifaceted complementarity between sites as well as the innovation degree of burial gestures, whose Mesolithic origin appears limited. Following an archaeothanatological approach and mobilizing a broad panel of after-death archaeological testimonies on a wide corpus (45 sites, 87 funerary units, 128 individuals) has therefore not only allowed accessing the funerary system of the considered societies, but on the top of that, studying and describing the behaviours they adopted in regard of the corpse and towards Death.

Le paysage sonore relève de la discrétion. L’écoute est une expérience solitaire dont le raffinement potentiel reste difficile à cerner par le langage, contaminé par l’image.Il existerait pourtant des formes de visualisations sonores dans l’art, qui nous permettraient paradoxalement d’aller au plus près des nuances de l’écoute et de révéler des aspects in-vus du paysage. Oubliés, inconscients, peu ou non encore repérées, mais non muets pour cela, ils participeraient à notre habiter. L’expérimentation constructive, c’est-à-dire l’écouter renforcé par un modus operandi spécifique, « la plongée », sorte de technique de chute, progressivement réelle, virtuelle autorisant des ajustements posturaux très fin, et le représenter quasi aveuglément, nous aiderait à les retrouver. La visualisation sonore opèrerait d’abord comme un outil de médiation. Parce qu’elle jongle délibérément avec la multi-sensorialité, elle permettrait de distinguer entre ce qui est donné à voir (figure) et ce qui est donné à vivre (fond).Elle fonctionnerait ensuite comme un support d’analyse, qui nous permettrait d’examiner l’action in situ in vivo d’un corps qui non se représente, mais qui trace pour mieux s’inscrire dans le mouvement. Doté d’une haute réceptivité et créativité, il serait capable d’assimiler le jeu d’une playing aura toujours plus actuelle par la convolution des gestes corporels (postures d'écoute, gestes plastiques) et ambiants (le « déjà là » sans qu’on en ait forcément conscience : les effets de la forme construite, les effets climatiques, culturels et sémantiques). Le mouvoir ensemble des corps et corporéités se densifierait momentanément sous forme de nœuds. L’organisation discrète, néanmoins concrète de ces figures de synthèse des transitions, de ces sommes, esthétiques, sensibles et intensives, que nous appellerons aussi des « motifs » de l’écoute, serait typique. Nos modes exploratoires et de restitution nous appendraient à les lire. Cela nous permettrait non seulement de nous comprendre en tant qu’êtres parmi des créatures tempérées, mais de découvrir un paysage simultanément guide et conséquence, dont l’habiter/construire se déclarerait dans et par son architecturation élastique, poreuse et à pouvoir intime. Nous serions alors en mesure d’opérer un bougé d’apparence du paysage. Nous examinerons l’ensemble de ces expériences à l’aide de notre corpus premier (d’origine artistique), tout en les raisonnant à l’aide de critères d’évaluation mixtes (Art, Architecture). Nous vérifierons nos modes d’exploration et de restitution à l’aide d’examens cognitifs. Nous les réfléchirons encore à travers des arguments phénoménologiques et philosophiques. Nous-nous intéresserons ensuite aux environnements artificiels. Nous pensons en effet qu’ils interviennent dans la texture de nos expériences. Comme elles instaurent des gestuelles normées qui assistent de plus en plus nos actes contemporains d’habiter/construire, elles méritent d’être évaluées. Tout en nous appuyant ici sur notre corpus second, qui se compose d’enquêtes auprès d’autres sujets percevants, nous analyserons les conséquences d’une telle incarcération technologique des gestes et plus précisément le comment elle interfère avec nos perceptions et nos représentations. Nous examinerons également des interfaces sensoriellement et gestuellement enrichies. Nous y étudierons les étiquettes, les décalages et les handicaps culturels. Nous réfléchirons enfin sur l’incorporation de nos mesures à l’intérieur des outils et maquettages existants. Nos modes d’exploration et de restitution s’illustreraient comme des auxiliaires de l’écoute sensible, qui deviendrait communément partageable. Instruments-mêmes d’une linguistique de l’in-vu, dont le spontané sophistiqué nous aiderait de nous mettre à la place de l’autre, ils permettraient de créer des connexions, de partager et de croiser nos idées, de faire évoluer nos interconnaissances et de concevoir des constructions collaboratives. / Soundscape noticed to discretion. Hearing is a solitary experience whose potential refinement remains difficult to surround by language because its visual contamination.There exist yet kinds of sound visualisations in art, which would paradoxically permit us to approach very close nuances of hearing and to wander to un-viewed aspects of landscape. Forgotten, unconscious, but not mute at all, they are a part in our living and constructing activities. The constructive experimentation, which means the action of hearing reinforced by a specific modus operandi, a kind of falling, called « the plunge » and the quasi blind representing, could help us to discover them again. This technique, gradually real, virtual would complete the experience by finely postural adjustments.The sound visualisation operates here first as a tool for mediation. Wilful juggling with multi-sensory generated meaning it permits us not only to distinguish both which is given to see (figure) and to live (fond, substance), but also to discover the action of a body which is not representing it-self but tracing in the aim of better inscription into the movement. By virtue of high receptivity and creativity this body would be able to assimilate a playing aura which means the main present, conscious and unconscious, always topical because of the convolution of bodily gestures (listening poses, plastic expressions) and ambient gestures (the yet there, not automatically conscious: the acoustic, climatic, cultural and semantic effects). The moving together of bodies and body like beings would momentarily become denser and shaping knots. The discreet nevertheless concrete organisation of these synthetic figures of transitions, of this aesthetic, sensory and intensive summary, which we call even listening patterns, in the sense of motif, is typical. Our exploration and reproduction modes would help us to learn to interpret them.From then, we would not only understand us as beings among other tempered creatures, but also discover a landscape simultaneously guide and consequence, whose elastic, porous and intimate proceedings and values of living/constructing would make us able to carry out a fade of landscape appearance.We will study all these experiences through our principal corpus (artistic one). We will argue them by mixed evaluations (artistic, architectural ones). We will verify our exploration and restitution modes by cognitive exams. We will think about them by phenomenological and philosophical reasoning.After this we wont become interested by artificial environments. We think in fact that they intervene in the texture of our experience. As they institute normed gestures, which assist more and more frequently our contemporary living/constructing acts they need to be gauged. Leaning on our secondary corpus, which is composed by investigations with other perceiving subjects, we will analyse the consequences of this kind of technological imprisonment of the gestures and precisely the how they interfere with our perceptions and representations. We will also examine gestural and sensory enriched interfaces. The sound visualisation would help us to make etiquettes, shifts and handicaps clear, to think about incorporation of our measurements into the existing tools and models.Our exploration and restitution modes would make us more attentive for sensible aspects of listening, which would become a common divisible. Linguistic instruments of the un-viewen whose sophisticate spontaneous would help us to set to the place of our next neighbour they would permit us to create connexions, to divide up and to cross our ideas, to mature our mutual knowledge and to conceive collaborative constructions.

Essa pesquisa se propõe a refletir sobre o potencial da arte de performance como ferramenta para instaurar poéticas de sustentabilidade no ambiente urbano, atentando para as possíveis contribuições das artes da cena na formação/informação de culturas e estéticas de sustentabilidade, tão necessárias no panorama civilizacional contemporâneo. Considerando o desenvolvimento de três performances realizadas ao longo de 2014 e 2015, em Porto Alegre (Brasil), afirmo a gestualidade do performer como fio condutor na composição de imagens de dissidência, imagens que estabeleçam a quebra da lógica de uso do ambiente urbano. Tais imagens traduzem ações performativas, estabelecendo diálogo com perspectivas da performance arte, da intervenção urbana, da dança e do teatro. As ações foram realizadas em ecossistemas aquáticos urbanos em situação de degradação, em afirmação a um posicionamento poético e político de ativação desses espaços. / This essay is ment to be a reflection about some highlights on the performance art's potential as a tool to establish the poetics of sustainability in the urban environment. It is also a post investigation analyses of the possible contributions of the performing arts to the culture construction and to the development of the aesthetics of sustainability, so necessary in the current context of a global civilization crisis. Considering the process of development of three scenic performances during the bienial of 2014 and 2015, in the city of Porto Alegre, Brazil, it is proposed that the conception of the gesture of the performer can be a conducting wire in the composition of dissent images, that can establish the breakdown of logic in the human conception of life inside urban environments. These images were also a translation of performative actions, establishing dialogues with prospects of performance art, urban intervention, dance and theater. The performances took place at degradated urban aquatic ecosystems that have been left in poor conditions of conservation, considering a poetic and political proposal of bringing these places back to life.

Le travail présenté dans cette thèse vise à étudier la coordination entre gestes manuels et parole lors de la production d'énoncés multimodaux. Les études menées s'intéressent plus particulièrement aux relations temporelles entre les deux modalités. Cette coordination a été étudiée plus précisément dans le cadre de la désignation qui est réalisable à la fois dans la modalité manuelle (geste de pointage) et dans la modalité parole (« montrer avec la voix », en utilisant la focalisation et/ou les démonstratifs par exemple). Les études présentées ont été menées dans un environnement contrôlé de laboratoire afin d'obtenir des mesures précises et reproductibles en minimisant les facteurs extérieurs de variations intra- et inter-participants. Les productions des locuteurs peuvent ainsi être comparées entre-elles en se focalisant sur les facteurs d'intérêt toutes choses maintenues le plus possible égales par ailleurs. Un travail particulier de mise en place des protocoles a néanmoins permis de maintenir une tâche assez naturelle afin de ne pas induire des productions trop artificielles. Les deux premières études se sont intéressées à la production conjointe de gestes manuels et de parole contenant de la focalisation. Plusieurs types de gestes ont été comparés (geste de pointage, geste de battement et geste d'appui sur un bouton) lors d'une tâche de désignation. Il a été montré que la production de focalisation attire le geste manuel quel que soit son type mais que l'attraction est plus « précise » et fine pour le pointage. Par ailleurs, l'apex du geste de pointage semble être cooccurent à une cible articulatoire plutôt qu'acoustique. La seconde étude manipule le lien de désignation le geste de pointage et la parole. Elle montre, en exhibant deux stratégies adoptées par les participants, la complexité des mécanismes mis en jeu dans cette coordination. Finalement, une troisième étude s'intéresse à la coordination dans une tâche interactive et collaborative plus naturelle. Dans cette tâche les locuteurs utilisent naturellement des gestes de pointage pour désigner à leur interlocuteur l'emplacement d'une carte à poser grâce à une phrase porteuse contenant un démonstratif. Les résultats montrent une cooccurrence de la partie du geste qui montre avec l'information qui lui est complémentaire en parole, i.e. avec le nom de l'objet à poser à l'endroit désigné par le geste de pointage, plutôt qu'avec la partie de la parole qui désigne, i.e. le démonstratif. L'effet de la perturbation de l'interaction par un bruit ambiant est également testé et il est montré que, si la parole subit un effet Lombard classique, la production de gestes est peu modifiée mis à part une adaptation de la durée de la partie du geste qui montre à l'allongement de la parole. Ce mémoire propose par ailleurs une exploration des procédés d'annotation multimodaux mis en place pour l'annotation de tâches semi-contrôlées mais applicables à des cas plus généraux. Le manuscrit se conclut par une mise en perspective des résultats pour l'amélioration de certains modèles de production conjointe gestes manuels/parole et fournit quelques pistes utilisables dans le domaine des agents conversationnels ainsi que pour la détection de pathologies. / The work synthesized in this thesis aims at studying the coordination between manual gestures and speech during multimodal utterances production. More precisely, the temporal relationship between the two modalities is considered. The coordination is studied in a designation framework since designating is possible both manually (pointing gesture) and using speech (one can "show with the voice" using focus and/or demonstratives for example). All the studies presented in this work are done in a lab setting thus allowing to get precise and reproducible measurements while minimizing potential external sources of variation (either between or within participants). Participants' productions were then compared to each other focusing on factors of interest while keeping other sources of variation as low as possible. A part of the work consisted in designing rather natural experimental protocols so as to ensure productions were not too artificial. The first two experiments studied to co-production of manual gestures and speech containing a focused part. Different types of gestures were compared (pointing gesture, beat, button-push) in a designation task. It has been shown that producing focus did temporally attract manual gesture whichever its type but that this attraction was finer and less variable for pointing gesture. Another interesting finding was that the apex of pointing gesture seems to be cooccurring with articulatory targets rather than acoustic ones. The second study manipulates the designation link between manual gestures and speech. By showing that participants can be split up into two groups using different multimodal coordination strategies, it put forward the complexity of underlying mechanisms of this coordination. The last experiment focuses on the coordination in a more natural interactive and collaborative task. In this task, participants used pointing gestures as a natural way to show where a card should be placed on a playing board. They also produced accompanying sentences containing demonstratives. Results show a co-ocurrence of the part of the gesture that shows and with the complementary information in speech (ie. the name of the object to be placed at the spot pointed at by the manual gesture) rather than with the part of speech that shows (ie. demonstrative). The influence of impairing interaction by broadcasting a surrounding noise is also an issue which is addressed. However speech production shows a classical Lombard effect, the production of manual gesture undergoes only slight changes: mainly, the part of the manual gesture that shows lasts longer and this lengthening is related to the lengthening observed in speech. The work presented in this manuscript moreover put forward a systematic way of labeling semi-constrained interactive tasks which can be generalized. The conclusion puts in perspective the results so as to improve some manual gestures/speech co-production models and indicates paths for reflection about embodied conversational agents and early detection of pathological cases.

abstract: Due to the push down of academics, today's elementary students are being asked to learn more concepts and sit for longer periods of time. Sitting slows thinking, whereas movement wakes up the brain. Using movement to learn is embodied cognition, or learning through both the body and the brain. Movement should be part of instruction for young students; however teachers are often not sure how to incorporate movement in their lesson plans. The Japanese practice of lesson study may help because it embeds teachers' new learning in their classrooms while intimately connecting it to the learning of their students, and it links with the cyclical, constructed theory of learning provided by Vygotsky Space. If teachers incorporate movement in their lessons, children have the potential to become more engaged and learn. This action research study was designed to understand if two first grade, two second grade, and one third grade teacher at a Title One elementary school in the Southwestern United States could learn how to use movement more during instruction through lesson study. This innovation took place for 14-weeks during which 12 lessons using movement were developed and taught. Data were collected prior to the study and during each portion of the cyclical process including, while teachers learned, during lessons using movement, and when lessons were discussed and changed. The data sources were pre and post teacher surveys, student surveys, observation protocols, lesson plans, transcripts of lesson study meetings, and researcher notes. To reduce bias a triangulated mixed methods design was used. Results indicate that through lesson study teachers were able to learn about movement, try it, observe the results, and adjust it to fit their teaching style and their students' needs. Data showed increased student engagement in lessons that incorporated movement as evidenced in the students' words, bodies, and learning. After participating in the study, the teachers realized they personally use movement to learn, and teachers' efficacy regarding their ability to plan movement in their lessons increased. Additionally, they started purposefully planning movement across their curriculum. Based on the results, further cycles / Dissertation/Thesis / Ed.D. Leadership and Innovation 2012

L'objet de recherche aborde la professionnalisation de formateurs, tout particulièrement ceux qui exercent dans le champ de la formation en Travail social. L'enjeu est d'interroger le travail relationnel de formateur en présentiel, son rôle spécifique, sa pertinence et son actualité à travers la dimension corporelle de son activité, l'usage qu'il peut faire de gestes. Cet impensé de la formation en Travail social, celui de la place du corps et des gestes comme réintroduisant la part du sensible dans l'activité de communication est le thème central de ce travail. Une approche phénoménologique de l'activité est utilisée dans le cadre de cette recherche, l'offre de présence étant le concept d'intelligibilité qui a été construit et mobilisé par le chercheur pour comprendre la façon dont le formateur s'y prend quand il s'exprime devant un auditoire selon le type d'd'intervention et l'auditoire. La méthodologie s'est appuyée sur deux types d'entretien (semi-directifs et de confrontation à l'activité filmée) puis sur les observations du chercheur à partir des films, in fine une analyse croisée des différents résultats. Le fait de réintroduire le corps, de redonner aux gestes "leur épaisseur symbolique" permet de faire ressortir la spécificité du présentiel. / This thesis deals with professionalization of trainers, especially those working in the field of social work training. Its perspective provides a focus which is seldom approach when it comes to professionalization. The stake is to calle in question the communication activity of the trainers when they are in presence of students, the place of the body and gestures as reintroducing sensibility into the communication. That is the key theme of this work. The phenomenology as a theoretical Anchor, showing a phenomenology of activity has been privileged. Offering face-to-face is the concept of intelligibility which has been built to understand how the trainer set about it according to the type of intervention and the type of audience. The methodology is based on two types of interviews (semi structured interviews and interviews namely of confrontation in face of films), then the researcher's observations from films, in fine a crossed analysis of the different results. Reintroducing body language into the activity, giving the gestures back their "symbolic thickness" allowed to justify the specificity of face-to-face activity and give it a fuure with other perspectives.