<p>I studien undersöktes hur universitetsområdet i Linköping och Norrköping är att hitta på, hur den mentala bilden av området ser ut och hur de som rör sig där talar om området. Perspektivet var kognitionsvetenskapligt. Arbetet strukturerades kring intervjuer och enkäter med 20 personer, hälften från vartdera universitetsområdet. Den mentala bilden av området liksom uppfattningarna om var det var lätt respektive svårt att hitta skiljde sig åt. Alla reagerar inte på samma sätt inför olika mönster och system. En del hus har dessutom en sådan utformning att den i sig själv försvårar för personer att hitta där. En ytterligare slutsats är att det var svårt att överföra den mentala bilden av universitetsområdet till ett papper, särskilt när det gäller avstånd och storlek. Den mentala bilden visade sig vara något förvrängd. Verbalt sett fanns det skillnader mellan Linköping- och Norrköpingsgruppen i hur de uttryckte sig om respektive universitetsområde. Norrköpingsgruppen tenderade att oftare använda väderstreckstermer.</p>

<p>När Posten införde en ny arbetsmetod för finsortering av post (kamning) visade det sig att på vissa kontor uppstod svårigheter för brevbärarna att hinna med arbetet och då främst sorteringsarbetet, hädanefter kallat kamningsarbetet. Detta innebar inte bara svårigheter för brevbärarna utan också för Posten i form av produktionsförluster. </p><p>Denna uppsats syftar till att utifrån brevbärarnas perspektiv beskriva förutsättningar, stöd och hinder för lärande vid kamningsarbete. </p><p>Den huvudsakliga datainsamlingen gjordes med intervjuer av både nyanställda brevbärare och erfarna brevbärare som nyligen börjat på nytt distrikt. </p><p>Resultaten visade att kopplingen mellan kamning och utdelningen av posten var viktig för att bland annat öka möjligheterna till lärande av distriktet och på så sätt säkerställa en jämn kvalitet vid utdelningsarbetet. Kollegorna spelade en avgörande roll för upplärningen då dessa bidrog med råd och stöd och då introduktion/utbildning ofta bestod i att lära sig av en erfaren kollega. Föreslagna åtgärder är att brevbäraren åtminstone vid några tillfällen får möjlighet att visualisera den utdelningstur som han/hon lär sig kamma. Slutligen är det viktigt att utforma och tilldela resurser för en grundläggande introduktion för att komma tillrätta med de problem som uppstår när sådan introduktion saknas.</p>

<p>Different security issues are a top subject around the world, especially since the terror threats seem to intensify. In the same time, the transport industry suffer from problems with smuggling and theft of valuable goods. One way to increase the security might be to have a verification system installed in commercial trucks, in order to assure that the driver is the proper one.</p><p>This thesis has two purposes. One is to find appropriate methods for driver verification and build a prototype of a verification system which can be used for testing and further development. The other is to study how truck drivers perceive such a system and how their conception goes along with the growing demand for higher security. The present work is the result of a cooperation between an engineer and a cognitive scientist. The thesis focuses on the transport industry and was performed for Volvo Technology Corporation (VTEC), Gothenburg, Sweden.</p><p>Eleven available verification methods were studied. To enable a well-based selection of methods to implement in the prototype, inquiries and interviews with truck drivers and haulage contractors were carried out to complement the theoretical study.</p><p>One regular and three biometric verification methods were chosen for the test; fingerprint verification, face recognition, voice recognition and PIN verification. These methods were put together to a prototype system that was implemented in a truck simulator. A graphical user interface was developed in order to make the system user friendly. The prototype system was tested by 18 truck drivers. They were thoroughly interviewed before and after the test in order to retrieve their background, expectations and opinions as well as their perceptions and experiences of the test.</p><p>Most of the test participants were positive to the prototype system. Even though they did not feel a need for it today they believed it to “be the future”. However, some participants felt uncomfortable with the system since they felt controlled by it. It became clear how important it is to have a system that respect the users’ privacy and to assure that the users are well informed about how the system is used. Some of the technology used for the verification system requires more development to fit in the automotive context, but it is considered to be possible to achieve a secure and robust system.</p>

<p>This thesis tells the story of a design case creating an user interface for a MMORPG where the player are able control the body language of the avatar. By this the game can achieve a gameplay about drama and strong characterization. The thesis addresses considerations on what aspects of body language that can be important for computer games and other virtual environments. It also offers design considerations when designing interfaces for using gestures and other body signals to communicate emotions in virtual environments such as computer games. The main design consideration when creating the interface was to treat the player as an actor and the game world as a stage. The player needs to be in control of combinations of facial expressions, body posture and gestures as well as relative avatar positioning to other characters and objects. The interface was first tested as a paper prototype, re-designed, re-tested and then implemented into a computer prototype.</p>

<p>En fallstudie inom sjukvården har genomförts där fokus legat på hur informations- och kommunikationsteknik (IKT) såsom</p><p>datorer och telefoner, skapar avbrott för personalen samt hur och om denna fragmentering av arbete kan undvikas. Tidigare</p><p>forskning om fragmenterat arbete har ofta fokuserat på tid och frekvens för avbrott, denna studie vill bryta med det</p><p>perspektivet. Det huvudsakliga datainsamlandet har bestått av 17 observationstillfällen med situerade intervjuer vid två</p><p>kirurgiska vårdavdelningar och en mottagning. Materialet har analyserats och nio brukskvaliteter har tagits fram för att</p><p>beskriva arbetet. Dessa brukskvaliteter har sedan kopplats till fragmentering och hur denna kan motverkas. De huvudsakliga</p><p>slutsatserna av studien är att IKT medverkar till en fragmentering av arbetet men att denna går att motverka. Motverkande</p><p>av fragmentering kan ske på ren interaktionsnivå men också på verksamhets- och organisationsnivå, där bland annat regler</p><p>för hur kommunikationen ser ut och hur IKT tas fram är viktiga. Studien visar på att en naiv användarcentrering vid</p><p>utveckling av IKT kan ge upphov till fragmenterat arbete för personerna som direkt och indirekt berörs av systemet.</p><p>Förutsättningarna för att skapa ett helhetsperspektiv med hjälp av tillgänglig, delad och portabel information har även visat</p><p>sig viktiga. Uppsättande av gränser mellan olika aktiviteter kan ifrågasättas och avbrott kan ha både positiva och negativa</p><p>aspekter. Det är alltså varken önskvärt eller möjligt att motverka alla typer av avbrott.</p>

<p>This thesis presents a design work in which one platform specific User Interface (UI) is redesigned to fit into the multiple platform range of a software application. Among other design methods a service design analysis and a platform general UI framework are used. The thesis aims to study the impact of these methods.</p><p>The service design analysis starts with a workshop which outcome is used as reference point during the design process and later in the analysis of the results. The general framework is extracted from existing mobile implementations of the software and is used as a guideline in the design of the platform specific solution.</p><p>The results presented show that the service design perspective added high level priority tools to the process, and there are indications that this method can be even more valuable in earlier stages of adaptation of software to new platforms. The general framework is shown to have contributed on a more detailed level and there is indication that this method can facilitate the work of obtaining continuity between platforms.</p>

<p>Det är viktigt med ett effektivt samarbete och en välfungerande kommunikation i dynamiska miljöer, till exempel vid släckningsarbetet av en brand. Bristande kommunikation i en sådan miljö skulle kunna få förödande konsekvenser.</p><p>Denna uppsats bygger på material från studien ”Bridging Cultural Barriers to Collaborative Decision Making in On-Site Operations Coordination Centers”, där 32 svenskar samarbetade i olika lagkonstellationer med att släcka simulerade eldar i mikrovärlden C3Fire.</p><p>Kommunikationsteorier visar på att personer samtalar med varandra efter en viss struktur; deras yttranden tenderar att komma i par, så kallade närhetspar. Denna studie syftade till att undersöka närhetspar i beställningssekvenser, i form av en beställning av vatten och/eller bränsle följd av en bekräftelse. Till sin hjälp hade försöksdeltagarna en datorskärm med en karta samt tillgång till ett e-postverktyg för att kommunicera inom laget. Varje person genomgick åtta spelomgångar, vilket resulterade i totalt 64 spelomgångar. De lag som lyckades släcka elden antogs ha större andel närhetspar i beställningssekvenserna, vilket innebar att de skulle bekräfta varandras beställningar mer kontinuerligt än de lag som inte lyckades släcka elden. För studiet av närhetsparen kategoriserades e-postmeddelandena från samtliga spelomgångar, för att se hur strukturen i kommunikationen såg ut.</p><p>Resultatet visade på att något annat måste ha påverkat de medverkandes prestation, eftersom det inte fanns någon påtaglig skillnad i andelen närhetspar i beställningssekvenserna mellan de olika lagen. Det uppmärksammades att de inte bekräftade varandras beställningar endast genom e-postmeddelanden utan även genom direkta manipulationer. Anledningen till detta antas vara att alla lagmedlemmar blev presenterade samma information på sina datorskärmar, vilket frambringade en mer implicit kommunikation.</p> / <p>Efficient communication and cooperation is important in dynamic environments, for instance in fire-fighting teamwork. A lack of communication in this environment could cause devastating consequences.</p><p>This Master’s thesis is based on material from ”Bridging Cultural Barriers to Collaborative Decision Making in On-Site Operations Coordination Centers”, a study where 32 Swedes collaborated in teams conducting fire-fighting exercises in the micro-world C3Fire.</p><p>Communication theories propose that people talk with each other after a certain structure; their utterances tend to come in pairs, so-called adjacency pairs. The purpose of this study was to examine adjacency pairs in request sequences, in form of a request for water and/or fuel followed by a confirmation. The participants had access to a computer screen with a map together with an e-mail tool, to communicate within the team. Every person participated in eight rounds of the game, which resulted in 64 rounds of the game altogether. The teams who managed to extinguish the fire were assumed to have a larger amount of adjacency pairs in their request sequences than the teams who did not extinguish the fire. For the study of the adjacency pairs, the e-mails were categorized, to see what the structure of the communication looked like.</p><p>The result showed that some other factor must have influenced the participants’ performance, since there was no obvious difference in the amount of the adjacency pairs in the request sequence between the teams. It was observed that the team members did not confirm each other’s requests just by sending e-mail, but also by direct manipulations. The reason for this is assumed to be that every member of the team was shown the same information on his computer screen, which gave rise to a more implicit communication.</p>

<p>Denna studie är en fallstudie av ett privat sjukvårdsföretag. Studien syftar till att undersöka hur olika gestaltningstekniker</p><p>samt gruppers sammansättning kan påverka diskussioner kring design och därmed fungera som strukturerande resurser för</p><p>samtalet. Studien vidgar begreppet prototyper till att hantera mer än de delar som behandlats i tidigare forskning: medium,</p><p>detaljrikedom och närhet till slutprodukt.</p><p>Datainsamling har skett vid sex fokusgruppstillfällen där tre olika grupper (inom olika delar av en och samma organisation:</p><p>användare hos kund, användare hos systemleverantören och systemutvecklare hos leverantören) har fört en diskussion kring</p><p>designen utifrån tre olika gestaltningstekniker (gränssnittsskisser, scenarios och dynamiska datorprototyper).</p><p>Diskussionerna har sedan analyserats i termer av domäner för interaktionsdesign och aspekter av IT-systemet i användning.</p><p>Studiens huvudsakliga slutsatser är att gestaltningstekniker påverkar vilka domäner och aspekter som diskuteras varför</p><p>designern kan välja gestaltningsteknik efter vad han eller hon vill få ut av diskussionen. Skisserna bedöms ge den mest</p><p>heltäckande diskussionen, medan scenarios fungerar bäst för dem som inte är teknikvana och tar då upp struktur och</p><p>funktion. Datorprototypen lämpar sig bäst för diskussion kring interaktion och presentation. Men gruppens sammansättning</p><p>påverkar diskussionen i högre utsträckning än gestaltningsteknikerna. Därför dras även slutsatsen att det är viktigt att</p><p>designern känner sin publik och anpassar valet av gestaltningsteknik efter målgruppen.</p> / <p>This thesis investigates how different prototyping techniques and compositions of groups can influence discussions about</p><p>design and therefore function as structuring resources for the discussion. This thesis widens the conception of prototypes to</p><p>include more than the issues that have been discussed in previous research: medium, wealth of details and closeness to the</p><p>final product.</p><p>Data has been collected through six focus groups where three different groups (within different parts of one organization;</p><p>users at client, users at system supplier, and systems developers at supplier) have discussed the design with the help of the</p><p>different prototyping techniques (sketches, scenarios and dynamic computer prototypes).</p><p>The discussions where analyzed in terms of domains for interaction design and different aspects of the system in use.</p><p>The main conclusions of this thesis are that prototyping techniques influence which domains and aspects are discussed.</p><p>Therefore the designer can choose prototyping technique depending on what he or she wants to discuss about the design.</p><p>The sketches provides the most complete discussion, while scenarios works best with those that are not knowledgeable</p><p>about IT-systems and then the discussion deals with structure and function. The computer prototype is best suited for</p><p>discussing interaction and presentation. But the composition of the group has more influence on the discussion than the</p><p>choice of prototyping technique. Therefore the conclusion is drawn that it is important that the designer knows his or her</p><p>audience and adjusts the choice of prototyping technique to the composition of the group.</p>

This dissertation clarifies the role and relevance of the body in social interaction and cognition from an embodied cognitive science perspective. Theories of embodied cognition have during the past two decades offered a radical shift in explanations of the human mind, from traditional computationalism which considers cognition in terms of internal symbolic representations and computational processes, to emphasizing the way cognition is shaped by the body and its sensorimotor interaction with the surrounding social and material world. This thesis develops a framework for the embodied nature of social interaction and cognition, which is based on an interdisciplinary approach that ranges historically in time and across different disciplines. The theoretical framework presents a thorough and integrated understanding that supports and explains the embodied nature of social interaction and cognition. It is argued that embodiment is the part and parcel of social interaction and cognition in the most general and specific ways, in which dynamically embodied actions themselves have meaning and agency. The framework is illustrated by empirical work that provides some detailed observational fieldwork on embodied actions captured in three different episodes of spontaneous social interaction in situ. Besides illustrating the theoretical issues discussed in the thesis, the empirical work also reveals some novel characteristics of embodied action in social interaction and cognition. Furthermore, the ontogeny of social interaction and cognition is considered, in which social scaffolding and embodied experience play crucial roles during child development. In addition, the issue what it would take for an artificial system to be (socially) embodied is discussed from the perspectives of cognitive modeling and technology. Finally, the theoretical contributions and implications of the study of embodied actions in social interaction and cognition for cognitive science and related disciplines are summed up. The practical relevance for applications to artificial intelligence and human-computer interaction is also outlined as well as some aspects for future work.

Spoken language as a means of communication contains huge amounts of information apart from the linguistic message that is conveyed. It is often the first channel of interaction between people and based on the speaker’s manner of talk, we create a mental image of the speaker as a person, of the speaker’s background, origin and personal qualities. Through five case studies, this dissertation investigates how immigrants to Sweden are judged based on their foreign accents (Cases 1—3) and how the use of an interpreter in court can affect the legal process and the judging of the immigrant (Cases 4—5). Case 1 investigated Swedish students’ attitudes towards immigration and immigrants through a survey-based study and revealed that Swedish students hold predominantly positive attitudes towards immigrations and immigrants. Case 2, using accent imitation, asked if Swedish speakers have a cognitive prototype for British English accented Swedish and found that this was the case. This demonstrated that Swedes have models of accented Swedish accents. Case 3 asked Swedish students to rate their impressions of speakers of nine foreign accented Swedish voices on 18 six-point semantic differential scales. They also rated their impressions of each voice for five social factors. The results suggest that the listeners evaluated the voices based on perceived social desirability, or perceived cultural distance between the listener and the voice’s country of origin. Juxtaposing these findings with those of Case 1 suggests that even among a group who are positive to immigrants and immigration some groups of immigrants are more welcome than others. Case 4 examined discourse disfluencies in a bilingual court hearing and a Swedish-Polish bilingual court hearing in detail. The case showed that most of the dialogue-related difficulties have other sources than the interpreter, even if the interpreter at first glance often appeared to be part of the problem rather than part of the solution. Case 5 examined the interpreter’s role in courtroom dialogue situations through interviews with a court interpreter and a lay judge. The study found that the picture of the interpreter’s role differs between the various actors in the court setting. This, in combination with a lack of knowledge about cultural differences in dialogue strategies, creates complications, can have an impact on the perception of the witness and, ultimately, affect the legal rights of the accused. Furthermore, as the interpreter most frequently speaks foreign accented Swedish, the perception and evaluation of their foreign accented Swedish can further place some immigrant groups at a double legal disadvantage when being judged.