My work focuses on the construction and validation of images assembled from fragments of found photographs, generating new narratives that hover between “reality” and fiction. Archive and Fiction: Construction of the past and the self is the result of two years of artwork exploring my family archives and my relationship to my family through them. I understand the family as a place of identity in continuous change, serving as a container of history and memory. Conceiving of my family albums as material allows me to approach my family history as a visitor. Mediated memory and constructed memory intertwine in the family album, a linear format that also inadvertently reveals gaps, both temporal and contextual. By understanding how photography’s authority constructs personal and family identity, I seek to undermine this authority, using photography’s “realness” against itself to create alternative narratives of within which I can belong.

This thesis explores two novel ways of reducing the data complexity of tactile sensing. The thesis begins by examining the state-of-the art in tactile sensing, not only examining the sensor construction and interpretation of data but also the motivation for these designs. The thesis then proposes two methods for reducing the complexity of data in tactile sensing. The first is a low-power tactile sensing array exploiting a novel application of a pressure-sensitive material called quantum tunnelling composite. The properties of this material in this array form are shown to be beneficial in robotics. The electrical characteristics of the material are also explored. A bit-based structure for representing tactile data called Bitworld is then defined and its computational performance is characterised. It is shown that this bit-based structure outperforms floating-point arrays by orders of magnitude. This structure is then shown to allow high-resolution images to be produced by combining low resolution sensor arrays with equivalent functional performance to a floating-point array, but with the advantages of computational efficiency. Finally, an investigation into making Bitworld robust in the presence of positional noise is described with simulations to verify that such robustness can be achieved. Overall, the sensor and data structure described in this thesis allow simple, but effective tactile systems to be deployed in robotics without requiring a significant commitment of computational or power resources on the part of a robot designer.

Touch sensation is initiated by diverse mechanosensory neurons that innervate distinct skin structures; however, little is known about how touch receptors are patterned during mammalian skin development. During the course of my PhD training, I analyzed embryonic and neonatal development of mouse touch domes, which contain Merkel cell-neurite complexes that encode pressure and object features. I found that developing touch domes share three key features with canonical sensory placodes: discrete patches of specialized epithelial, co-clustered mesenchymal cells capable of engaging in molecular crosstalk with the epithelium, and selective recruitment of sensory neurons. During embryogenesis, molecularly distinct patches of epithelial Merkel cells and keratinocytes clustered with a previously unsuspected population of BMP4-expressing dermal fibroblasts in nascent touch domes. Concurrently, two populations of sensory neurons preferentially targeted touch domes compared with other skin regions. Surprisingly, only one neuronal population persisted in mature touch domes. Overexpression of Noggin, a BMP antagonist, in epidermis at embryonic age 14.5 resulted in fewer touch domes, a loss of Merkel cells, and decreased innervation density in skin areas where touch domes are typically found. Thus, touch domes bear hallmarks of placode-derived sensory epithelia that require BMP signaling for proper specification.

Physical holding is an intense form of physical contact that can be initiated by a therapist during the course of therapy. The purpose of this research is to investigate clients' accounts of what happened in an endeavour to develop a coherent explanation for what occurred in the holding experience. Former clients who experienced sustained physical holding during their therapy describe these experiences and discuss the effects and meanings.The main effects of physical holding were the identifying and experiencing of feelings, and the remembering and re-experiencing of past events.The emerging plot in a therapy incorporating sustained physical holding is emotional healing through emotional contact, regression and a mothering experience.Guided by these elements, an account of Emotionally Focussed Psychotherapy is elaborated to provide an explanation of how clients heal from past infant and childhood traumas through the process of being loved, cared for and nurtured in a mothering experience that is both real and symbolic in a verbal psychotherapy. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) (Psychology)

What if the objects in the Museum of Islamic Art in Berlin could talk?All the artefacts are there for a reason. But especially in a historic exhibition on another culture those reason can be extremely difficult to see. Why look at a shagged old carpet? More than 4 million Muslims live in Germany today. Most people have very little background knowledge in Islamic art or history - but Islam is a regular topic of heated debate. People come to the Museum of Islamic Art with today´s questions, ideas and expectations. In today´s exhibition, visitors are flooded with impressions and information, but without background knowledge, it is difficult to relate things.  What are engaging, and information-rich, but not overwhelming formats to access deeper information on particular objects? How to explore their specific contexts as well as their relation to other objects?My final design - ‘Storytellers’ are guides. They are small tokens that represent objects from the museum. Each object has its own character, topic and relationships to other objects. It will show you through the exhibition on its` individual tour. There are tours with stories for children, families, different levels of background knowledge and interests.

With the spread of latest state of the art technologies geared towards utilization of the human senses, haptic technologies have been introduced as a way of utilising the sense of touch to either solve real world problems or to enhance present experiences. This thesis focuses on using haptic technology in cars to make the driving experience safer. Modern vehicles carry GPS, music systems, sunroofs and a number of other electronic gadgets. Interaction with these devices while driving often takes the driver‘s eyes ―off the road‖ and raises safety concerns. We are proposing a unique haptic design that uses the ‗sense of touch‘ as a mode of controlling or coordinating the various technologies and convenience devices found within a car. A pattern of distinguishable haptic feedback linked to a corresponding device allows the user to operate these devices through ‗sense of touch‘ and eliminates reliance on visual interaction. This design will help to reduce the driver‘s distractions, as it will be installed in an easily accessible location such as on the steering wheel. A simulation has been done using a haptic interface ―i.e. desktop phantom to test the system‖ and a prototype has been developed which can be installed in any vehicle. This prototype has been tested to work with a limited number of convenient devices. However, further development and enhancements can be made to incorporate more devices and other user preferences. The main objective of this research is to integrate various functionalities in a robust manner, which will focus on the driver‘s safety by ensuring ―constant vision on the road‖. Distinguishable distinct haptic responses will act as unique depictions for specific convenient devices within the car, allowing the driver to interact and manipulate the settings of the device based on the detection and identification of the various unique haptic depictions. / UOIT

Storytelling is a powerful means of communication that has been employed by humankind from the early stages of development. As technology has advanced, the medium through which people tell stories has evolved from verbal, to writing, performing on stage, and more recently television, movies, and video games. A promising medium for the telling of stories in an in-person, one-on-one or one-to-many setting is a digital table—a large, horizontal multi-touch surface—that can provide quick access to visuals and narrative elements at the touch of one’s hands and fingers. In this work, I present the results of an exploratory study on storytellers’ interaction behaviours while working with digital tables, and its physical counterparts of sand and water. My results highlight some of the differences in these media that can both help and hinder a storyteller’s narrative process. I use these findings to present design implications for the design of applications for storytelling on digital multi-touch surfaces.

The emotional experience of products can have enormous impact on the overall product experience: someone who is feeling positive is more likely to be accepting of novel products or to be more tolerant of unexpected or unusual interface behaviours. Being able to improve users’ emotions through product interaction has clear benefits and is currently the focus of designers all over the world. The extent to which touch-based information can affect a user’s experience and observable behaviour has been given relatively little attention in haptic technology or other touch-based products where research has tended to focus on psychophysics relating to technical development, in the case of the former, and usability in the case of the latter. The objective of this research was therefore to begin to explore generalizable and useful relationship(s) between design parameters specific to the sense of touch and the emotional response to tactile experiences. To this end, a theoretical ’touch-emotion model’ was developed that incorporates stages from existing information and emotion processing models, and a subset of pathways (the ‘Affective’, ‘Cognitive’, and ‘Behaviour Pathways’) was explored. Four experiments were performed to examine how changes in various touch factors, such as surface roughness and availability of haptic (that is, touch-based) information during exploration, impacted user emotional experience and behaviour in the context of the model’s framework. These experiments also manipulated factors related to the experience of touch in real-world situations, such as the availability of visual information and product context. Exploration of the different pathways of the touch-emotion model guided the analysis of the experiments. In exploring the Affective Pathway, a robust relationship was found between increasing roughness and decreasing emotional valence (n = 36, p < 0.005), regardless of the availability of haptic or visual information. This finding expands earlier research that focused on the effect of tactile stimuli on user preference. The impact of texture on the Cognitive Pathway was examined by priming participants to think of the stimuli as objects varying in emotional commitment, such as a common mug (lower) or a personal cell phone (higher). Emotional response again decreased as roughness increased, regardless of primed context (n = 27, p < 0.002) and the primed contexts marginally appeared to generally improve or reduce emotional response (n = 27, p < 0.08). Finally, the exploration of the Behaviour Pathway considered the ability of roughness-evoked emotion to act as a mediator between physical stimuli and observable behaviour, revealing that, contrary to the hypothesis that increased emotional valence would increase time spent reflecting on the stimuli, increased emotion magnitude (regardless of the positive or negative valence of the emotion) was associated with increased time spent in reflection (n = 33, p < 0.002). Results relating to the Behaviour Pathway suggested that the portion of the touch-emotion model that included the last stages of information processing, observable behaviour, may need to be revised. However, the insights of the Affective and Cognitive Pathway analyses are consistent with the information processing stages within those pathways and give support to the related portions of the touch-emotion model. The analysis of demographics data collected from all four experiments also revealed interesting findings which are anticipated to have application in customizing haptic technology for individual users. For example, correlations were found between self-reported tactual importance (measured with a questionnaire) and age (n = 79, r = 0.28, p < 0.03) and between self-reported tactual importance and sensitivity to increased roughness (n = 79, r = -0.27, p < 0.04). Higher response times were also observed with increased age (rIT = 0.49, rRT = 0.48; p < 0.01). This research contributes to the understanding of how emotion and emotionevoked behaviour may be impacted by changing touch factors using the exemplar of roughness as the touch factor of interest, experienced multimodally and in varying situations. If a design goal is to contribute to user emotional experience of a product, then the findings of this work have the potential to impact design decisions relating to surface texture components of hand-held products as well as for virtual surface textures generated by haptic technology. Further, the touchemotion model may provide a guide for the systematic exploration of the relationships between surface texture, cognitive processing, and emotional response.

Includes bibliographical references.

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