A lot of what our brains process never enters our consciousness, even if it may be of potential value to us.So just what are we wasting by letting our brains process stimuli we don't even notice or attend to?This is one of the areas being explored in the 16-partner CEEDs project (ceeds-project.eu).Funded by the European Commission's Future and Emerging Technologies programme, CEEDs (the Collective Experience of Empathic Data systems) has developed new sensors and technologies to unobtrusively measure people's implicit reactions to multimodal presentations of very large data sets.The idea is that monitoring these reactions may reveal when you are surprised, satisfied, interested or engaged by a part of the data, even if you're not aware of being so.Applications of CEEDs technology are relevant to a broad range of disciplines -spanning science, education, design, and archaeology, all the way through to connected retail.This chapter provides a formalisation of the CEEDs approach and its applications and in so doing explains how the CEEDs project has broken new ground in the nascent domain of human computer confluence.

Optimising communications to take account of user states is a nascent, huge and growing business opportunity for the retail and advertising worlds. Understanding people’s behaviours, thoughts and emotions to different messages in different contexts at different times, can inform the strategic planning and design of systems promoting positive customer experiences and increasing retail sales. Using theory combined with applied insights from our projects, this paper highlights a number of factors (mindset, attention, focus, time pressure and salience) that drive ‘search’ behaviour in a dynamic retail based environment. The work has implications for developing symbiotic systems.

This paper explores a high level conceptualisation (taxonomy) of human computer interaction that intends to highlight a range of interaction uses for advanced (symbiotic) systems. The work formed part of an EC-funded project called CEEDs which aims to develop a virtual reality based system to improve human ability to process information, and experience and understand large, complex data sets by capitalising on conscious and unconscious human responses to those data. This study, based on critical and creative thinking as well as stakeholder consultation, identified a range of variables that impact on the types of possible human computer interaction, including so called ‘symbiotic’ interactions (e.g., content displayed – raw/tagged; user response – explicit/implicit; and whether or not there is real time influence of user response on content display). Impact of variation in the number of concurrent users, and of more than one group of users was also considered. This taxonomy has implications for providing new visual stimuli for creative exploration of data, and questions are raised as to what might offer the most intuitive use of unconscious/implicit user responses in symbiotic systems.

This paper describes research to investigate the attitudinal and motivational factors that might facilitate or inhibit the uptake and use of cognitive training (CT) applications via interactive television (iTV) by both young and older people and to explore the profiles of potential users of such applications. A questionnaire was designed and distributed as part of the Vital Mind (VM) project. Data from a sample of 848 young and older people were collected and analysed using principal component analysis (PCA) and cluster analysis (CA). PCA of 41 attitude statements identified six components/factors. Three factors measured potential drivers to uptake and use of iTV-based CT applications (`active wellbeing', `health concern' and `technophilia') and two measured potential barriers (`unprogressiveness' and `telly-negativity'). A sixth factor (`active sociability') could act as either a driver or barrier, depending on how socially oriented are different CT applications. CA of the factors and age data revealed seven different profiles of potential users of CT through iTV. Three of the clusters were predominantly older (labelled Cultured-Conservatives, Digital-Immigrants and Telly-Fans), three were younger (labelled Healthy-Strivers, Digital-Natives and Net-Generation) and one was middle-aged (labelled Busy-Interactors). Reported media use and activity (mental, physical and social) were consistent with the attitude profiles of the clusters. The appeal of iTV-based CT was generally high, with Digital-Natives and Digital-Immigrants indicating the most interest. This research provides evidence for the key attitudinal dimensions predictive of likely adoption and use of iTV-based CT, and a refined understanding of target younger and older user markets.

Computer games are ideally placed to form the content of future Immersive Media, but this prospect is faced with both technical and usability issues. This paper describes an experiment in immersive gaming using a state-of-the-art computer First Person Shooter (FPS) game, in which we analyze user experience and performance through a combination of in-game metrics, questionnaires and subjective reports. We describe the evaluation of a major commercial computer game as a real-time immersive stereoscopic experience based on a four-screen CAVE-like installation. The implementation is based on a bespoke VR middleware developed on top of the game's own engine. Our results show an overwhelming subjective preference for the immersive version despite a decrease in performance attributed to a more realistic aiming mechanism. More importantly, metrics suggest that users took advantage of the immersive context rather than simply transposing their desktop gaming skills.

This paper describes an experiment comparinng immersive and non-immersive gaming using a state-of-the-art first person shooter game (FPS) in which we analyse user experience and performance through a combination of in-game metrics, questionaires and subjective reports. Our results show an overwhelming subjective preference for the immersive version despite a decrease in performance attributed to a more realistic aimming mechanism. Interaction metrics suggest that users took full advantage of the immmersive context rather than simply transposing their desktop gaming skills.

Previous attempts at developing immersive versions of game engines have faced difficulties in achieving both overall high performance and preserving reusability of software developments. In this paper, we present a high-level VR middleware based on one of the most successful commercial game engines: the Unreal® Engine 3.0 (UE3). We describe a VR framework implemented as an extension to the Unreal® Development Kit (UDK) supporting CAVE"-like installations. Our approach relies on a distributed architecture reinforced by specific replication patterns to synchronize the user's point of view and interactions within a multi-screen installation. Our performance benchmarks indicated that our immersive port does not affect the game engine performance, even with complex real-time applications, such as fast-paced multiplayer First Person Shooter (FPS) games or high-resolution graphical environments with 2M+ polygons. A user study also demonstrated the capacity of our VR middleware to elicit high spatial presence while maintaining low cybersickness effects. With free distribution, we believe such a platform can support future Entertainment and VR research.

Previous attempts at developing immersive versions of game engines have faced difficulties in achieving both overall high performance and preserving reusability of software developments. In this paper, we present a high-level VR middleware based on one of the most successful commercial game engines: the Unreal® Engine 3.0 (UE3). We describe a VR framework implemented as an extension to the Unreal® Development Kit (UDK) supporting CAVE"-like installations. Our approach relies on a distributed architecture reinforced by specific replication patterns to synchronize the user's point of view and interactions within a multi-screen installation. Our performance benchmarks indicated that our immersive port does not affect the game engine performance, even with complex real-time applications, such as fast-paced multiplayer First Person Shooter (FPS) games or high-resolution graphical environments with 2M+ polygons. A user study also demonstrated the capacity of our VR middleware to elicit high spatial presence while maintaining low cybersickness effects. With free distribution, we believe such a platform can support future Entertainment and VR research.

The Collective Experience of Empathic Data Systems (CEEDs) project aims to offer a solution to the data deluge problem. With theoretical foundations in consciousness, information processing and creative discovery, the project proposes to develop a data analysis tool that harnesses and interprets the unconscious processes that influence our understanding of the world. Implicit reactions to immersive multimodal representations of large data sets will be used to guide a user's exploration of those data and support learning, understanding and discovery of new patterns that might otherwise be undetected using standard analysis tools.

This poster aims to give an overview of the concept behind a project called Vital Mind, which is investigating the user design and technical challenges to facilitate the delivery of cognitive training to older people via interactive digital television.

In this paper, we describe the design and development of a social game called Familiars. Inspired by the daemons in Pullman's "Dark Material" trilogy, Familiars are animal companions that sit on your Facebook profile and change into different animal forms based on your social activity within the social network of Facebook.

In this paper, we describe the design and development of a social game called Familiars. Inspired by the daemons in Pullman's "Dark Material" trilogy, Familiars are animal companions that sit on your Facebook profile and change into different animal forms based on your social activity within the social network of Facebook. Familiars takes advantage of the powerful capabilities of the developers platform of Facebook to build a multi-dimensional picture of a player's state based on social activity, facial expression analysis on photographs and suggestions from friends. This rich information is then distilled and presented to the player in the form of animal that the familiar chooses to take. We show how the types of animals and personalities were associated in a cross-cultural user study, and present quantitative results from the social behaviours of the players within the game in addition to qualitative data gathered from questionnaire responses.

As people grow older, their cognitive ability tends to decline, which can result in mental, physical and social hardships. Recent research has shown that cognitive training can provide a cognitive stimulation which slows down the decrement in capacities related to the ageing process. Our work aims at using cognitive psychology and Interactive Digital Television applications to enable older people to actively and autonomously participate in brain training activities while sitting in front of their TV set. In this paper, we present an initial overview of the user requirements useful for the technical design stages of the interactive system and key factors that may facilitate or hinder the adoption by older people of brain training applications.

This study was designed to explore the usability of three remote controls that operate a specific digital set top box (Logik LDR V3) amongst consumers who may have more difficulty than most in accessing and using digital television equipment. Participants were UK consumers (a) aged over 75 years with various sensory, physical and/or cognitive impairment, (b) aged under 45 years with learning difficulties, and (c) aged under 45 years without any sensory, physical or cognitive impairment. Using a repeated measures design, participants were asked to perform a series of everyday tasks using remote controls with digital television equipment. Subjective and objective data were collected to explore how intuitive and desirable the remote controls were, and how well subjective preferences related to objective performance data. The study provides evidence that user interfaces that meet the UK Digital TV receiver recommendations (V1.3) for digital terrestrial television (section 5: remote controls) better meet the needs of consumers likely to face difficulty using digital television equipment.

This paper describes the development and piloting of a user-centered design method which enables participants to actively engage in a creative process to produce intuitive representations and inspire early design concepts for innovative mobile and ubiquitous applications. The research has been produced as part of the EC funded project PASION, aiming to enhance mediated communication in games and collaborative environments through the introduction of socio-emotional information cues, represented in meaningful yet abstract enough ways to accommodate variable thresholds of privacy. We describe our design research methodology, which combines analytical approaches, aiming to uncover participant's needs, desires and perceptions with creative, generative methods, with which participants inform and inspire the design process.

This paper proposes a theory generating predictions for when presence and emotion are related, and when they are not. The theory explains apparently conflicting reports on the relation between presence and emotion that have appeared in the literature - some reporting a relationship, others reporting no relationship. The key assertion of the theory is that presence and emotion are related for arousing content only. For content to be arousing to a media consumer it must be perceived as personally relevant and significant - either viscerally or carrying more complex meaning. Of course, this is not to say that all content that is personally relevant and significant need be arousing - it could be personally relevant, significant and arousal reducing. In addition to explaining contradictory results previously reported in the literature on the relation between presence and emotion, the theory explains new data presented in this paper. Consistent with our own and other authors' previous reports, we present new data showing that media form manipulations (specifically screen size and participants' ability to navigate within a VE) influence presence. We did not find related influences of the same manipulations on participants' emotional responses to the media experiences. Finally, whilst we do not present our theory as evidence in favour of the evolutionary rationale for presence recently presented in the literature it is encouraging to note that the two theories are compatible.

This paper describes a four phase research study into the ease of use of DTT (digital terrestrial television) remote controls, focusing on button labelling. The aim was to identify intuitive remote control button labels, thereby enhancing the ease of use of DTT remote controls. In phase 1, a series of brainstorming (discussion) groups was run involving members of the British public to generate intuitive button labels for a variety of DTT functions. The second phase involved expert screening of these labels. The revised lists of labels for the functions tested were then compiled into a questionnaire and distributed to members of the general public in phase 3. Respondents were asked to rank order their favourite labels for each function. The final phase involved exploring the extent to which the subjective preferences derived from the results of phase 3 mapped onto viewers’ behavioural responses. Key measures explored included the speed and accuracy of correct button label identification. Generally, the results revealed close correspondence between the subjective preference data and behavioural responses. Whilst these results suggest that subjective preferences for labels are reasonable indicators of behavioural proficiency, we recommend that behavioural measures also be collected where possible. The approach reported here with reference to remote control button labels can be applied to a wide range of interactive media products and services

This paper describes the development of a consumer segmentation study based on category-specific attitudes towards digital and interactive TV, and attitudes to technology and general media consumption. The research was conducted for the Easy TV initiative – a joint initiative of the Independent Television Commission (ITC), Consumers’ Association and Design Council – whose aim is to promote easier to use digital television equipment. An earlier research survey (ITC-UsE, 2001) quantified the public's perceptions of the ease of use of digital and interactive TV. Perceived ease of use ratings for digital and interactive TV were much lower than for analogue TV; in fact, ratings were similar to those obtained for a personal computer. Subsequent research has focused on usability aspects relating to the user, the product and their interaction. In order to identify the ease of use issues affecting users with the biggest usability problems, a new large-scale attitudinal survey (n = 1333) was first conducted to identify distinct types of potential dTV user. Seven types ('clusters') of (existing and potential) dTV consumer were empirically derived from factor and cluster analyses of the survey data. The clusters generated were strongly differentiated in terms of dTV adoption, though the clustering itself was based solely on participants' attitudes. The clusters were then categorized into one of three groups according to their ratings of their perceived: (a) ease of use of dTV, (b) self-efficacy with technology, and (c) need and motivation for adopting dTV. These were labelled: (1) It's too complicated for me, (2) I can deal with it if there's content I want, and (3) It's too slow and clunky for me. These groupings have subsequently been applied to a series of dTV user trials, a detailed description of which is beyond the scope of the current paper.

AIMS:To test the prediction arising from the incentive-sensitization model of addiction that when tested immediately after smoking, smokers will show heightened attention to words with appetitive and aversive motivational significance compared with their performance during acute abstinence.DESIGN:Twenty-one smokers were each tested twice, once just after smoking and once after overnight abstinence, on three versions of the modified Stroop task which required colour naming of words with either neutral, appetitive or aversive connotations. Ten non-smokers were tested once.SETTING:All participants were tested in a quiet experimental cubicle within the psychology department.PARTICIPANTS:Smokers comprised nine men and 12 women who had smoked at least 10 cigarettes per day for the last 6 months; non-smokers comprised five men and five women who had never smoked. All were aged between 18 and 35 years. Three smokers were excluded from the analyses because their breath CO levels suggested they had not complied with the instructions to abstain on one occasion.MEASUREMENTS:A card-based, blocked, format was used for the modified Stroop task. Time to colour-name the words of the three motivational types, the order of which was counterbalanced across participants, was recorded.FINDINGS:Smoking was associated with greater interference from both threat and appetitive words than from neutral words; during abstinence there was no differential effect of word type. Non-smokers performed more similarly to recent smokers.CONCLUSIONS:This pattern suggests suppression of normal motivational responding during abstinence.