An Enactive Perspective on Emotion: A Case Study on Monitoring Brainwaves

In the growing field of ubiquitous computing research, there has been an understandable need to revisit the concept of a standard interface with goal-targeted conscious interaction. An enactive system, which draws on a phenomenological perspective, has as a core concept the dynamically coupling of mind and technology, where the interaction design is not goal-oriented, but driven by non-conscious control of the system. In this paper, we investigate the possibilities of the sensor measurements of an EEG device to in fact potentially contribute to the design of an enactive system. We then take the results of such exploration and look at them through the lens of the enactive approach to cognition and its perspective of emotion and cognition as intertwined. This perspective leads our discussion on how to bring the design of enactive systems closer to supporting, through interaction, the social and cultural construction of emotion.