The first idea I had was to investigate Brain Training games (such as the ones created for the Nintendo DS) which are said to “help” people with Alzheimer’s disease, dementia, and concentration problems and reduce your “Brain Age”. However I have found a lot of articles which condemn this new form of gaming and dismiss any health benefits.
I’ve also looked into robotics and physical computing, following on from the lecture given by Mike Blow last Monday. I love the idea and look of this interactive robot called Petit Mal made by an artist called Simon Penny. Take a look at the video below to see the interesting way it reacts with the audience:
Another area I’m interested in is optical illusions, and the way in which we perceive, create and interact with what we see. Sarah Strickett suggested I look into semiotics and especially try to get hold of a book by John Berger called “Ways of Seeing” which I haven’t yet been able to get hold of as it’s out at every library I’ve tried. Obviously a very popular book!
I’ve been reading the book “Eye and Brain- The Psychology of Seeing” by Richard L. Gregory, which helped me with our last project. It has a chapter on illusions in which I am finding interesting. Another book I’ve managed to get is “Vision and Art-The Biology of Seeing” by Margaret Livingstone which is similar to “Eye and Brain” but may offer a different perspective.
The Stroop effect, is an interesting phenomenon when a word such as blue, green, red, etc. is printed in a colour differing from the colour expressed by the word's meaning (e.g. the word "red" printed in blue ink), a delay occurs in the processing of the word's colour, leading to slower test reaction times and an increase in mistakes. Try to say the below words as fast as you can and you will see what I mean:
Simon Morse’s (the artist and quiz- master who came to speak to my class a few months ago) interfaces have also inspired me to consider a “wrong” interface. If something we do not expect to happen happens when we press a button it may create a similar confusion in the brain to the one we experience from the Stroop effect. This could show us how much we take intuitive interfaces for granted. Here is one of Simon Morse’s interfaces:
Sarah Strickett also suggested perhaps playing with the idea that something completely unique, created for that individual could happen when a button is pressed on an interface.
Obviously, before you begin to bend the rules you need to know them, so I’ve got hold of a copy of “The design of Every Day things” by Donald A. Norman and found a few papers on guidelines for interface design.
That’s a flavour of my current research. Please feel free to comment and let me know what you think. It’s always great to hear ideas and opinions so don’t be shy!
2 comments:
On art foundation, I had to read a book called 'Drawing On The Right Side Of The Brain', by Betty Edwards, that is about different ways of drawing related to the way your brain sees things, to explain it better, here is a link about it. Might be a good book for you:
http://www.drawright.com/theory.htm
I think the idea of optical illusion is interesting in the context of interactivity. Ive looked into the old idea of 3d magic eyes which similarly work on optical illusion. Do you think these are interactive? I started thinking that they are because you have to look at the image in a certain way in order to recieve the 3d image. I think you should progress with the idea of optical illusion as it seems like a rich area that plays with the idea of how our brain interacts with an image.
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