DCog-HCI Lab @ UCSD

Welcome to the Distributed Cognition and Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory, Department of Cognitive Science, University of California, San Diego. The Dcog-HCI Lab is directed by Professors Jim Hollan and Ed Hutchins.

Currently there is a shift in cognitive science toward a view of cognition as a property of systems that are larger than isolated individuals. This extends the reach of cognition to encompass interactions between people as well as interactions with resources in the environment. Members of the Dcog-HCI lab are dedicated to developing the theoretical and methodological foundations engendered by this broader view of cognition and interaction.

We are united in the belief that distributed cognition promises to be a particularly fertile framework for designing and evaluating augmented environments and digital artifacts. A central image for us is environments in which people pursue their activities in collaboration with the elements of of the social and material world. Our core research efforts are directed at understanding such environments: what we really do in them, how we coordinated our activity in them, and what role technology should play in them.

Recent News

Recent Publications

A.M. Piper, N. Weibel and J. Hollan, TAP & PLAY: An End-User Toolkit for Authoring Interactive Pen and Paper Language Activities, Proc. CHI 2012, ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Austin, TX, USA, May 2012, Accepted
Hybrid paper-digital interfaces are a promising approach for supporting language activities. The familiarity of pen and paper makes it a particularly attractive media for many user groups, including young children. Digital pens enhance interaction with traditional paper content by playing and recording audio and recognizing handwriting and gestures. Currently, generating custom interactive paper documents involves some programming, limiting its use by many user groups (e.g., educators and families) who might especially benefit from application of hybrid paper-digital interfaces in their practices. To address this need, we developed an end- user Toolkit for Authoring Pen and Paper Language Activities (TAP & PLAY). This paper describes the iterative development of the toolkit, its accessibility for novice non-technical users, and use in three different contexts for early language learning. We demonstrate and document the system’s usability, generality, and utility for people who want to create and tailor their own custom interactive paper-based language activities.

N. Weibel, A. Fouse, C. Emmenegger, W. Friedman, E.Hutchins, and J. Hollan, Digital Pen and Paper Practices in Observational Research, Proc. CHI 2012, ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Austin, TX, USA, May 2012, Accepted
Researchers from many disciplines are taking advantage of increasingly inexpensive digital video to capture extensive records of human activity in real-world settings. The ability to record and share such data has created a critical moment n the practice and scope of behavioral research. While recent work is beginning to develop techniques for visualizing and interacting with integrated multimodal information collected during field research, navigating and analyzing these large datasets remains challenging and tools are especially needed to support the early stages of data exploration. In this paper we describe digital pen and paper practices in observational research and their integration with ChronoViz, a tool for annotating, visualizing, and analyzing multimodal data. The goal is to better support researchers both in the field, while collecting data, and later in the lab, during analysis. We document the co-evolution of notetaking practices and system features as 28 participants used the tool during an 18-month deployment.

Aleksandra Sarcevic, Nadir Weibel, Jim Hollan and Randall Burd, TraumaPen: A Paper- Digital Interface for Information Capture and Display, In Proceedings of PervasiveHealth 2012, International Conference on Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare, San Diego, CA, USA, May 2012.
We conducted a study in a pediatric trauma center to elicit design requirements for the TraumaPen system—a mixed paper-digital interface using a digital pen and a wall display—to support situation awareness during trauma resuscitation. In this paper, we describe the field research that informed the initial system prototype and then present findings from two studies in which the prototype was used to further explore the application area. Our results showed the potential for digital pen technology in supporting teamwork in the dynamic and safety-critical setting of the trauma bay, but also revealed several limitations of this technology. We conclude by discussing challenges and requirements for the use of paper-digital interfaces in assisting fast-paced, collaborative work processes.

N. Weibel, A. Fouse, C. Emmenegger, S. Kimmich and E. Hutchins, Let's Look at the Cockpit: Exploring Mobile Eye-Tracking for Observational Research on the Flight Deck, Proc. ETRA 2012, ACM Symposium on Eye Tracking Research and Applications, Santa Barbara, USA, March 2012, Accepted
As part of our research on multimodal analysis and visualization of activity dynamics, we are exploring the integration of data produced by a variety of sensor technologies within ChronoViz, a tool aimed at supporting the simultaneous visualization of multiple streams of time series data. This paper reports on the integration of a mobile eye-tracking system with data streams collected from HD video cameras, microphones, digital pens, and simulation environments. We focus on the challenging environment of the commercial airline flight deck, analyzing the use of mobile eye tracking systems in aviation human factors and reporting on techniques and methods that can be applied in this and other domains in order to successfully collect, analyze and visualize eye-tracking data in combination with the array of data types supported by ChronoViz.

Events

DCog-HCI (see all)

Lab Meeting - Hutchins Pervasive Paper

Wed, May 29th, 10:30am-11:30am (SSRB 100 (DCog/HCI Conference Room))
(4 days, 1 hour from now)

Department Events (see all)

Page Piccinini (CRL talk)

Accessing Cross Language Categories in Learning a Third Language

Current theories differ on how bilinguals organize their two languages, including their sound systems. The debate centers on whether bilinguals have constant access to both systems (Green, 1998; c.f. Johnson, 1997; Pierrehumbert, 2002) or to one system at a time (Cutler et al., 1992; Macnamara & Kushnir, 1971). This study examines these theories by testing the ability of early Spanish-English bilinguals to access distinctions within the voice onset time (VOT) ...

(click for details)

Tue, May 28th, 4:00pm-5:00pm (CSB 280)
(3 days, 6 hours from now)

David Tingley (CogSci Wa!)

Mon, Jun 3rd, 12:00pm-12:30pm
(1 week, 2 days from now)

CRL talk

Tue, Jun 4th, 4:00pm-5:00pm (CSB 280)
(1 week, 3 days from now)

UCSD (see all)

Memorial Day Observance

Mon, May 27th
(1 day, 14 hours from now)

Harvey Karten (CNS talk)

How is a bird's brain wired? How does it differ from that of mammals?

Behavioral repertoires of birds show remarkable similarities to mammals in many regards. How is their brain organized? Do birds solve problems with totally different neural circuits than mammals and using different algorithms? I will try to review the dramatically changing views of the
avian brain, and provide some guidance in understanding the new perspectives on the organization of auditory, visual and basal ganglia circuitry. ...

(click for details)

Tue, May 28th, 12:00pm-1:00pm (Mandler 3545 (Crick Conference Room))
(3 days, 2 hours from now)

Kenneth Norman (Psych talk)

Tracking memory retrieval with multivariate pattern analysis

To test theories of human information processing, experimenters attempt to put subjects in a particular cognitive state and then observe neural activity and behavior in that state. However, our ability (as experimenters) to control a subject's cognitive state is limited; there is always variability in subjects’ cognitive state, above and beyond the variability that is directly driven by the experimental manipulation. In analyses that focus on comparing experimental conditions, this extra variability ...

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Thu, May 30th, 4:00pm-5:00pm (The Crick Conference Room (Mandler Hall, Room 3545))
(5 days, 6 hours from now)