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 - Jeremy

Wed, May 22nd, 10:30am-11:30am (SSRB 100 (DCog/HCI Conference Room))
(2 days, 14 hours from now)

Department Events (see all)

Matt Schalles (CogSci Wa!)

Motor variability on a simple rhythmic task

Humans have an amazing ability to synchronize their movements with sounds.
However, even the greatest musicians are unable to play as consistently or
as precise as machines. In what ways do people vary on their ability to
hold constant tempos and in what way might experience or practice play a
role in these behaviors? In this talk I will discuss behavioral results
from musicians and non-musicians engaging in a synchronize-continue
tapping task. ...

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Mon, May 20th, 12:00pm-12:30pm
(15 hours, 30 minutes from now)

Iva Ivanova (CRL talk)

The (un)automaticity of structural alignment

Interlocutors in a dialogue often mirror each other’s linguistic choices at different levels of linguistic representation (interactive alignment), which facilitates conversation and promotes rapport (Pickering & Garrod, 2004). However, speakers frequently engage in concurrent activities while in dialogue such as typing, reading or listening to programs. Is interactive alignment affected by concurrent participation in other activities that pose demands on working memory? In this talk, I will focus on alignment of structure, which ...

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Tue, May 21st, 4:00pm-5:00pm (CSB 280)
(1 day, 19 hours from now)

CRL talk

Tue, May 28th, 4:00pm-5:00pm (CSB 280)
(1 week, 1 day from now)

UCSD (see all)

Laura Case (Psych GTS talk)

Magnetoencephalography (MEG) of Tactile Body Representation in Transsexuality and Anorexia

The brain and body are developmentally interconnected from the earliest moments of life. How, then, could a physically normal, even attractive, body feel overwhelmingly “wrong” to its inhabitant? Most transsexual individuals experience a strong sense, often beginning in childhood, that their body is of the “wrong” sex. Yet no research to date has attempted to identify the neural mechanisms involved in this incongruity between internal body image and external ...

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Mon, May 20th, 1:05pm-2:00pm (Crick Conference Room, Mandler Hall)
(16 hours, 35 minutes from now)

Ethan Scott (Neuro talk)

Cerebellum-dependent motor learning in zebrafish larvae: anatomy, optogenetics, and behavior

Our group is interested in how the cerebellum drives motor learning and coordination, and we address these issues using optogenetics in the zebrafish model system. There are two parts to this approach: the development of novel behavioral preparations that allow motor learning to be quantified, and the establishment of optogenetic strains for observing and manipulating neural activity in targeted subsets of cerebellar neurons.

To develop an assay ...

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Mon, May 20th, 2:00pm-3:00pm (CNCB Large Conference Room)
(17 hours, 30 minutes from now)

Akinori Ueno (INC talk)

Non-contact Biopotential Sensing:

Non-contact biopotential sensing offers non-invasive means
to physiological monitoring of neural, cardiac and other human
electrical activity where galvanic contact to the skin is not
warranted due to medical or environmental conditions. I will present
the principle of the sensing method and demonstrate some of its
applications in devices and systems aiming at infant cardiopulmonary
monitoring, sleep apnea screening, in-vehicle heart rate monitoring,
wearable electrocardiogram (ECG) sensing, and underwater
electromyogram (EMG) measurement. I will also discuss ...

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Mon, May 20th, 4:00pm-5:00pm (Fung Auditorium, Powell-Focht Bioengineering Hall)
(19 hours, 30 minutes from now)

George Koob (CNS talk)

Negative reinforcement in addiction: The Darkness within

Drug seeking is associated with the activation of reward neural circuitry, but I argue that drug addiction also involves another major source of reinforcement, specifically negative reinforcement driven by the ‘dark side’ (i.e., a decrease in the function of normal reward-related neurocircuitry and persistent recruitment of the brain stress system circuitry). This combination forms the antireward system or ‘darkness within.’ Understanding the neuroplasticity of the neurocircuitry that comprises the negative reinforcement associated ...

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Tue, May 21st, 12:00pm-1:00pm (Crick Conference Room)
(1 day, 15 hours from now)

Henry Abarbanel (INC talk)

NERVOUS SYSTEMS FROM THE BOTTOM UP

Methods for transferring information from experiments to
models have been given an exact statistical physics setting. Using
this framework we analyzed data from experiments on individual
neurons. We will discuss ideas for extending this to experiments on
networks, now being designed for execution in the Margoliash laboratory at the University of Chicago.

Henry Abarbanel
Department of Physics
UCSD and Scripps Institution of Oceanography

Institute for Neural Computation Chalk Talk Series
http://inc.ucsd.edu/contactus.html
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Thu, May 23rd, 12:30pm-1:30pm (San Diego Supercomputer Center, East Annex South Wing, Level B1, EB-129)
(3 days, 16 hours from now)

Mikael Heimann (Psych talk)

Imitation as a social and cognitive 'measure': what I have learned from infants and children with autism - so far

Imitation is needed for learning about our world and is, aside from language, probably the most important tool for taking in the culture surrounding us. Imitation also creates a sense of connectedness in a social interaction and for children with autism, an imitation based intervention makes the social situation more salient. Based on the research I have been involved ...

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Thu, May 23rd, 4:00pm-5:00pm (The Crick Conference Room Mandler Hall, Room 3545)
(3 days, 19 hours from now)