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Neglect is typically experienced after suffering from a stroke. Despite various rehabilitative interventions used in treatment for neglect, there is no consensus about the most effective intervention or treatment. Virtual Reality (VR) combined with music therapy practices may offer a promising intervention for use during neglect rehabilitation. This review summarises evidence of existing interventions and assessments used for post-stroke and neglect rehabilitation on patients in VR and music therapy research. Non-systematic searches of the PubMed and PsycINFO databases were conducted to retrieve relevant articles. Overall, literature found in small studies suggests promising findings for symptom reduction during neglect rehabilitation through the use of VR and Musical Neglect Training interventions. This was coupled with a demonstration of feasibility and safety. Novel evidence is found in stimulation of specific neurological regions in neglect patients during exposure to a VR intervention. However, larger trials with consistent assessments are needed to arrive at generalisations. Based on the evidence reviewed, the article explores intersections of VR and music therapy interventions with the purpose of neglect rehabilitation.

Advances in machine learning (ML) technologies have greatly improved Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems. As a result, AI systems have become ubiquitous, with their application prevalent in virtually all sectors. However, AI systems have prompted ethical concerns, especially as their usage crosses boundaries in sensitive areas such as healthcare, transportation, and security. As a result, users are calling for better AI governance practices in ethical AI systems. Therefore, AI development methods are encouraged to foster these practices. This research analyzes the ECCOLA method for developing ethical and trustworthy AI systems to determine if it enables AI governance in development processes through ethical practices. The results demonstrate that while ECCOLA fully facilitates AI governance in corporate governance practices in all its processes, some of its practices do not fully foster data governance and information governance practices. This indicates that the method can be further improved., Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure, 2 tables, IEEE 29th International Requirements Engineering Conference Workshops (REW)

This article discusses the prerequisites for the machine translation of sign languages. The topic is complex, including questions relating to technology, interaction design, linguistics and culture. At the moment, despite the affordances provided by the technology, automated translation between signed and spoken languages – or between sign languages – is not possible. The very need of such translation and its associated technology can also be questioned. Yet, we believe that contributing to the improvement of sign language detection, processing and even sign language translation to spoken languages in the future is a matter that should not be abandoned. However, we argue that this work should focus on all necessary aspects of sign languages and sign language user communities. Thus, a more diverse and critical perspective towards these issues is needed in order to avoid generalisations and bias that is often manifested within dominant research paradigms particularly in the fields of spoken language research and speech community. publishedVersion

Technology designers and developers can be understood as social experience (SE) mediators. In user experience (UX), notions of SE have served to identify and define the factors contributing to human-technology interaction (HTI). Three dominant perspectives have been promoted in UX discourse: 1) SE of brand, brand value and consumer culture; 2) technology design as mediator of human-to-human interactions; and 3) meaning generation through action and interaction between actors. Symbolic interactionalism understands meaning as occurring through dialogue, in the construction of the social self, promoting self-reflection as a social construction. This theorisation of social experience is valuable in the context of HTI as it allows for greater insight into the immaterial dimensions of technology integration in human societies. The purpose of this paper is to break down the factors contributing to social emotional experience of technology through illustrating how it operates according to fashion – temporality and spatiality in culture. This is a theoretical paper that presents a review of social experience, social emotional and collective emotion based literature in light of fashion and design. The result is a presentation of a proposed fashion framework of social emotions in technology interaction design (FASHEM). Based on symbolic interactionism, FASHEM helps break down emotional technology experience into a matrix of self, other, design, and semiotic interactions. peerReviewed

The aim of this study is to further understanding of children’s conceptions of mental well-being and their ideas for its digital promotion. The study is based on the need to provide children an opportunity to actively participate and share their understanding of mental well-being promotion with others in light of their understanding of what online environments and their design can afford for this promotion. The study was implemented as three subsequent workshops in primary school classrooms comprising four teachers and 79 children aged 9-11 years old. In the first two workshops, children reflected on mental well-being, digital environments they utilise and their possible connections to mental well-being. In the final workshop, children designed interaction designs and concepts for digital well-being promotion. Children broadly structured mental well-being through five main categories: individual factors, social interaction, healthy living, hobbies and creativity, and the absence of mental health problems. Children considered the effects of digital environments as factors that either promote or reduce mental well-being. The use of digital environments and various individual factors were experienced as contributing most to mental well-being. Whereas, children attributed the content of digital environments mainly as diminishing mental well-being. The children’s designs for digital environments raised similar issues to their reflections on the effects of the digital environments. These could be contrasted with design dimensions proposed by earlier research. In addition, the design sessions led children to highlight new factors, reinforcing the importance of children’s participatory interaction design. Children wanted to design environments that were safe in content and function and that did not include cyber-bullying. This study presents a combination of hands-on design research techniques through co-design and conceptual probing with children. It contributes an understanding of how children conceptualise and unite understandings of mental well-being to interaction design. peerReviewed

Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems are increasing in significance within software services. Unfortunately, these systems are not flawless. Their faults, failures and other systemic issues have emphasized the urgency for consideration of ethical standards and practices in AI engineering. Despite the growing number of studies in AI ethics, comparatively little attention has been placed on how ethical issues can be mitigated in software engineering (SE) practice. Currently understanding is lacking regarding the provision of useful tools that can help companies transform high-level ethical guidelines for AI ethics into the actual workflow of developers. In this paper, we explore the idea of using user stories to transform abstract ethical requirements into tangible outcomes in Agile software development. We tested this idea by studying master’s level student projects (15 teams) developing web applications for a real industrial client over the course of five iterations. These projects resulted in 250+ user stories that were analyzed for the purposes of this paper. The teams were divided into two groups: half of the teams worked using the ECCOLA method for AI ethics in SE, while the other half, a control group, was used to compare the effectiveness of ECCOLA. Both teams were tasked with writing user stories to formulate customer needs into system requirements. Based on the data, we discuss the effectiveness of ECCOLA, and Primary Empirical Contributions (PECs) from formulating ethical user stories in Agile development.

Humans behave towards and experience technological design in conflicting and contradictory ways. On the one hand, the very mention of the word ‘future’ conjures expectations of the radically new and unexpected. On the other hand, previous research has shown that people have a threshold for the level of change and the unexpected that they can cope with. Their expectations are dominated by mental images of familiar associations with what has been previously associated with the future. As a rule, humans cope with incremental changes, yet have difficulty accepting the entirely unfamiliar. This makes it harder to imagine a future of radical technology design and interactions, particularly when attempting to predict possible emotional outcomes. This chapter describes the emotional balance between the familiar and the unfamiliar in design creations, which has also been observed in theories such as the Most Advanced Yet Acceptable (MAYA) theory. The MAYA theory emphasises the complexity and irony of incremental versus radical changes in renewing design language and technological systems for the future. By carefully observing classical cases of previous game-changing technological innovations, including their hype and acceptance curves, a model is proposed that illustrates how a radical design future may be achieved by tapping into emotional, ideological and interactive logic, rather than formalistic (material-based) design choices. This chapter highlights the role that culture and cultural discourse play in cognition and emotions when considering future technology design in terms of ‘thinking outside the box’.

Recent decades have revealed that the digital educational technology that is expected to revolutionise schooling for generations to come, is fraught with challenges. One major challenge is that educational systems vastly vary between cultures and countries. The differences start from the conceptualisation of education and school. It is, therefore, quite inaccurate to handle education as a universal concept. In this article the authors evade generalisation by discussing the use of mobile technology in the schools of one single, relatively homogenous nation: Finland. The backbone of their analysis is the core national curriculum of basic education. The appropriateness of mobile technology in the school context is reflected upon through the objectives and ethos of basic education. The conclusions are discussed in terms of their contribution to the understanding of the use culture of mobile technology.

Understanding emotions is becoming ever more valuable in design, both in terms of what people prefer as well as in relation to how they behave in relation to it. Approaches to conceptualising emotions in technology design, how emotions can be operationalised and how they can be measured are paramount to ascertaining the core principles of design.Emotions in Technology Design: From Experience to Ethics provides a multi-dimensional approach to studying, designing and comprehending emotions in design. It presents emotions as understood through basic human-technology research, applied design practice, culture and aesthetics, ethical approaches to emotional design, and ethics as a cultural framework for emotions in design experience. Core elements running through the book are: cognitive science – cognitive-affective theories of emotions (i.e., Appraisal); culture – the ways in which our minds are trained to recognise, respond to and influence design; and ethics – a deep cultural framework of interpretations of good versus evil. This ethical understanding brings culture and cognition together to form genuine emotional experience.This book is essential reading for designers, technology developers, HCI and cognitive science scholars, educators and students (at both undergraduate and graduate levels) in terms of emotional design methods and tools, systematic measurement of emotion in design experience, cultural theory underpinning how emotions operate in the production and interaction of design, and how ethics influence basic (primal) and higher level emotional reactions. The broader scope equips design practitioners, developers and scholars with that ‘something more’ in terms of understanding how emotional experience of technology can be positioned in relation to cultural discourse and ethics.

The relationship between emotions and ethics has been debated for centuries. The act of understanding emotions through the framework of ethics involves accepting that emotions are to some extent culturally dependent. By linking emotions in design to larger ethical discussions, it may be accepted that ethics and design are both technological constructions designed to shape a collective worldview. While both are cultural constructions, they are in constant dialogue with one another through social discourse and individualistic cognitive–affective appraisal processes. This chapter presents an account of technoethics that challenges ideas of ethical values embedded within technology, drawing attention to the role of human intentionality as a definitive ethical factor in human–technology relationships. The chapter problematises simplistic views of ethics and emotional technology experience to reveal the ambiguous and dynamic nature of cognitive–emotional–cultural interdependencies in technology experience. peerReviewed

Emotions are a hot topic in design, human–computer interaction and any area of business these days. Their significance in areas in which people make choices, decisions and engage in action has been undeniable for at least the last 40 years of psychology and consumer scholarship. What once was an extremely contested, fuzzy and (almost) easily scientifically avoidable area, is now at the centre of everyone’s interest. In an era of cognitive computing, artificial intelligence (so-called learning and thinking machines), and optimization, all attention is placed on what makes us human, and the ways in which human thought actually operates. This emotional logic, intentionality and consciousness itself, drive not simply the ways in which individuals process (cognitise) information, but also ways in which society and the built world are structured. Emotions play as much a role in shaping technology design, as they do in the way we experience it. This introduction presents a book that takes many angles towards concretely understanding what it is in design that makes people emotionally experience it in the ways that they do. It introduces the main themes and concepts of the book that include ethics, culture, measurement and design methods. It additionally demonstrates a broader understanding of technology in chapters that investigate graffiti, urban and art experience, filmic experience, architecture and cultural movements. It is hoped that combining this broader cultural-emotional insight into one package will enable readers to connect their design practice and research to the broader system of emotions, culture, ethics, lived experience and technology.

Recent decades have revealed that the digital educational technology that is expected to revolutionise schooling for generations to come, is fraught with challenges. One major challenge is that educational systems vastly vary between cultures and countries. The differences start from the conceptualisation of education and school. It is, therefore, quite inaccurate to handle education as a universal concept. In this article the authors evade generalisation by discussing the use of mobile technology in the schools of one single, relatively homogenous nation: Finland. The backbone of their analysis is the core national curriculum of basic education. The appropriateness of mobile technology in the school context is reflected upon through the objectives and ethos of basic education. The conclusions are discussed in terms of their contribution to the understanding of the use culture of mobile technology.

Information technology has perpetuated the role of symbolism in everyday life practice, through its reliance on sign systems for its creation and operation. Increasingly attention has been placed on applying semiotic techniques to analyze user interface design and usability. Surprisingly, although the move towards symbolic interaction has been one of the most striking components of the digital shift, it has proven difficult to build bridges between semiotics and HTI-design thinking. In this article we argue that the problems in linking semiotic analysis of human technology interaction with modern HTI-design paradigms such as usability or user experience arise from a theoretical gap between the paradigms of semiotics, human cognition and thinking. Consequently, it is necessary to reformulate principal insights of semiotics such as the triangle of reference, by replacing the intuitive concept of thought, with modern philosophical and psychological concepts of human thinking. This allows the unification of usability research based on cognitive research with the analysis of signs in modern semiotics. It is possible to unify the conceptual analysis of signification and semiosis with conceptual and empirical work typical to modern human technology interaction research and design, thus making semiotics an essential tool within the swiftly developing paradigms of interaction design.

While technological development is becoming more integrated into our surrounding environments, it is also moving closer towards the human body. In fact, numerous examples can be seen in which information technology (IT) is being designed not just for use on the body, but also inside it. Technologies dominating this domain can be described as ‘cognitive enhancement technologies’ (CETs). These technologies are intended to enhance people's cognitive capabilities, and can be viewed in the forms of implants, lens, drugs, and then moving outward, smart clothing, watches and physical environments to name some. The present study focused on measuring peoples’ (N=104) emotions towards and willingness to use various types of CETs. The study expands on current scholarship on technology and the extension of cognition, yet this actively empirically explores people's emotions towards certain types of CETs and their relationship to the body. Results of the study revealed correlations between attitudes, emotions and whether or not the CETs were to be used internal or external to the body, and surprisingly, there was a significant difference in gender as reflected in attitudes towards these application types. peerReviewed

Love has been described as unpredictable, immeasurable and non-purchasable and as such, poses challenges for anyone in a relationship to both stay in love, and to not fall in love with someone else. Scientists are still discovering whether or not love follows any specific recipe. Outlooks, personality, sense of humor and talent may not perfectly guarantee an individual falls in love with another, and more importantly is able to sustain that relationship. This article portrays a futuristic scenario in which truly intelligent and emotional robots already exist. Here, the bi-directional love discussed in Lovotics is not simulated through engineering, but rather is genuine from the perspectives of both machine and human. This is a theoretical piece that draws on psychological theories of love, sex, attraction, associated emotions and behavior. The method involves reviewing previous literature on human-robot bi-directional love, and combines it with current discussions and theories of the realistic future potential of love relationships between humans and robots with full artificial intelligence and emotional capabilities. The result of the investigation is a multifaceted projection of the complexity humans will experience in love relationships with robots. Due to the incalculable nature of love, affection and sexual attraction, the development of robots with genuine capacity for emotions may not have the best outcome for a future of love and sex with robots. peerReviewed