technology mediated space perception

Project ID: 2228cd1287 (You will need this ID for your application)

Research Theme: Information and Communication Technologies

Lead Supervisor: Elia Gatti

Project Summary:

The phone is the computational platform of the past decade. Phones are ubiquitous, portable, and widely used. From them, users can access a plethora of information about their world, cultivate their interests, make and receive calls or simply entertain themselves. Despite its multiple transformations, the phones’ form-factor has been stable throughout the years. Phones are relatively small, hand-held objects. When we use our phones (with the notable exception of calling) we tend to look downwards and in our lap. Our attentional focus is constrained to a restricted space, and it does not help that many applications on mobile platforms are purposely designed to captivate our attention. Based on literature evidence, we hypothesise that this “hyper-focusing” of attention on a restricted, localized area multiple times a day can change the way humans are aware of their surroundings. Crucially, this research will investigate how current mobile platforms can mould human perception and understanding of the space they act and interact with throughout their lives. Parallelly, this research will look into novel technologies to understand how new computational platforms can be used to guide users’ attention from a localized focus to a more spread-out layout, maximising the device’s capabilities in communicating information while preserving users’ contextual awareness. One of the best candidates for this investigation is represented by Augmented Reality (AR) technology. AR allows a multimodal display of information that can leverage the whole space around the user, opening many possibilities to study the technology-mediated perception of space. By taking part to this project, a PhD student will be offered a multidisciplinary supervision to develop important practical and theoretical skills in the field of Human Computer Interaction. Such skills will include experiment design, perception science, and cognitive sciences on one side, and AR and VR development on the other