Abstract. Attention, which intervenes at many different levels such as the perception of the environment and the allocation of cognitive resources, appears to represent one of the key factors of learning and working performance. This poster presents AtGentive, a project which aims at investigating the use of agent-based ICT systems for supporting the management of the attention of young or adult learners in the context of learning and collaborative environments. 1

The tension between privacy and awareness has been a persistent difficulty in distributed environments that support opportunistic and informal interaction. For example, many awareness systems that display ‘always-on ’ video links or PC screen contents have been perceived as too invasive, even though functional real-world analogues, like open-plan offices, may provide even less privacy than their online counterparts. In this paper we explore the notion of privacy in open-plan real-world environments, in order to learn more about how it might be supported in distributed systems. From interviews and observations in four open-plan offices, we found that attention plays an important role in the management of both confidentiality and solitude. The public nature of paying attention allows people to build understandings of what objects in a space are legitimate targets for attention and allows people to advertise their interest in interaction. Our results add to what is known about how privacy works in real-world spaces, and suggest valuable design ideas that can help improve support for natural privacy control and interaction in distributed awareness systems.

Abstract not found

Research in attention aware systems, i.e. systems that support users in their attentional choices, promises to address many of the problems related to information overload, cyber collaboration, and mobility, by providing features helping users in coping with attentional limitations. However, the design of attention aware systems necessitates a deep understanding of human attentional processes, of the knowledge a system needs to support those processes, and of the manner in which such knowledge may be acquired. Because the conceptualization of such systems requires understanding users ' cognitive states in terms of their past interactions with the environment, the interactivist framework may provide a strong basis for analyzing attention aware systems. This paper briefly introduces the services that attention aware systems may provide, suggests how attention may be modeled within the interactivist framework, and proposes nine questions that may be answered within such framework to gain the knowledge necessary for the creation of attention aware systems.

scaffolding

People attention represents one of the most precious intangible asset of modern organizations. In this paper we propose a model that describes how to better support attentional processes using virtual environments. The model relies on four different levels of attention support: (1) a perception level, aiming at optimising the observation and the selection of information; (2) a deliberative level, aiming at supporting people's deliberate choices of attention allocation and decision making; (3) an operational level, aiming at making the execution of tasks more effective in terms of allocation of cognitive resources; and (4) a meta-cognition level, aiming at helping users in reflecting about their attentional practices and possibly learning more effective ones. 1

Major theme: Robotic and computational models of interaction and cognition As networked technologies provide users with increasing access to information and people anywhere, anytime, the need for systems that are capable of supporting users in their choices of cognitive resources allocation has been increasingly recognized (McCrickard, Czerwinski, & Bartram, 2003; Roda & Thomas, 2006b; Vertegaal, 2003). The design of systems capable of adapting to the needs of individual users, that are operating in specific context, and under certain constraints is attracting significant interest both in industry and academy. In particular, research work in attention aware systems, i.e. systems that support users in their attentional choices (Roda & Thomas, 2006a), promises to address many of the problems related to information overload, cyber collaboration, and mobility, by providing features helping users in coping with attentional limitations. Such features may include intelligent notification and management of interruptions, support to task resumption and multitasking, and awareness mechanisms for collaborative attention allocation. In general attention aware systems may require a complete rethinking of the metaphors underlying interfaces conceptualization (Roda, Stojanov, & Clauzel, 2006) and of the way we design systems as a whole (see for example the ubiquitous computing (Weiser & Brown,

Noname manuscript No. (will be inserted by the editor) Context-dependent awareness support in open collaboration environments

Abstract — The concepts of sensor recycling and re-use offer a new developmental methodology for both centralised and network-based interactive multimedia systems and multimedia art applications. This work formalises the proposed methodology, researches common issues that appear when reuse or recycling of sensing devices is introduced and discusses its application within physical interactive systems. It becomes apparent that the high system development costs typically introduced in the visual arts domain can clearly be reduced via the use of alternative recycled and reused sensing devices. A number of interactive new-media art systems case studies are presented to demonstrate its flexibility, economy and ecological advantages. This work aims to render sensor re-use a design choice that offers an alternative and inexpensive approach from the theoretical, engineering and artistic perspectives in various sensor-driven interactive multimedia systems.