Colab

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Colab is involved in research and development in areas of:
  • Serious games, augmented, pervasive, immersive, interactive and tangible technologies
  • Transmedia – multiple narrative strategies, cross platforms, mobile media
  • Making – materials, physical computing, post-digital craft, hacktivism and object-oriented research
  • Innovation in education
  • Social and Creative Entrepreneurship & Innovation
  • Neuroscience and Creativity (in association with KEDRI)
  • Big data, visualisation, software studies
  • Urban Futures
  • Sound, Light, Space
  • Critical interfaces, systems, networks
  • Methodologies for trans-disciplinary research and collaboration

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Recent Submissions

Now showing 1 - 5 of 69
  • Item
    A Computational Interrogation of “Big-C” and “Little-c” Creativity
    (Informa UK Limited, ) Sosa, R; Dijck, MV
    The distinction between “Big-C” and “little-c” creativity implies that the generative process of celebrated creators is of a special type or degree. Arguments for and against such a hierarchy of creativity are found in the literature, primarily built on rhetorical argumentation. The aim of this work is to examine the rationale behind Big-C and little-c creativity using explicit and more systematic means of inquiry. We employ computational agent-based simulations to study these constructs, their premises, and their logical implications. The results of this work indicate that hierarchies such as the Big-C and little-c of creativity fail to provide a consistent way to explain and distinguish the generative processes of individual creators. In these computational models of creative social systems, only about half of disruptive changes can be explained by the characteristics of individual agents. This shows how labels like Big-C that are dependent on evaluation outcomes can easily be misattributed by observers to individual creators. This work demonstrates how the use of computational simulations can be useful to examine fundamental ideas about creativity. It shows that the Big-C/little-c distinction is a false dichotomy that should be approached critically by scholars to avoid conflating generative and evaluative dimensions of creativity.
  • Item
    Exploring the “Dark Matter” of Social Interaction: Systematic Review of a Decade of Research in Spontaneous Interpersonal Coordination
    (Frontiers Media, 2021-10-11) Ayache, J; Connor, A; Marks, S; Kuss, D; Rhodes, D; Sumich, A; Heym, N
    Interpersonal coordination is a research topic that has attracted considerable attention this last decade both due to a theoretical shift from intra-individual to inter-individual processes and due to the development of new methods for recording and analyzing movements in ecological settings. Encompassing spatiotemporal behavioral matching, interpersonal coordination is considered as “social glue” due to its capacity to foster social bonding. However, the mechanisms underlying this effect are still unclear and recent findings suggest a complex picture. Goal-oriented joint action and spontaneous coordination are often conflated, making it difficult to disentangle the role of joint commitment from unconscious mutual attunement. Consequently, the goals of the present article are twofold: (1) to illustrate the rapid expansion of interpersonal coordination as a research topic and (2) to conduct a systematic review of spontaneous interpersonal coordination, summarizing its latest developments and current challenges this last decade. By applying Rapid Automatic Keyword Extraction and Latent Dirichlet Allocation algorithms, keywords were extracted from PubMed and Scopus databases revealing the large diversity of research topics associated with spontaneous interpersonal coordination. Using the same databases and the keywords “behavioral matching,” “interactional synchrony,” and “interpersonal coordination,” 1,213 articles were identified, extracted, and screened following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses protocol. A total of 19 articles were selected using the following inclusion criteria: (1) dynamic and spontaneous interactions between two unacquainted individuals (2) kinematic analyses, and (3) non-clinical and non-expert adult populations. The results of this systematic review stress the proliferation of various definitions and experimental paradigms that study perceptual and/or social influences on the emergence of spontaneous interpersonal coordination. As methods and indices used to quantify interpersonal coordination differ from one study to another, it becomes difficult to establish a coherent picture. This review highlights the need to reconsider interpersonal coordination not as the pinnacle of social interactions but as a complex dynamical process that requires cautious interpretation. An interdisciplinary approach is necessary for building bridges across scattered research fields through opening a dialogue between different theoretical frameworks and consequently provides a more ecological and holistic understanding of human social cognition.
  • Item
    An Interactive Multi-agent System for Game Design
    (Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2021) Kruse, J; Connor, AM; Marks, S
    This paper presents a novel approach to procedural generation of game maps for multi-player, competitive video games. A multi-agent evolutionary system is employed to place streets, buildings and other items, resulting in a playable video game map. The system utilises computational agents that act in conjunction with the human designer to produce maps that exhibit desirable characteristics. This paper compares the impact that the additional agents have in terms of the quality of candidate solutions. The results indicate that the use of the agents produces higher quality solutions in comparison to a traditional interactive genetic algorithm.
  • Item
    Activity Scenario Modelling: An Emerging Method for Examining Human-artefact Interaction
    (Design Research Society (DRS), 2020) Montiel, M; Sosa Medina, R; Hocking, D
    Everyday activities are jointly shaped by people and artefacts. This points to the need for tools that designers can use to examine the joint agency of people and artefacts. This paper reports progress in developing Activity Scenario Modelling (ASM), a design approach that can be used for such purpose. ASM combines techniques of video analysis, discourse analysis and social network analysis. The paper provides an overview of the theoretical foundations of ASM and illustrates it by modelling an activity scenario from an online tutorial on tea-making. The paper also describes a research agenda to apply ASM in design for sustainability efforts.
  • Item
    Nominal Groups? Ok Boomer! A Future-oriented Agenda for Brainstorming Studies
    (Digital Research Society (DRS), 2020) Sosa Medina, R
    This paper critically examines brainstorming going back to the original sources to assess its origins and the origins of its systematic study. It identifies the “nominal groups” fallacy that is often used to discredit this ideation method and reviews evidence that supports the key principles behind group brainstorming. Lessons for a future design-led agenda of universal creative literacy are discussed. Brainstorming appeared eighty years ago, and it is abundantly clear that it works when properly conducted. The substantial challenges that we face in the next eighty years require the power of collective creativity. Properly conducted creative literacy is a strategic priority for the twenty-first century.
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