Designing Sound Spaces

Much of the work over the past several years undertaken by this chair has been concentrated towards visual and haptic experiences, but not so much towards sound experiences. Since the EMIR laboratory (see previous blog) is being equipped with a modern spatialized sound system (albeit not the most sophisticated version of such a system), and since some of the clientele of the lab have either visual or auditory challenges, it seemed and seems appropriate to investigate more actively the opportunities for designing useful and interesting sound spaces.

This work was at first hampered by the fact that we had no reliable tools for understanding auditory spaces. Over the past several years we have used several theoretical concepts to structure visual and haptic spaces (including Voronoi diagrams, a mathematical concept called a "panorama", image schemata, etc.), but these could not be readily applied to understanding how sound inhabits spaces. Sound, unlike light, moves around corners and through many quite substantial barriers. However, sound is usually limited to so-called "point sources" and we do not work with "sound images" the same way we work with visual images - that is, sounds organized spatially in matrices.

This past year I (G. Edwards) have been called upon to teach undergraduates in the geomatics program some basic physics of wave propagation and satellite orbits. While thinking over the challenges of developing a tool for understanding sound spaces, an idea emerged. This idea, after some development work, was shown to successfully resolve the problem of modeling the space for its sounds.

Our model uses a variation of the principle called "Huygen's Principle". Huygen's principle states that when propagating waves encounter an aperture, their movement through the aperture can be simulated by supposing that at each point within the aperture a new (circular) wave is generated with the same phase and intensity as the incident wave. This principle allows one to model the movement of sound waves around corners (actually light also moves around corners using a similar mechanism, but the size of the deviation is small in the case of light).

To develop a model that can be used to simplify how we understand sound spaces, we look for a "partitioning schema", that is, a way to partition space (a room, a theatre, a park, etc.) into spaces that are auditorially "homogeneous" (invariant), in the sense that the sound experience within a given region of the tiled space is similar throughout that region, but different from one region to the next. This idea is commensurate with our earlier visual and haptic models of space.

Figure 1 : Spatial partition for sounds previous to their encounter with absorbing barriers

In the model, sound experiences are generated by point sources (A,B,C and D) that propagate into circular regions. Sound sources with low overall gain generate small circles (C and D) - sources with large gain generate large circles (A and B). Barriers that the sounds may cross are shown as lines 1 and 2. A path through the space is then introduced (dashed line).

This kind of model is quite different from the results of a numerical simulation of sound propagation within a space, as the latter will produce a map of continuously changing values for the sound field. Numerical simulations can be very useful, but that take large chunks of processor time and/or high end computers to "do the job", and usually they also have to make a variety of simplifying assumptions to converge on a result within a reasonable time. The use of qualitative models, such as ours, which segment space into regions, can provide a useful, even powerful alternative to numerical simulation.

Our qualitative model of sound space, however, differs from our earlier models in that we are required to dynamically update the partitioning each time the sound passes across a barrier that dampens the signal. Hence, as long as the observer is located on the path previous to the location labeled "alpha", the sound sources as shown in the above diagram hold true. Once the observer passes alpha, however, the sound sources "behind" the barrier made by lines 1 and 2 and their extensions must be modified (see Figure below).

Figure 2 : Spatial partition for sounds posterior to their encounter with absorbing barriers 1 and 2

At this point in time, the sound B must be "re-sourced" at the location B2, generating a new, much smaller circle. Furthermore, as the observer moves beyond the zone of influence B2, along a path parallel with barrier #1, and within the initial zone of influence of B, the sound source B must be "re-sourced" to a point (B3) defined by the orthogonal to the barrier #1 that passes through the location of the observer. Usually, the size of the circle for B3 will be much smaller due to the absorptive properties of the barrier #1.

Thus by representing the movement of the observer along a path as a series of partitions that change every time the observer crosses a barrier, we can construct a model that predicts the set of sound experiences an arbitrary observer will receive.

Using this model, we developed software that can compute in real time the relative intensity and the direction from which each sound is heard (that is, the sounds are "re-sourced" at a new location) for one or more arbitrary observers. Using this software, we are able to design a virtual sound space and hence generate a realistic sound experience for a fictional space.

We did exactly this as part of a conference presentation of the new theory at a recent meeting in the small town of Las Navas del Marques, in Spain. The conference was organized around the theme "Cognitive and Linguistic Aspects of Geographic Space", actually, a review of 20 years of research in this area since an earlier meeting of the same group at the same location in 1990. For this event, in collaboration with Ms. Marie Louise Bourbeau (longtime collaborator for the Chair) and also Mr. René Dupéré, the talented composer who reinvented circus music for the Cirque du Soleil in the 1980s, we developed and implemented a transposition of the Ulysses Voyages into a fictional and virtual sound space that was updated in real time using our software.

The result is a 40 minute presentation including a 20-minute "show", an interactive component that demonstrates the real time nature of the experience and an explanation of the scientific theory leading to this work.

A Toolkit for the EMIR Laboratory

The EMIR Laboratory (Exploration of Media Immersion for Rehabilitation) is now well underway to becoming a reality. We have a space, albeit still temporary as we shall eventually be moving to a completely refurbished space a few doors down the corridor, several computers and are in the process of acquiring our first major piece, a floor projection system. Combined with our efforts in collaboration with Bloorview Kids Rehab, we will be working with the full range of human sensory perception - visual and audio of course, but also tactile, movement, physiological (heart rate, skin conductance, breathing, etc.), olfactive and even taste as well as using a brain-computer interface. The goal is to generate immersive experiences - creative, game-like, artistic, etc. - that challenge rehab patients, clinicians and/or researchers to view themselves in new ways.

However, few people have any understanding of what can be achieved or how to go about doing this. In addition, even our team, which has been exploring multisensory immersive environments for some time, needs good intermediate tools to support our ongoing research, and we are not always aware of what is possible either. With a view to both helping ourselves, but also encouraging collaboration and participation in the new laboratory, we have embarked upon the process of developing a "toolkit" for delivering multisensory immersive experiences with a minimum of technical expertise.

Called an Affordance Toolkit (because each tool affords different sets of activities - we are drawing on Gibson's affordance theory for this), the framework consists of matching a set of controller interfaces to a set of viewer modules as a function of particular tasks. Controllers include cameras that are able to read and interpret gestures, tactile screens and pressure carpets able to register different forms of body contact, microphones for recording and interpreting sounds, and sensors for recording physiological or neurological signals. Viewers include 1-, 2- or 4-wall projection, ceiling and floor projection, surround spatialized sound, motor-driven devices - both large and small, scent diffusers, and so on.

Tools under development that bridge these two sets of functionalities include the following :

1) Mirror Space - using webcams and full wall prujections where the real-time video images are horizontally flipped to generate a pseudo-mirror image (occupying 1, 2 or all for walls), combined with the addition of digital enhancements, virtual objects and annotations added to the projected image, we are able to deliver an environment that supports a variety of tasks, including various physical games (tug of war, zone avoidance, tag, etc.), cognitive games or tasks (draw in the outlines of objects, paint by numbers, etc.) or controlled exercise and/or balance task (raise your feet until they hit a gong, move along a virtual line, etc.);

2) Master at Work - using data gloves or alternate controllers for those unable to use their hands, use gestures and manipulation to create and modify sounds, visual objects, odors, etc. to make a "multisensory composition" akin to a musical composition. This might be done in a darkened room and avoid the use of vision;

3) Room of Presence - Similarly to the previous tool, this will allow for the materialization of virtual characters that then interact with the user. The user will be able to draw on a bank of virtual characters with a range of pre-deteermined bheaviors, or be able to create very simple "characters" with new behaviors;

4) Multisensory Logbook - In order to record, annotate, archive and playback the expriences created in the EMIR laboratory, we are working on the development of a multisensory logbook system involving video cameras and microphones as well as a computerized logbook of programmed functions;

5) Social Atlas - Using GPS for outdoor environments and RFID tracers combined with other location technologies for interiors, we will provide the ability to both track volonteers or friends and to represent these movements within the EMIR laboratory;

6) Experiensorium - Using geographical database structures, we shall be able to provide the possibility of navigating large and complex virtual environments filled with a multitude of sensory experiences. This will be particularly effective in the presence of non-realistic visuals or no visuals at all. For example, walking through a sketched farmyard, but hearing and smelling the animals, feeling thir presence through air currents and the occasional sense of touch. Within the experiensorium, it will be possible to play out games or narrative experiences.

In addition to these macro-tools, we will also be developing and using a range of microtools such as the ability to call up a pop-up menu on the wall-screens using gestures, to partition the visual, audio or tactile spaces, to inject text into these different spaces (e.g. written, audio or braille), and so on.

Each of the proposed tools represents significant research and development challenges, but working on them is both satisfying and engaging. We look forward to reporting on progress on the development of the toolkit over the coming months.

Transformative Installations - Global perspective

Since the early development work on the Bloorview initiative (called at the time the "Hidden Magician" project), our efforts to develop a whole range of "transformative" or "resonant" installations has moved forward by leaps and bounds into several major initiatives. We are currently active in the development of a major "new generation environment" at Bloorview Kids Rehab that we are calling the "Living Walls Initiative". Within this project, we are developing a highly interactive, one might say "reactive" wall mural that responds to the presence of children with disability in many different ways. Our goal is to change the way the children understand their relationship to their surrounding space.

Children with disability struggle within environments which are highly disabling. Indeed, we call the children "disabled" but we might more usefully call the environments within which they (and we) function disabling environments. As a result, these children often feel like they are a burden on others, that they have to struggle with the environment, that they are what's "wrong". By developing new environments that are much more responsive to a variety of forms and levels of disability, we aim to challenge this understanding, to offer these children an insight into other possible relations they might have to the spaces that surround them and with which they engage.


An early conceptualization of the Living Walls Initiative
The Living Walls initiative is the first major attempt to do this. The overall concept is to develop a large wall mural (we're thinking 8 feet high by 20 feet long) that is made up of motorized elements that will respond, via appropriately designed interfaces, to children with various forms of disability. The mural will depict a scene of relevance to the hospital - a depiction of the ravine that drops away behind the hospital and which has already been incorporated in a number of ways into the design of the hospital building. This allows the children to be attuned to the presence of natural elements in the local environment of the hospital. We are designing into the mural elements which may change color and shape and hence depict the changing seasons. However, the main focus of the mural is to allow the children to interact with the scene and to make interesting changes to it. For example, we are building in animal figures that may hide or emerge at different moments, when the mural senses a child in its proximity. By making some sort of movement, whether using a wheelchair or a gesture, children will be able to change several aspects of the mural - the intensity of water flow in the built-in waterfall, the shape and color of leaves in the trees, the overflight of planes, and so on.

The project is moving from its conceptual design phase into the development of early prototypes that will be used to test the implementation before this is fully fleshed out. At the same time, funds are being sought, both from private donors and funding agencies, in support of the project. Many of the partnerships needed for its success are already in place.

A second "next generation environment" projet also aimed at helping children with disability has been named the "Ado-Matrix Project". This project focuses particularly on the plight of adolescents with disability, who face a situation where they tend to become isolated from their peers and are in a difficult position to build new friendships. To serve their needs, we are developing a tele-gaming environment that "equalizes" player access across different levels of ability, so that a severely handicapped adolescent may play on an equal footing as an able-bodied friend. Our project seeks to create remotely controlled robots that must work together in a common, physically real environment to achieve group goals. Each adolescent will control his or her own robot, an semi-independent webcam and will have access to group chat either through text or voice or a combination of these. Different robots will have different functionality, however. For this project we are still building partnerships and doing conceptual design.

A third installation project on which we are working addresses the issue of climate change and environmental responsibility. Here our aim is to develop an installation that can be taken to the urban public and which will sensitize participants not only to the issues of the environment but do so in a manner that is informed by an awareness of the inequities in urban life and how different elements of the community may learn to find common ground in addressing these issues. The project bears the title "Voices of Transition".

The Hidden Magician - A Resonant Installation for Children with Cerebral Palsy

Early in 2008, the Canada Research Chair in Cognitive Geomatics, in partnership with Bloorview Kids Rehab (BKR), the Institut de réadaptation en déficience physique du Québec (IRDPQ) and Studio BourbeauVoiceDynamics, began to work on the creation of a "resonant installation" addressing the needs of children with cerebral palsy and other motor deficits. Under the title "The Hidden Magician", this broad collaborative effort seeks to develop a participative, immersive installation in which children with cerebral and motor deficits can establish a different relationship with their immediate environment and feel more empowered and recognized for who they are.

Like our other installation initiatives, the approach adopted is to develop an installation design through a broad consultative process that includes researchers, artists, engineers, hospital administration staff, clinicians, students, parents, and the children themselves. Installations must address the needs of the children in ways that are conducive to enhancing their physical and emotional states of being, and yet also generate powerful experiences that are aesthetically interesting and are challenging, even transforming. We use new media technologies including surround projections, gesture recognition interfaces, spatialized sound and tactile environments, combined with engineering skills to develop specialized interfaces that provide enhanced environmental responsiveness for these children.

The project embraces a variety of research areas, from issues about design methodologies, questions concerning the impacts of immersive and participative experiences on children struggling with issues of growth and identity, and efforts to develop measurement and evaluation tools that can better characterize the effectiveness of these installations.

The design concept is still in its early stages. The overall concept has been presented to a broad cross-section of individuals - researchers, artists, clinicians and administrators where it has elicited a great deal of interest and support - both at Bloorview Kids Rehab in Toronto and the IRDPQ in Quebec City. The work is now moving forward into a second stage, focussed on the development of a series of workshops with this diverse clientèle that will feed the design process. Workshops involve a combination of physical activities that aim to allow participants to "think with their bodies" rather than "staying in their heads", and brainstorming and sharing exercises that explore design values and principles. We use dancers, clowns and other specialists in movement to facilitate these exercises.

It is expected that the installation, when completed, will be able to "go on tour" to other interested locations (hospitals, clinics, schools, etc.), and that it will serve as much to sensitize a broader public to the unique qualities of these children as it will enable both the children themselves and their caregivers to rethink their perceptions of who they are.

Virtualities and Culturalities in Düsseldorf

Are you an insider or an outsider? Real or virtual? Do you have to be either one or the other? In collaboration with BourbeauVoiceDynamics and the Düsseldorf Stadtmuseum, and with the LAMIC and LANTISS, the Canada Research Chair is undertaking the preparation of a ten day exhibition to be held April 4 - April 13 in Düsseldorf. The exhibition, entitled "Virtualities and Culturalities in Düsseldorf" will present an interactive virtual event highlighting the multi-ethnicity of Düsseldorf.

Each community has its own understanding of the city, based on its commuting patterns and culturally-specific landmarks. The marketplaces, churches, synagogues and mosques, recreational centres and ethnic restaurants together with a person’s movement form a “heart map” of the city. These places also support events which highlight and celebrate each community’s cultural heritage. Traditional costumes, music and dancing can define one as being in or out of a community. When employed in the country of origin, they enhance the feeling of being « inside » an ethnic group. These same rituals, however, held in a host country, underline a ethnic group’s distinctiveness, and hence the feeling of being on the « outside », or periphery of society. The modern city offers an alternative to this polarity of exclusion, however, in the form of an eclectic fusion that draws from different traditions, celebrating the contribution of each and yet creating new spaces for identity. Within such fusions, it is possible to be both “inside” and “out”.

In this interactive exhibition, the public is encouraged to « mix and match » clothing from different ethnic traditions so as to create a fashion fusion rooted in folklore and tradition but with a distinct link to the present. Combined with “heart maps” for several different communities, and contact via avatars with virtual folk dances, the installation seeks to engage both the younger population via its innovative use of Second Life and virtual worlds, and the older population by its integration of ethnic traditions in fashion, dance and music. Vive la difference!

Breaking News – Canada funds an Unusual Laboratory for Rehabilitation

The Laboratory for the Exploration of Media Immersion for Rehabilitation (EMIR Laboratory), the first laboratory of its kind in the world, aims to develop and evaluate immersive experiences based on enhanced body awareness, with a view to supporting applications in rehab in particular. The laboratory will complement existing laboratories at Laval University that offer immersive experiences (the Laboratoire de muséologie et d’ingénierie culturelle or LAMIC, the Laboratoire des nouvelles technologies de l’image, du son et de la scène or LANTISS, and the Laboratoire de réalité géospatiale augmenté en réseau et déplacements or REGARD and the virtual reality cave at the Centre interdisciplinaire de recherche en réadaptation et intégration sociale or CIRRIS), but the EMIR Laboratory is destined to be integrated within a clinical hospital environment (the Institut de réadaptation en déficience physique de Québec or IRDPQ) during its third year of development.

The EMIR laboratory will consist of a variety of equipment, of a total value of about 300000$, including specialized devices to record and deliver high quality and spatialized sound, a 360 degree visual surround (including an interactive floor and video cameras), tactile interfaces for capturing touch and gesture, a brain-computer interface so that the environment can be controlled to some extent by thought patterns (of special interest for quadraplegics), and the ability to track movements outside the lab and to represent these within the laboratory environment. The immersive experiences that will be designed include, therefore, a multisensory combination of artistic, pedagogique and scientific elements structured in space, which will serve to support the development of experiences that challenge and transform the embodied identity of participants undergoing rehabilitation.

Partners in the project include the IRDPQ, LANTISS, LAMIC and CIRRIS, and MercanStream Technologies Inc.

Perception and Spatial Representation - Deliverables from the First Mandate of the Chair

While the second seven year mandate of the Canada Research Chair on Cognitive Geomatics is focussed on the relationships between identity, body and space, the first mandate was concerned with understanding our mental representations of space, as derived from perception and mental imagery, and with the development of tools and software that put this knowledge to use. Application areas for this work included rehabilitation, the performing arts, navigation, landscape design, and database design.

Nested perceptions of the world

A variety of researchers have studied how our perceptions of the world are organized as a function of scale. Several schemas that describe scaled perceptions exist. One of the most interesting is that put forward by Dan Montello in 1993 (Scale and multiple psychologies of space). Montello's is interesting in part because it synthesizes the work of several researchers, but also because it critically examines the different approaches. Within Montello's framework, roughly four spaces exist at different scales :
(a) Figural space
(b) Vista space
(c) Environmental space
(d) Geographic space
Montello describes Figural space as being the space of drawings and maps, representations of the world. Vista space is conceived of as the region that can be viewed from a single location. Environmental space is defined as the region accessible via displacement or navigation. Geographic space is the space that is too large to be visited. A fifth space,
(e) Cosmic space,
covers spaces that are not accessible on the Earth.

Other categorisations of spaces also exist, some of them very useful. Hence several researchers focus on what are called "table top spaces" to describe the spaces in which objects can be picked up and manipulated (for example, Andrew Frank). In Montello's scheme, Table top space may be viewed as intermediate between Figural and Vista space. Another approach distinguishes between "within body" space, "body space" and "near body space" (Three spaces of Spatial Cognition by B. Tversky et al.). These are also spaces that are smaller than Vista space. Tversky also points out the cognitive importance of barriers within a space.


Figure 1 : Local displacement space for a household in Sillery, Quebec City

Along with my collaborator-postdoc Dr. Isabelle Reginster, we found that to apply these theoretical ideas to a real application, it was necessary to subdivide Montello's Environmental Space into two different scale spaces, what we called the Local Displacement Space (see Figure 1) and the Extended Displacement Space (see Figure 2). Local Displacement Space dealt with the part of Environmental Space that can be accessed by foot, while the Extended Displacement Space accommodated the region accessed by car. We applied a time limit for displacement as a means to characterize the size of these spaces, and used the three scales (Vista, Local Displacement and Extended Displacement) as spatial units within which information was aggregated to infer perceptions for different households - perceptions of how many municipal services were accessible, of access to schools, and perceptions of how much green areas were to be found within the local environment. We showed how to determine the Vista, LDS and EDS spaces from satellite imagery, and we used the aggregated statistics to explore the relationships between scale, perception and house prices (see the publication Reginster and Edwards, 2001, for details). We tracked, in particular, the location of barriers in the space, both perceptual and navigational barriers.

At the time this work was undertaken, the displacements were tracked using phone interviews carried out with a variety of households in an Origin-Destination survey that had been conducted by colleagues in the Département d'Aménagament of Laval University. These days, the survey could be carried out much more cheaply using a portable GPS unit with a data logger.


Figure 2 : Extended displacement space for the household in Sillery, Quebec City. Note that the extended displacement space consists of corridors around each road used, and that frequency of travel along the road reinforces the intensity of that part of the displacement space

Hence we were able to implement these theoretical constructions of embedded spaces in a study on scaled perceptions of the local environment from the point of view of members of a household.

Rooms and gateways

A second study, undertaken with Dr. Gerard Ligozat and later with his daughter, Anne Laure Ligozat, focused on the development of formal representations of perceived space, especially outdoor, natural spaces. In this project, we were interested in developing a formal (i.e. mathematical) representation of perceived space and in implementing this representation on a computer. We were particularly interested in the fact that, within exterior environments, one may move a certain distance and yet still conclude that one was within the same place as before the move. What determines when we conclude that a change has occurred in our location?

We determined that either the neighborhood had changed, or the order of landmarks on the horizon had change (the latter is called the "panorama" in technical terms). Therefore, we set about to characterise a space in terms of its neighborhoods and panoramas. This led to the idea of "perceptually stable zones" and "zones of transition", which one may metaphorically associate with "rooms" and "gateways". We found that all outdoor spaces could be reconfigured as a set of "rooms" and "gateways", making them analagous to interior spaces. Visual barriers act, within such a viewpoint, as metaphorical "walls". The set of rooms and gateways forms a kind of dual or alternate representation to the set of neighborhoods and panoramas, and we found that one could infer the one from the other and vice versa, to some extent. This work was published in two papers (Ligozat and Edwards, 1999; Edwards and Ligozat, 2004).


Figure 3 : A fictional landscape created within the software prototype PERSEUS

A software prototype called PERSEUS was developped to showcase the model. The prototype divides space up in terms of what are often called "viewsheds", that is, areas of intervisibility, and then subdivides these areas in terms of panoramas, defined as regions in which the order of landmarks on the horizon is stable. To some extent, therefore, the maps produced depend on what objects are labelled as landmarks by the user. We have been able to generate maps of stable perceptual zones for both fictitious landscapes, but also for a study of the Plains of Abraham, the large park within Quebec City.


Figure 4 : Map of the perceptually stable zones for the three landmarks within the fictional landscape used by the PERSEUS prototype

Understanding near-body spaces as a function of disability

The work by Reginster and Edwards, and that by Edwards, Ligozat and Ligozat, constitute new material representations of space (i.e. maps) that incorporate understanding of our mental representations of space as derived from modern cognitive psychology. However, they handle vista spaces and larger regions.

In work aimed at supporting the movement of disabled users in the landscape, another postdoc, Pierre-Emmanual Michon, and a full time Research Professional, David Duguay, and I, developed a new kind of representation, this time a special kind of 3D map, aimed at representing near-body spaces.


Figure 5 : An part of the research centre in rehab in Quebec City, as portrayed within the CADMUS prototype software

For this work we drew on the concept of affordances as proposed by James J. Gibson in the 1950s. The idea is that objects permit certain kinds of functional use but not others - they are said to "afford" such uses. Hence a chair affords that one can sit on it, but not that one can eat it (unless it were a chocolate chair!). We implemented the concept of affordances in a 3D database (see Edwards, 2006, for a description of this process). Hence in our database, doors may afford opening via a "door handle" or a "push button" as in some hospitals. In addition, we matched the affordances of such objects to the physical capabilities of the user. Hence a "door handle" requires the ability to twist as well as a certain level of physical strength, whereas the push button requires a much lower level of strength. Using the combination of affordances and user profiling, we were able to generate maps that showed areas of different accessibility levels as a function of a users physical profile. In a second version of the prototype, which is called CADMUS, we also incorporated mental competencies as well as physical competencies.


Figure 6 : The same region as shown in Figure 5, but color coded in terms of accessibility for a given class of disabled user. Red means access is difficult, green that access is easy

Image schemas and performance design

The work on affordances and user profiling, although it led to the creation of a new kind of 3D map, could also be used to evaluate the effectiveness of particular environmental or building designs for different handicapped profiles. Likewise, the rooms-and-gateways representation of outdoor spaces could be used not only to understand an outdoor space, but also as a support for redesigning such a space.

Our interest in designing spaces extended into another arena, that of performance design (i.e. for the performing arts). Here, the understanding of space requires a connection to their emotional impact and not just their perceptual impact. A useful tool for capturing the relationship between space and emotion is found in image schemata.

Image schemata were unearthed by philosopher Mark Johnson in the early 1980s (see his book The Body in The Mind for a clear exposition of the concept), and their study and use matured under Johnson's collaborator with the linguist, George Lakoff (see Women, Fire and Dangerous Things : What Categories Reveal About the Mind) for this later work. They are basic images that are found to be common across most languages, and that are used to talk about abstract ideas. Common examples of image schemata include CONTAINER, PATH, CYCLE, LINK, ENABLEMENT, FORCE, BLOCKAGE, SPLIT, and COLLECTION. Later studies have found that image schemata also turn up in most forms of expression, including the visual arts, music, gesture and dance, sculpture, and cinema - as such, they constitute a powerful means of coordinating design that must serve our many different senses.

Lakoff and Johnson developed a theory that image schemata are formed during early childhood by a process of binding embodied actions to word concepts. Within this framework, therefore, image schemata are linked to emotional responses, albeit in a manner that is itself rather complex and likely to vary from one individual to another. Nevertheless, artistic design uses image schemata, often unconsciously and intuitively.

In a study callaborative study carried out in 2005, Marie Louise Bourbeau, a mezzo-soprano soloist, and I used image schemata to design a performance of Claudio Monteverdi's opera fragment, Arianna. We showed that image schemata, when used consciously and explicitly, constitute a powerful tool for performance design, for delivering an experience to an audience. In a sense, image schemata allow us to design experiences directly rather than just their progenitors, the objects or events that produce experiences. More details of this work can be found in our paper on the subject (Edwards and Bourbeau, 2005), and the results of the design can be viewed on youTube.


Ariadne Emerging Video Clip

Cognitive Design of Assistive Technologies

In addition to the work on designing maps and spaces, we have been interesting in designing tools that facilitate the navigation and movement within spaces, not just mapping tools. The first significant effort in this direction has been undertaken by a Ph.D. student, Mr. Reda Yaagoubi. The idea is to use what we know about how people represent spaces mentally to assist in the navigation of the blind.

Modern geomatics technology that is useful in this context is, of course, the GPS receiver. However, all current GPS devices rely on the visualization of a map to provide what one might call situational awareness. Instructions on where to go might be provided by a computerized voice, but the devices rely on the visual availability of a map to let people know where they are and the location of objects and landmarks in their immediate environment. Without such landmarks, directional instructions are useless. For the blind, this is a problem - situation awareness is lost many times over the course of a day, and direction that are given without situation awareness may be less than useless.

We are therefore using information about how people, in particular people without recourse to sight, store and maintain mental representations of their immediate surroundings. The tool we are developing seeks to use natural strategies to help individuals update their local mental representation in such a way that a GPS directional instructions may become meaningful. The design process is quite challenging, because it requires that one understands both the cognitive processes and representations in operation and that these inform the engineering and technical principles that must be used to develop a particular form of technology. A paper has been submitted to a journal describing this work (Yaagoubi and Edwards, 2007).

We also undertook behavioral experiments that tested the ability of blind subjects to understand and manipulate mental representations of space. A paper has been submitted describing this work as well (Eardley, A., G. Edwards, F. Malouin, P.-E. Michon and J. Kennedy, 2007). We found that a certain group of people without sight (those born with sight but who lost it a year or so after birth) actually perform better than the sighted at certain tasks involving spatial reasoning on their mental representations. Those born blind from birth with no neurological complications had similar competency as the sighted. Only those born blind with neurological complications performed significantly worse than the sighted on these manipulation tasks.

Resonant Installations - Designing the Immersive Experience for Maximum Impact

The work on image schemata in support of performance design was aimed at connecting performance spaces to their emotional impact. Although image schemata were found to be a powerful tool for design, their connection to emotional response was weaker than we would have liked. In an attempt to develop a stronger connection to emotional response, we (Marie Louise Bourbeau and myself) investigated the use of devices that enhance our awareness of our own bodies during performance.

We began this work by focusing on the act of breathing, perhaps the most important aspect of body-awareness because it is the source of ongoing life. So many studies and body-training disciplines are all based on the act of taking a breath, including all of modern athletics, but also all the performance arts. Marie Louise Bourbeau is a specialist in breath training for singers and dancers, so this choice made double sense as a first target.

We developed an installation, called Incarnatus, that sought to create a new relationship between the participating audience and classical lyrical music. Using one of Mahler's lieder (the Schildwache Nachtlied, or Soldier's Nightsong), sung in German and based on a traditional folk verse, we developed an instatallation that culminated in the use of a device we call the "co-breather". This is a cushion that breathes at the same time as the singer, while the participant is listening to the music sung by the same singer. Far from being experienced as an imposition, participants adapted their breathing to that provided by the co-breather within seconds, and many participants reported a near-ecstatic connection with the music, completely unexpected.


Incarnatus Video clip

Following the public presentation of the Incarnatus installation, we determined that the co-breather creates a rather paradoxical state that includes a heightened state of body awareness combined with a "loss of self" (as well as a stronger sense of identification with the music), a dropping of the barriers that define and protect the self.

We are now in the process of developing new installations that put such "body opening experiences" first, and follow it up with other body exploration processes as well as an integration and a closure phase. The installation that generates such a sequencing of experiences we call a "Resonant Installation", and several examples are presently under development (for more details about Resonant Installations, see the blogsite ResonantInstallations). These form the heart of the second mandate of the Canada Research Chair in Cognitive Geomatics.

Virtual and Mixed Reality Environments - Embodiement and Identity

Finally, during the final year of the first mandate of the Canada Research Chair in Cognitive Geomatics, we have begun a systematic investigation of the relationship between virtual worlds and embodied experience. This is another paradoxical study. At first site, virtual worlds would appear to be a perfect example of a "disembodied experience". This intuitive evaluation that many of us form at a distance is almost completely false, as it turns out. Virtual worlds generate highly embodied experiences. But our understanding of what embodiment is has changed, as a result of this work.

This work is supported by the ongoing discussions undertaken by the Embodied Research Group (ERG), an active group of researchers that meets every week online (on Second Life) to discuss our understanding of embodiment. For more information about the work of the group and the results of the discussions, see their blogsite, EmbodiedResearch. Within this context, it has become apparent that embodiment is "performative" rather than simply "physical". As a result, it is possible to develop a sense of embodiment within virtual worlds, even though our physical bodies are not directly engaged.

This results in a profound rethinking of what it means to be embodied, and even what constitutes "body awareness". In a recent discussion by the Embodied Research Group, it was noted that within Second Life we may actually develop a kind of "reflexive muscle" for an embodied functionality available within Second Life but not in our physical environments. An example is the use of a virtual camera to look at objects that would normally be "out of sight" of one's body. When the reflex develops, we find ourselves "trying" to use it in our physical bodies, and frustrated that we cannot. We have developed our virtual camera as a kind of phantom limb - the neurons still activate it, but there is no follow through to a muscular action.

Within virtual worlds, our identity is also multiplied, resulting in another rethinking of what it means to be a person. The multiplication of identity and the spatial redistribution of our sense of embodiment are two startling mutations in our sense of self that derive from an engaged presence within virtual worlds of such complexity.

This is of special interest for so-called "mixed reality" environments, that is, environments that combine parts of virtual worlds within our physical, material experience. Gaining understanding of the impacts of such mixed reality environments on our sense of self and our ability to act in the world has become a major source of study for the Canada Research Chair in Cogntive Geomatics, and this work will also form part of the second term mandate. A paper on this was recently presented (in French) at the Geocongrès International in Quebec City in October 2007.


Conclusions



Table I : Representations (R) and Tools (T) developed during the first seven year term of the Canada Research Chair in Cognitive Geomatics

Table I shows a summary of the innovations of the first seven year term of the Canada Research Chair in Cognitive Geomatics, in the area of Perceptions and Representations. At the scale of the body, we developed tools we call Resonant Installations. At the near body scale, we developed tools that use image schemata and representations based on the theory of affordances. At the scale of vista space, we developed a map representation that views all spaces, indoors and outdoors, in terms of conceptual rooms, barriers and gateways. At the scale of environmental spaces, we developed map representations in terms of local and extended displacement spaces that can be derived from satellite imagery (e.g. Google Earth). Together, these constitute an "end-to-end" collection of tools for representating, handling and manipulating the full range of perceptual spaces, and informing design processes focussed on the spaces themselves, their map representations, and tools and methodologies that facilitate their understanding. Applications presented include aids for the disabled, for the performing arts and museology, and aids for architecture and landscape design.