In this post I will be writing my responses to this week's readings and multimedia resources. This week's topics are light, colour, resonance and relevance.
Screenshot of video The Physics and Psychology of ColourLinks to an external site.
READING 1
Resonance and the experience of relevance
Relevance is the quality of being appropriate, important and closely connected to a matter. Relevance has been analysed in the past in relation to so many different ways which now seem to be outdated (information, emotional response, behavioural effects, search patterns). This article now proposes resonance as a new way of understanding relevance in a variety of situations, as well as helping understand the experience of interacting with relevant information. The author also argues that a close connection between relevance and resonance can be found when addressing 3 major topics: arousal, agreement and action. These 3 words describe the main effects resonance can have on human behaviour, and can be found in different contexts (advertising, literature, education, politics...). Together, they are referred to as 'spectrum of resonance" Similarly, resonance is also addressed as a "spectrum" of interrelated regions and experiences. A major sense of resonance derives from agreement: when different parties agree that their shared knowledge is correct and true, then this knowledge is, at least for the parties involved, considered relevant. The second major theme is arousal, which come from emotional and psychological resonance of thought, belief, values, aspirations and exchange of information between entities. The sense of being aroused by sharing information, can create an emotional experience where this shared information is seen as being relevant and meaningful, just because it's being shared and understood at an emotional level. Arousal of resonance is triggered by an emotional investment only. The last theme, action, is a consequence of arousal of information. This type of action is performed by entities who feel aroused by shared, relevant information, in order to induce change, further action and further resonance with third parties (amplification effect of resonance). The article shows how this "chain" mechanism, is sometimes used by businesses to drive sales, memberships, advertisement and other successful business campaigns. (page 9, first paragraph top left)
Points addressed in the written response
Resonance and relevance: 2 complementary fashions that are closely related to each other
Resonance as a method of understanding and measuring relevance
Major themes of the spectrum of resonance: agreement, arousal, action. Their implications, effects and consequences applied in different situations and research contexts.
My Question:
The topics, major areas and research fields mentioned above are broad and address resonance and relevance on a general level (politics, economics, large-scale social contexts). However, can resonance indicate or justify relevance on smaller-scale contexts? (personal relationships, everyday actions and situations....)
How can this improve my research and work for my assignments?
How can I explore , through colour and sound, the different areas of the spectrum of resonance (action, arousal, agreement)? Are these 3 areas complete? are the any other types of resonance that might be included in this spectrum? How can transformative colour environments help explore this?
How do we define what is relevant to us? Does relevance affect/improve our attention? Does it affect our understanding of the overall content??? This reminds me of the Cognitive Bias Image analysed last week. When we have too much content to go through, how do we label what's relevant, what' important and what is marginal? How do we then remember/keep in mind what we've categorised as important?
READING 2
Resonance as a Design Strategy for AI and Social Robots - written response
The article considers Resonance as both an emotional aspect and a physical mechanism that plays a crucial role in activating positive human social interactions with the external environment. In particular it considers resonance as tool to improve human dynamics and human-AI/HRI interactions. How can this be achieved? Resonance is a powerful connection we feel when we "resonate" with something we like, because it gives us good vibes, so we enjoy interacting with it (a song, a movie, an event). In order to achieve perfect resonance, a certain level of sympathy and synchrony is required between multiple subjects. This, however, can also cause some negative effects, such as excessive conformity, destructive obedience, and less creative thinking. This is because, as humans, there's a specific aspect of our behavioural psychology, we tend to understand other's emotional state, and then feel the same way they are feeling (mirroring process of actions and emotions). Resonance can also be applied to robotics, artificial intelligence or any other type of more or less adaptive and autonomous systems. These forms of intelligence require some level of social skills and synchronisation (in order to understand the feelings of others to respond in an appropriate behaviour, without necessarily mimicking or mirroring others). Resonance and synchronisation do not always need empathy to work correctly. The article shows how some robots can synchronise with human behaviour in terms of movement, speech, facial expressions, as well as synchronising multiple people together. Resonance can be a successful design practice for AI, as a way of identifying new human objectives, and revealing new ways of achieving these goals....and resonate with people. To do so, the article speculates on some strategies that could be used to create robots that resonate with people: rhythm (to improve predictability), tempo/pace (of human behaviour), identify the vibe (of a social group, and the relationships between each member of a group).
Points addressed in my written response
resonance, synchronisation, empathy, harmony
types of resonance, their meanings and effects on human and non-human interactions
resonance used for creating better human-AI experiences and relationships
resonance as a design tool
speculations on possible and future design strategies to create robots that resonate with humans
My Question:
Will resonance really help create empathetic AI, capable of synchronising and better interacting with humans in the near future? The spectrum of human emotions and behaviour is wide, varied and sometimes unpredictable. Will robots be able to resonate with such a complex behaviour? Will robotic resonance be always related to showing empathy to human behaviour, or will it expand to other aspects of everyday life?
VIDEO 1
classical electromagnetism (Maxwell). Light is a set of transverse waves, oscillating and creating electromagnetic field.
amplitude, wavelengths, frequency. Instead of frequencies producing different pitches, like happens in sound waves, electromagnetic frequency determines different kinds of light (visible light, UVs, infrared etc...).
Some elctromagnetic wavelengths need specific devices to be detected
All electromagnetic waves travel at the speed of light. (300,000 m/s in a vacuum, like the universe)
Electromagnetic radiations/waves are produced by electric fields (each light source has its own electromagnetic field).
VIDEO 2:
The video shows basic notions of light and colour theories, as well as some practical examples of these concepts. It shows how both light and colour can be measured through scientifical properties and values, such as brightness, hue, contrast, fluorescence, reflection and refraction. It also points out some study fields that use colour strategically everyday: advertising, business, online marketing and networking, merchandising, TV. This can either be for emotional manipulation of the audience, or to increase interest and potentially attract new customer and drive sales. It also explains clearly the process of colour production, summarising it in 3 steps:
Light source: it produces a light spectrum with its own properties and values
Light travels: from the source until it hits the surface of an object, light can travel through different media.
Object
Refraction, reflection, absorption: after encountering an object, the rays of light are partially absorbed by the surface of the object, and partially either reflected or refracted (depending on the qualities and physical properties of the surface itself). Therefore waves bend and get reflected/refracted into the air in different directions, at different intensities and frequencies.
Resolving Detector of light: the rays of light finally reach our eyes
Colour is a 3 dimensional property of light. In 1920s, William David Wright and John Guild defined the first two dimensional representation of Chromaticity colour chart, based on the human perception of colour. It required users to combine a certain amount of red, green and orange to create all the other colours. Different people can see colours differently, depending on how many rods they have in their retina, in their eyes. This chart identifies a specific area of red, green and amber that even colour-blind people can recognise. Therefore, this colour scheme is still used nowadays for some types of coloured security cameras and traffic lights. Today the 2 most acclaimed theories on colour perception are: the tri-chromatic model and the colour opponency theory.
Our perception of colour also depends on the distance between us and the object reflecting the colours. The closer the object is, the more vivid and colourful it looks, and we can perceive a higher level of detail.
Other aspects that can affect our perception of colour are:
chromatic adaptation: human visual ability to adjust to changes of light intensity in order to preserve the appearance of object and its colours. This is to ensure colour constancy.
It is interesting to note that we are also exposed to memory colours (we assume some objects have to be a certain colour, because of pre-assumptions, preconceptions and cultural/social constructs we have been brought up with).
WHICH OF THESE TOPICS (LISTED ABOVE) AM I INTERESTED IN RESEARCHING FURTHER?
colour illusions
colour values and properties
colour representation charts
memory colours in relation to social and cultural constructs, and how they affect our everyday lives, how they are being used by major design brands to shape their marketing strategies.
colour and light in digital environments and simulations
light sources and types of light (fluorescent, dim, bright, interior lighting..... )
light phenomena (diffraction, reflection, refraction....)
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