Exploring Non-verbal Communication of Presence between Young Children and Their Parents through the Embodied Teddy Bear

Väänänen-Vainio-Mattila, Kaisa; Haustola, Tomi; Häkkilä, Jonna; Karukka, Minna; Kytökorpi, Katja

doi:10.1007/978-3-642-34898-3_6

Cited by 9 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…A multitude of research has focused, for example, on family communication [2], [9], tangible interaction devices [1], [12], and games [10], [13]. However, some important trends such as ubiquitous computing and smart environments have not yet received especially much attention in the context of designing and evaluating activities for children.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Little backpackers

Saarinen

Partala

Väänänen-Vainio-Mattila

2013

Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Interaction Design and Children

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Psychological needs have become an important viewpoint in understanding user experience (UX), however there have been few attempts to operationalize the existing need theories for studying children's experiences. The aim of this research was to experiment with two methods, a laddering interview and a new quantitative theory-based questionnaire, in studying the fulfillment of ten basic psychological needs. A mixed-method approach consisting of these methods was tested in evaluating an interactive children's activity called Backpack Tours in an exhibition center with 18 children of 6-9 years of age. The laddering interviews made it possible to connect the designed elements of the activity to fulfillment of six psychological needs: pleasure-stimulation, relatedness, self-actualization-meaning, autonomy, physical thriving, and competence. The quantitative results showed significant variations in the children's evaluations of the fulfillment of the ten needs. The results of the evaluation are useful in understanding the strengths of various design solutions and as a basis for further development of the activity.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Little backpackers

Saarinen

Partala

Väänänen-Vainio-Mattila

2013

Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Interaction Design and Children

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“…Based on my experiences with my son, I suggest characters themselves take on a personal quality -in other words, becoming a representation of the individual member of a relationship -able to gaze at the other during video game play, even without "real" eye-contact, thus maintaining a relational connection. To this end, nonverbal interaction through body language and object interaction is important (see, e.g., Vaananen-Vainio-Mattila, 2012). Indeed, researchers have stressed the importance of designing electronic interactions that move beyond "talking heads" (Oduor et al, 2013).…”

Section: Players As Charactersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Virtual Parent-Child Relationships: A Case Study

Downing

2018

JVWR

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Studies on parenting and online gaming abound, most of this literature considering the role of parents in educating their children about online safety, maintaining boundaries and limiting time spent online. Embedded within these inquiries is often the assumption that parents live with their children and must balance the physical-virtual divide. Relatively little research has considered the role of the virtual in the lives of parents who do not live with their children. In this inquiry, I present a narrative-ethnographic account of my experiences as a father living apart from my six-year-old son, communicating daily through various online games. I draw on my own experiences over the past three years, as well as formal and informal interviews with my son. I consider how our relationship has evolved in relation to virtual constructs including spaces, characters, and stories, and the extension of the virtual worlds we inhabit into our face-to-face conversations, play, and subjective individual and collective constructions of the reality of our relationship. Ultimately, I propose broader implications for the study of virtual worlds and relationships, as well as an expansion of the understanding of parenting in a digital age, where gaming is not always a distraction from familial engagement but can in fact integrate with family life.

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