The Transfer of Learning as HCI Similarity

Abstract

Human-computer interaction should be natural. However, the notion of natural is questioned due to a lack of theoretical background and methods to objectively measure the naturalness of a HCI. A frequently cited aspect of natural HCIs is their ability to benefit from knowledge and skills that users develop in their interaction with the real (non-digital) world. Among these skills, sensory-motor abilities are essential to operate many HCIs. This suggests that the transfer of these abilities between physical and digital interactions could be used as an experimental tool to assess the sensory-motor similarity between interactions, and could be considered as an objective measurement of the sensory-motor grounding of naturalness.In this framework, we introduce a new experimental paradigm inspired by motor learning research to assess sensory-motor similarity, as revealed by the transfer of learning. We tested this paradigm in an empirical study to question the naturalness of three HCIs: direct-touch, mouse pointing and absolute indirect-touch. The study revealed how skill learning transfers from these three digital interactions towards an equivalent physical interaction. We observed strong transfer of skill between direct-touch and physical interaction, but no transfer from the other two interactions. This work provides a first objective assessment of the sensorymotor basis of direct-touch naturalness, and a new empirical path to question HCI similarity and naturalness.

I Really did That

“…Future work should investigate this question further. A first step could be to empirically compare the devices we investigated again, but also including measures of control, naturalness [1], comfort, and subjective duration [5] -to name a few measures that sense of agency could likely affect. This could be done in a Libet Clock experiment but also in a more naturalistic comparison of conditions similar to the three tested herein.…”

When High Fidelity Matters

“…The use of a more natural AR device, i.e. offering a control over the virtual model closer to how we manipulate physical objects [4], may have resulted in performances more in line with those of the tangible model. Shin et al studied how an observer perceives a complex 3D object in an AR scene when changing viewpoints either from observer movement or from object rotation [31].…”

Is it Real? Measuring the Effect of Resolution, Latency, Frame rate and Jitter on the Presence of Virtual Entities

“…With a high level of presence, a virtual entity is perceived as a physical entity, favoring the transfer of skills that were learnt in the physical reality to the virtual environment. In-deed, Bérard et al used the observation of a transfer of skill between physical and virtual realities as a definition of a "natural" human-computer user interaction [6]. This transfer of skill makes the interaction more intuitive (i.e.…”