muCI: Muscle-Computer Interfaces- Link to post on the TSHWI blog

Take a look at my recent post on the Technology-Supported Human-World Interaction blog about an article written by Desney Tan and his colleagues. Their recent research focused on the development and user-testing of a muscle-computer interface.

I think that the muCI system holds promise for children, teens, and adults who have special needs. I believe that this sort of interface will prove to useful in healthcare, education, homes, and community spaces, if it allows for interaction and interoperability with the technologies that people encounter in their daily lives.

This was cross-posted on the Interactive Multimedia Technology Blog

Visualization Symposium 2008, UNC-Charlotte

I recently attended the Visualization in the World Symposium, hosted by the Charlotte Viz Center at UNC-Charlotte. I was impressed by the variety of disciplines represented at the symposium- the speakers came from fields such as architecture, psychology, and geography. The audience was also diverse.

The slides from the presentations will be available soon, so check back to follow the links, or visit the Charlotte Visualization Center's website.

If you are interested in visual thinking, visual literacy, visual communication, and visualization in education, take the time to explore the links once they are posted!

FYI: There is a growing group of people who'd like to get a "World Visualization Day" off the ground. Earth Day is celebrated in our schools, why not a visualization day?! Dr. Kosara, the author of the Eager Eyes blog, is a strong supporter of this movement.

At the moment, various colleges and organizations offer a "visualization day" from time-to-time. If you live in the New York area, you might be interested in attending Visualization Day at City College of New York.

Links to papers presented at the CHI 2008 Workshop on Technology in Mental Health

A workshop on technology in mental health was held on April 6th at the 2008 CHI conference in Florence, Italy. The workshop participants covered a range of topics, including the use of technology with children who have autism spectrum disorders.

Several of the papers focused on how technology or digital media can support storytelling, an effective therapeutic tool. There is a need for technology-supported mental health interventions- I've read that In the US, up to four out five young people who have mental health problems have inadequate mental health care.

• Timothy Bickmore, Laura Pfeifer, "Relational Agents for Antipsychotic Medication Adherence". PDF

• Christine L. Lisetti, "Embodied Conversational Agents and Psychotherapy". PDF

• Julie A. Kientz, Rosa I. Arriaga, Gillian R. Hayes, Gregory D. Abowd, "Designing and Developing Technology for Caregivers of Individuals with Autism". PDF

• Joshua Hailpern, Karrie Karahalios, Laura DeThorne, James Halle, "Encouraging Speech and Vocalization in Children with Autistic Spectrum Disorder". PDF

• Eileen Brosnan, John Sharry, Carol Fitzpatrick, "Using collaborative multimedia stories as a means of engaging adolescents in psychotherapy". PDF

• David Coyle, Gavin Doherty, "Designing Adaptable Technologies for Talk-Based Mental Health Interventions". PDF

• Connor Graham, Mark Rouncefield, "‘Reminders’ for design in mental health care". PDF

• Giuseppe Riva, Andrea Gaggioli, "Virtual Reality as Experiential Tool for Supporting Empowerment and Clinical Change". PDF

• M Alcañiz, R. Baños, J Guixeres, J Gomis Tena, J Saiz, "TIPS-Intelligent Sensory Platform for Clinical E-Therapy" PDF

• Marije Kanis, Mark Perry, Willem-Paul Brinkman, "Positive Expressive Technologies for Mental Wellness". PDF

• Mark Matthews, Gavin Doherty, John Sharry, "My Mobile Story: supporting content creation and analysis in mental health interventions". PDF

• Helen Minnis, Warren Read, Tanja Schumm, Suren Putter and Jonathan Green, "The Computerised Manchester Child Attachment Story Task: a novel medium for a measure of attachment patterns". PDF

• Marcela Musgrove, "Towards a More Inclusive and Ethical InterventionT". PDF

• Markus Wolf, Stephanie Bauer, Markus Moessner, Benjamin Zimmer and Hans Kordy, "Online delivery of mental health treatments – Approaches and future perspectives for research and practice". PDF