Engineering experiences in biofeedback interfaces: Interaction as a cognitive feedback loop

ABSTRACT

This article introduces a new modality of interaction for art that produces meaning through cognitively inclusive sensorimotor capacities of the user. This application, which builds upon the psychophysical¹ capacities of biofeedback interfaces, explores the potentiality of technological feedback for the affection and evaluation of the user. Through this the concept of the ‘cognitive feedback loop’ will be applied in order to produce more effective aesthetic experiences. This proposal will be exemplified with the affective environment of the Mind Cupola. Finally, the article anticipates that such a cognitive-driven² approach to interaction might serve to enhance self-awareness through self-regulating processes.

The core investigation of this article emphasizes a rigorously trans-disciplinary approach (Nowotny at al. 2003; Gibson 2008), drawing on philosophy, aesthetics, cognitive sciences and technology, that investigates an emerging issue in art and technology. It takes an experimental approach to technology, with a critical perspective on scientific approaches, that often subject users to limited interactions with computers. As a proposition responding to this issue, it will take a phenomenological approach to interaction that attempts to comprehend the user through a technological analysis of his or her psychophysical action (Andreassi 2000). As such, it tackles the philosophical problem of the body-mind nexus, and aims to understand the correlation between the extracted information of the body and cognitive states. In order to present a potential solution, this investigation launches an aesthetic enquiry into user experience, which serves as the foundation of the presented practical outcome of the Mind Cupola. It will be suggested that this aesthetic enquiry into the user experience might produce a more comprehensive cognitive-driven model of the user.

KEYWORDS:

• cognitive feedback loop
• affective computing
• biofeedback interface
• biosignal data
• psychophysical interface
• cognitive-driven interaction
• affective environment
• aesthetic experience
• enaction
• Mind Cupola