Workshop on Philosophy and Engineering October 23, 2008
Posted by Tom Froese in Presentations.2 comments
An extended abstract on some of the philosophical aspects of using the Enactive Torch has been accepted for a talk at this year’s Workshop on Philosophy and Engineering (WPE-2008) to be held in London.
Engineering Conceptual Change: The Enactive Torch
R. Chrisley, T. Froese & A. Spiers
In the Philosophy and Engineering community, there is general agreement that interaction between the two fields can be mutually beneficial. However, there are distinctive ways in which engineering can play a crucial role in assisting the particular case of philosophy of mind, especially concerning our understanding of conscious experience and perception. The reciprocal design/use cycle of certain kinds of experience-augmenting technologies can facilitate the kind of conceptual advance that is necessary for progress toward a scientific account of consciousness, a kind of advance that is not possible to induce, it is argued, through traditional discursive, rhetorical and argumentative means. We present an example of engineering activity that plays this crucial role in informing philosophical research in the PAICS group at the University of Sussex: the design and use of a novel sensory substitution device (the Enactive Torch) as a means of inducing in the user new philosophical concepts of perceptual experience.
The full extended abstract can be downloaded from here.
Enactive Interfaces 2008 October 7, 2008
Posted by Tom Froese in Publications.add a comment
The latest work with the Enactive Torch is now in press for this year’s Enactive Interfaces conference in Pisa, Italy. A PDF copy of the paper can be downloaded here.
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Investigating the role of movement in the constitution of spatial perception using the Enactive Torch
L. Grespan, T. Froese, E. A. Di Paolo, A. K. Seth, A. Spiers and W. Bigge
This paper reports an exploratory study designed to clarify whether the Enactive Torch, a custom-built minimalist distance-to-tactile perceptual supplementation device, can be used to investigate the role of embodied action in the perception of external spatiality. By constraining the kind of exploratory movements available to the participants, we create an experimental setup in which it is possible to study the relationship between bodily degrees of freedom and spatial perception. We present a preliminary investigation of the strategies used by minimally trained participants to locate various objects placed in front of them by engaging in active exploration under constrained conditions.
