Prototype of a Person

Digital Media Training, Mentoring and Post Graduate Studies at IADT

Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design & Technology (IADT) are in the process of recruiting for the fifth year of the Create Digital Media business training and mentoring programme. Create seeks to train and mentor 10 entrepreneurs/employees of small companies on a part-time basis, for one day every month. It’s a 12-month government-financed programme that will train participants in further developing their digital media companies and they are particularly interested in individuals involved in e-commerce, online advertising, mobile media and social media.

Create also offers incubation desk space at the Media Cube on the IADT campus or at the Digital Hub in Dublin City Centre and each selected individual will be assigned an average of €10,000 for customised training and mentoring in business skills related to digital media development of companies, services and products. For more information, visit www.createireland.ie.

Having studied at IADT for 5 years I can’t recommend it enough to prospective students. I’ve always found the college overflowing with highly skilled, extremely engaging and approachable lecturers, who make the learning process effortless. IADT also offer a part-time post graduate programme in Digital Media, the MA/MSc in Digital Media which is currently taking applications.

3DCamp at Limerick University

I’m heading down to Limerick tomorrow, once again, for a conference. Though, I’ve been told that this particular one should be referred to as an “un-conference”. 3Dcamp is a variation on the BarCamp idea of holding user generated conferences - where the attendees provide the content of talks, workshops and demonstrations, unusually focusing on upcoming technologies and developments. The focus of 3Dcamp is “essentially the internet beyond the 2D browser”.

Talks of interest to a Cyberpsychologist?

A talk related to culture and sociability within the virtual world of World of Warcraft .

A demonstration of physical controls for virtual environments, highlighting the use of inexpensive hardware and open source software.

A ubiquitous computing talk outlining interaction design approaches to technologically-enhanced physical environments – e.g. interactive media in public spaces.

A talk focusing on augmented reality – using technology to insert objects into real environments. Brings to mind holograms and a (15ft tall Bill Gates!, but the applications of these future technologies are endless.

Also…

Design guru Sabrina Dent will be discussing how to make money from Second Life. I assume this will be through designing and selling 3D objects.

The M.Sc in Cyberpsychology course coordinator (Dr. Grainne Kirwan) will be discussing some of the current research in Cyberpsychology at 3Dcamp. If anyone is interested in a student perspective of the IADT masters course, there will be 3 of us from the class attending 3Dcamp.

I’m really looking forward to seeing the famous Pedestrian Living Bridge at University Limerick. Fingers crossed the current Iarnród Éireann dispute doesn’t de-rail my plans!

IADT Post Graduate Open Evening

IADT are holding an open evening for prospective post graduate and mature students on this coming Thursday, the 24th of April. All the information is available here.

If anyone has an interest in the Cyberpsychology masters (or any of the IADT courses) the open evening would be the place to go. Especially since the course coordinator Dr. Grainne Kirwan will be there to answer all your questions, and so will some of the students from the course. If by any chance you cannot make it and still have an interest, I would be more than willing to answer any questions in the comments of this post.

The Effects of Music on Personal Space Preferences

The Psychology Society of Ireland doesn’t appear to update their website very much (also, another fine example of antiquated web design!) therefore I cannot access information on all of the awards from the Psychology Congress. But, I did want to mention the work by Colin Gallagher, a final year student from IADT (Psychology Applied to I.T) who received a well deserved commendation for his research presentation. Not only is his research fascinating and his presentation enjoyable, he was more than capable of handling the multitude of questions the adjudicators and audience threw at him. An award well deserved. Below is his abstract, taken from “The Irish Psychologist” Vol. 34, no.9 - I’ve also added some relevant web-links.

The Effects of Music on Personal Space Preferences: Comparing Introverts and Extraverts

The current study examined the distracting effects of music on introverts and extraverts with regard to their personal space preferences in public spaces. There has been no prior investigation into the possible link between personal space and music. The now pervasive behaviour of listening to music in public is possibly a reaction to the modern hi-density urban situations that people live in nowadays and music could be a way of easing people’s feelings of crowding. Participants in this study performed a simple personal space measure with music and without, and then completed a personality test (NEO PI-R). The research result found there was a significant reduction in personal space boundaries of the particpants when listening to music. This supports Worchel and Teddlie’s theory that distractions reduce personal space. The introvert sample were found to be most affected indicating that introverts find music more distracting, as was found by Furnham and Bradley.

I’m certain that anyone that uses public transport, especially the Luas or Dart, will agree with these results. I for one, feel a lot more uncomfortable without my earphones in. Though, if I myself had been conducting this study, I would have included a third condition - earplugs. I would be curious about the results of this, and whether any significant reduction in personal space boundaries would be at all comparable to the “with music” condition.

Psychology Congress Highlight: Flow States

I returned late last night from the Psychology Student Congress held in Mary Immaculate College in Limerick and I must say - I really enjoyed myself. I found Limerick to be a vibrant, clean and enjoyable city. I tried to see as many IT related presentations as I could and the highlight for me was from Michael Malone, an undergraduate Psychology Applied to IT student from IADT. Below is his abstract, taken from “The Irish Psychologist” Vol. 34, no.9 - I’ve also added some relevant web-links.

The Physiological Correlates of “Flow” States Within an IT Environment

Since the initial conception of the “Flow” construct a vast amount of psychological research has focused on identifying its key subjective components and investigating its supposed association with elevating human performance capacity (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990). However, the most distinguishable characteristic of this research is its complete dependency on qualitative research methods. There has been no research conducted thus far investigating the molecular concomitants of flow states. For this study 8 participants (6 males, 2 females) were requested to play a videogame (Flow TM) which was specifically designed to induce flow states (Chen, 2006). Heart rate and electro-dermal activity (EDA) were recorded during game play. An adapted FSS-2 (Flow State Scale Revised) questionnaire was then administered to measure flow levels experienced during gameplay. It is anticipated that the molecular activity associated with increased Flow levels will resemble that of deep meditation (i.e, decreases in both heart rate and skin conductance) due to their similarly described subjective state (Marr, 2001). Analysis of results is pending. Results will be discussed with reference to the methodological challenges facing future flow research and possible benefits derived from such research.

Consider the feelings you get when you’re “in the zone” and completely immersed in your computer, even forgetting to eat and being completely unaware of the passage of time (I can certainly relate!). The above piece of research hypothesized that this was similar to a meditative state. The actual results of the study did not support this hypothesis (though decreased heart rates were found) but I believe that this was due to the small scale of the study - due to time constraints, as it was only a undergraduate piece of research. If participants had been tested more than once, I believe that it would have led to a more relaxed state as they would have had no anxiety related to the equipment being used to monitor their physiological responses, and of course, would have had some experience playing the game.

I sincerely hope that someone in either IADT or another college can fund this as a long term postgraduate research study.

Coincidentally the British Psychological Society held their annual conference in Dublin this week and Jazz Biscuit has pointed out all the “tabloid fodder” studies that were discussed.

Holiday Time

I spent 4 days last week training for my new sales position in 3 Ireland and now I’m on one week paid holiday, fantastic, especially considering I only started working for them on the 23rd of October. I’m currently waiting for the store to open on Henry Street, I had considered being placed in the Grafton Street store but I know there will be a greater opportunity to sell in their flagship store when it eventually does open. Unfortunately 3 are rather secretive about anything that goes on internally so I wont be able to post any information about the new store or the company, so for now, I’ll simply have to direct you towards their media centre.

What I can tell you, is that I’m really excited about being involved, once more, in the roll-out of a new breed of retail environment. When I first started working for 3G in their first Eircom Broadband Studio it was a challenging and rewarding experience and of course it was fun to be surrounded by top of the range technology. Just like the O2 Experience Stores, the Broadband Studios are an example of how hands-on demonstrations of new technologies, and by giving customers a venue in which to interact with a new product, increases their likelihood of actually purchasing. This is exactly what the 3Stores will be about - trying before buying. From a personal perspective, I find that I’m much more likely to want to buy a new piece of electronics if I can first try it, feel it’s weight in my hand, and see what it can actually do for me. There’s nothing worse than being confronted with a plastic dummy or a picture in a brochure, even reading a reviewers opinion of a product is nothing in comparison to actually interacting with it.

Speaking of new technology, I’ve been using the new Firefox 2 for the last week and although at first I was a little put off by how similar it looks to the Apple browser Safari, I’ve actually found that two of its new features are very beneficial to me.

Spell Checking - as you type. This is the feature on OpenOffice.org (the free office suite) that converted me from a Microsoft Office user to an OpenOffice Writer. Anything you type within your browser is checked for spelling mistakes as you type them, it completely erases (no pun intended!) the need for any kind of “check spelling” options that most web-based e-mail services offer. It’s certainly made writing this blog post a lot easier, usually I would be writing this in OpenOffice first and then copying and pasting it (because, yes, I admit it, I’m really bad speller).

Search Suggestions - again, as you type. Whatever search engine you prefer, that lovely little search box built into Firefox dynamically updates a drop-down list of suggested search terms. Not only does this speed up your search, it also may suggest searches to you that you hadn’t even thought of. Thus opening you up to even more information or even, narrowing it down for you further, so you can find exactly what it is you’re looking for.

Firefox 2 is wonderful piece of new software that I applaud for it’s user friendly design, it’s almost endless possibilities in the ability to customise and thus improving your own efficiency as a user, and it’s completeness - features that every new version of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer lacks. There is a definite need in the software market for development that is geared towards the user experience.

Hopefully the new MsC in Cyberpsychology in IADT will have some focus on user experience research as a way to improve software and hardware development. It’s a course that I shall be considering over the next couple of months as I research my options for next year (or later). On Monday evening, the 6th of November, IADT will be host to a Cyberpsychology seminar entitled “Cyberpsychology: An Emerging Discipline” and will be hosted by my thesis supervisor Dr.Grainne Kirwan. If anyone is interested in attending please contact IADT with your information in advance so you can be formally invited.