20160327 Article Summary

<The Reactable: Tangible and Tabletop Music Performance>

The article gives a brief introduction of the concept of Tangible User Interface (TUI) and how it has been used or expressed in music field. Then it introduces an interactive music device called "Reactable" as one of the most beloved or recognised TUI's among its counterparts. The success of Reactable is illustrated by the fact that a renown artist Bjor has used it in her concerts and that its youtube demo video reaching millions of views. How Reactable works is as follows. Reactable has a round interactive surface on which the performer can place and re-place the pucks. Each puck represent different musical elements and it performs music based on the proximity between the pucks. I think interesting fact about Reactable is its degree of interactivity.  For example, the use of Reactable in  Bjork's concert was somewhat a pre-maculated performance. However, the Reactable concerts have experimented with a more interactive approaches. That is, they have let the music go with the flow as they performed as an impromptu. I don't know what is the better use of this device, but in terms of interaction, I guess the latter one is more meaningful. But with this, I was quite confused about the role of the performer. In Bjork's case, the performer definitely shares his part in creating the performance. However, in the more "interactive" case, the performer's engaging in the performance seams rather questionable. In this case, it seams like the device itself is creating interactivity rather than creating interaction between the performer and the device.

<Presence and Discernibility in Conventional and Non-photorealistic Immersive Augmented Reality>

The article states that Non-Photorealistic rendering (NPR) has been regarded as a powerful medium in creating the feeling of presence in the virtual environment (VE). Considering that the purpose of augmented reality (AR) is ultimately to create a "visually indistinguishable" VE for users, I was a bit confused about the idea of having purposely nonrealistic display in AR and that actually enhancing the experience. But as the article thoroughly explains, users actually feel less immersed to the VE when there is a discernible distinction between the display of reality and that of virtual reality (VR). That is, reducing the distinction and rendering a mixed image of the reality and VR could actually help users feel more immersed into the VE. The use of hAnd to further examine the degree of presence users experience through VE created using NPR, they have conducted a series of experiments. They examined the participants'' behaviour in three different VE modes - conventional, stylised and virtualised. The conventional mode does not have any sort of manipulation. The stylised mode presents a VE with the edges of objects rather highlighted. And the virtualised mode is what we call VE with NPR. The results are as follows. In terms of discernibility, it is found that the more virtualised the scene was the more inaccurate the judgement was. That is, the participants could not distinguish between the real and the virtual objects as the scene became more virtualised in display. This supports the idea that the effect of NPR in VE as enhancing the immersive experience in AR. In the study of presence and usability too, they found the similar result. This allowed the article to conclude that their study on presence proves that the NPR system is effective in creating a seamless experience in AR for users.